The local paper has an article today about public schools teaching and emphasizing “tolerance.” The problem is that the article, like the “tolerance” efforts by the schools, are so intellectually flabby and in some cases downright absurd that I doubt they really have any long-term effect.
A good example is the first on a long list of truisms that the paper presents in a sidebar as the sort of things I should be teaching my child in order to cultivate tolerance in her,
Make a conscious strategy for teaching kids not to judge others — don’t assume it will happen on its own
Are they insane? Of course I want my child to regularly judge others on a regular basis. She should also regularly be judging herself as well.
The bizarre thing is the folks advocating this nonsense don’t even see the obvious problems. For example, here are two separate quotes from the same expert on diversity, Herbert Smith, cited by the newspaper,
We need to be taught who we are. A human being without values is a very frightening object, and we are the only species without a sense of innate behavioral direction.
. . .
Teach them [children] to look at the person [who may be behaving in a way parents disagree with] for who they are — and not what they’re doing. Say that they’re choosing a different lifestyle . . . without necessarily judging. There’s so much pluralism in society that it’s difficult to come up with a consensus of what’s appropriate.
So my child’s going to be frightening if she grows up without values, but on the other hand I can’t tell her that some behaviors are wrong because, well, those are just different lifestyle choices.
One of the major problems the article reveals is that this view of tolerance blurs civility and acceptance. So it is not enough that people simply learn to be civil to people they may not like or may fundamentally disagree with, but rather they are told they must have an open mind and accept any “lifestyle choice” as valid.
Of course, this means that this is just another lifestyle choice, no better or worse than this.
I just can’t imagine seriously teaching my daughter something that stupid.
Source:
Teaching tolerance. Michelle Miron, Kalamazoo Gazette, September 4, 2003.