What is with parents these days?

[LSPoorEeyorick]

Originally Posted by tracilicious

That's a good point about Harry Potter, scaeagles.

I reread the article and it seems it was mostly puppets, they weren't actually watching the Opera. How is that supposed to expose them to Opera? The whole situation seems dumb to me.

I think-- I'm not sure, but I think-- that the puppets were performing the opera.

[wendybeth]

I was fortunate to have a few teachers like the one in the article, and I'm non the worse for it. (I think). Then again, I was a bit different even as a kid. I remember falling in love with Poe in second grade, and being a little confused by his "Silence- A Sonnet". I showed it to a penguin (I went to parochial school) and her reaction was a bit extreme. She scolded me for reading such dark material, and if memory serves she tried to interest me in one of those stupid Mittens books, or some such thing. It had the opposite effect, of course, and I think that may have been the beginning of my Gothyishness. When I did go to public school, it was during the Seventies, when there was a lot of educational freedom and experimentation going on, so I was really lucky to have some really great, innovative instructors. I pity kids nowadays.

[Snowflake]

Originally Posted by tracilicious

That's a good point about Harry Potter, scaeagles.

I reread the article and it seems it was mostly puppets, they weren't actually watching the Opera. How is that supposed to expose them to Opera? The whole situation seems dumb to me.

This was a series of videos which were produced to introduce children to opera and featured Dame Joan Sutherland (she of HUGE voice and huge stature physically). If I'm not mistaken, the series was called Who's Afraid of Opera? Puppets and Dame Joan singing an aria or two from one of the operas and Dame Joan in full operatic drag.
Donna

[Gemini Cricket]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

Isn't Harry Potter kind of intense? I would suspect most 10 year olds are seeing those movies.

Not so much if you live in Tehachapi, CA (Ralphie's mom teaches there). Members of their school board want to ban Harry Potter in all forms. You know...witchcraft.

[Kevy Baby]

When do we get to ban stupidity?

[lindyhop]

I went to school in Downey. The Downey city library was famous back then because it had banned Tarzan books. It seems Tarzan and Jane weren't married...

In junior high my friends were reading James Bond books so I read some, too. My mom called the school to complain, apparently thinking I'd been encouraged to read them by teachers. As a result I had my book confiscated by a teacher in front of the rest of the class. Lesson learned: Never let my mother know what I was doing.

When my son was in middle school (I think) he told me he was supposed to watch "Schindler's List" for school. I hadn't seen it yet myself so I rented it and we watched it together over the weekend. Before he went back to school he remembered the note I had to sign to assure the school I was okay with him watching the movie. Was I suppose to keep him from watching it? That just didn't compute. Of course I was also the one who bought him Mortal Kombat and the NIN CD with the parental advisory sticker one Christmas.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Let me state right now (In my currently blissful ignorant childless state) that in the future, I will never, ever complain about what my child is exposed to by teachers - Except their genitals, of course

For me, it's not about exposure. Show them whatever you like. My only problem would be if the teacher were attempting to tell the child that thier opinions were correct. This includes "This is the true God", "This is the true political belief", etc. Oh, and of course - "Your parents are wrong."

Anything else, I can deal with just fine, because my child needs to learn how to seperate the wheat from the chaff. What a wonderful learning opportunity it is when a child comes home with something to talk about!

And that's my rant, thank you very much

[Alex]

What about a science teacher who teaches homeopathy? (I had one of those)

[scaeagles]

I would also argue that there is only so much time during the day.

I would prefer my children have math, science, language, phys ed, history, etc, than spend time on what I might consider to be frivilous. I'm not saying that opera is frivilous, but it may not be what I think my child should be spending time on while in the fourth grade. Let the parents be the ones that instill culture, as culture is vastly different to vastly different people.

Diversity is fine. Whatever. But I want to make sure my kid can read and add before I'm too worried about if he appreciates opera.

What if this mom objected because the opera contained Satan and had a moral regarding dealings with him to be bad because that was making a religious statement?

I think there's too much fluff in education. My 6th grade daughter is doing in math what I did in the 4th grade in math. Why? This is just where cirriculum writers have 6th graders at present, and I'm not blaming teachers. I just think need more of the readin', writin', and 'rithmetic.

[mousepod]

Hey scaeagles - according to the article, the class that the Faust appreciation video took place in was music class. You're not saying that music class is bad, right? Because if K-12 was just about the 3 R's, then we'd be in sorry shape.

Now, sports... that's something we can live without (I don't do smilies... but if I did there'd be a wink inserted here).