Donna Gorman writes:

Board Members

Do you remember when we were children? We were not bomb barded with this disquesting information. Do you have children? I do grown now 26, 28. But we left the public school for these same reasons. Facts shoved down the minds of our young children without any relation to any morality or consequenses of the actions of promiscuity. We are their role models, parents,teachers, we need to practice "tought Love" and teach them to say no. I am a nurse who sees first hand the pregnancies, diseases, motor vehicle traumas of our children because parents, schools and school boards who are afraid to stand up and protect our children and teach them to say no. Your decisions from this board are wrong about this and trying to take God out of school and thanksgiving ect. My husband and I vote for recall on your board positions. You were elected to carry out the will of the citizens of this county not your own.


Blicero responds:

A few issues

Dear Ms. Gorman,

1. You say that as a youth you were never "bomb barded" with "disquesting [sic] information." Well, if you have 26 and 28 year old children you must have been in school in the 1950s. What about "Duck and Cover"? The fear of nuclear annihilation? And later, in the 60s and 70s, thousands of our soldiers dying in war? Was none of this information "disquesting" to you?

2. How can facts be "shoved down the minds" of children? How can anything be "shoved" down a "mind"?

3. How exactly are "pregnancies, diseases, motor vehicle trauma" somehow the fault of the school board? As to pregnancies and diseases, those are precisely what the sex-ed cirriculum works to prevent, by making sure that students who DO have sex know how to use condoms to prevent pregnancies and diseases. As to "motor vehicle trauma," when I attended MCPS I remember being constantly "bomb barded" with anti-drinking and anti-drunk driving messages. MADD and SADD were very strong presences in the school. The school spent money to stage elaborate "scared straight"-type drunk driving accident re-creations. So how exactly is the school board to blame for the negligence of students who drive drunk?

4. What the heck does "thanksgiving" have to do with anything? When I attended school, November was a veritable cavalcade of Turkey-and-Pilgrim-themed decorations. In fact, it is precisely to the presence of these Turkey-Pilgrim-and-Gourd decorations that I attribute my strong sense of American patriotism.

I think we can indeed "thank" MCPS for its brave choice to recognize Thanksgiving!

posted by Blicero : 12/03/2004 08:24:00 PM