I was reading Bernard Goldberg's bestseller "100 People Who Are Screwing Up America," and discovered #51 on the list, Ann Pelo. Ann Pelo is a lefty teacher who taught at HilltopChildren's Center in Seattle. Also, she is known for her writings in "That's Not Fair!: A Teacher's Guide to Activism with Young Children." I can see why she made the list in "100 People Who Are Screwing Up America." It amazes me how parents let a woman like this use kids as the basis for her social experiments. Then again, the location of the school "is located in an affluent Seattle neighborhood, and, with only a few exceptions, the staff and families are white; the families are upper-middle class and socially liberal."
Bernard Goldberg's book points her out as a loony toon very well with her description of the Navy's Blue Angels. A Michelle Malkin article gives a little more detail, but follows the reason of Bernard Goldberg giving Pelo #51 in his book.
"According to the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), which oversees preschool teacher training, curriculum standards, and daycare accreditation, "That's Not Fair! A Teacher's Guide to Activism with Young Children" is "an exciting and informative" resource for "developing community-building, deep thinking, and partnership.to change the world for the better." On page 106 of the guide, co-author Ann Pelo details an activism project she initiated at a Seattle preschool after her students spotted a Blue Angels rehearsal overhead as they played in a local park. "Those are Navy airplanes," Pelo lectured the toddlers. "They're built for war, but right now, there is no war, so the pilots learn how to do fancy tricks in their planes." The kids returned to playing, but Pelo wouldn't let it rest.
The next day she pushes the children to "communicate their feelings about the Blue Angels." Pelo proudly describes her precociously politicized students' handiwork: "They drew pictures of planes with Xs through them: 'This is a crossed-off bombing plane.' They drew bomb factories labeled: 'No.' "Respect our words, Blue Angels. Respect kids' words. Don't kill people." "If you blow up our city, we won't be happy about it. And our whole city will be destroyed. And if you blow up my favorite library, I won't be happy because there are some good books there that I haven't read yet.
Pelo reports that the children "poured out their strong feelings about the Blue Angels in their messages and seemed relieved and relaxed." But it's obvious this cathartic exercise was less for the children and more for the ax-grinding Pelo, who readily admits that she "didn't ask for parents' input about their letter-writing - she didn't genuinely want it. She felt passionately that they had done the right thing, and she wasn't interested in hearing otherwise." http://www.jewishworldreview.com/michelle/malkin041603.asp
Another example, this article shows her using legos to teach collective collaboration, team work, fairness, and sharing (http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/21_02/lego212.shtml). While those values are good, the disturbing aspect of this study is her politicizing such things in her writings. While the aspect of wealth and limited resources are practical exercises, the part that I find rather troublesome is the tone of her damning competition, private ownership, and those with "power." That power is emphasized as the haves and have nots. The article goes to say, "We also discussed our beliefs about our role as teachers in raising political issues with young children. We recognized that children are political beings, actively shaping their social and political understandings of ownership and economic equity — whether we interceded or not. We agreed that we want to take part in shaping the children's understandings from a perspective of social justice."
Ultimately, what shocks me the most about "Why We Banned Legos" is that it's a part of a long list of contributions to the decline in our education system when compared to other countries. I found a decent example of that information here: http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2007/08/education-united-states-compared-to.html, which goes into some statistical and projection metrics. While children are very young it's good to know about sharing and team collaboration working on something. Also, by Palo damning individual ownership and power, she fails to emphasize the importance of competition. I am no advocate of economic inequality, but I am a firm believer that from inequality comes the drive and motivation to strive to make one's life better. On a side note, I kind of smirk a little when I think about competition is an inherent human trait, and Palo is contradicting our very nature with her extreme outlook on what she's trying to teach these children.
I cannot help but think about this scene from "Wall Street"...
While Gordon Gecko from the movie goes to the extremes of glorifying 80s excess, there is an underlying tone that is very important. While raw greed itself is not inherently a good thing, and history does show us abuses of power and corruption, greed can be horrible. In contrast to Palo's ideas, economic inequality and lack of ownership are also the core motivators for success. If you don't teach your children what failure is, how can they compete? Greatness has arised from failure. No one thing tried works the first time all of the time. Goals are achieved by events of failure or other hurdles or challenges thrown in front of you. It's important to fail sometimes because that is where one learns from their mistakes, that's called experience. It's extremely important to teach out children such things along with good morals, compassion, and charity.
There are many studies that show the quality of our education system when compared to other countries: "The United States spent 2.9 percent of its GDP on higher education—higher than any other G-8 country. The United States spends an average of $24,100 per student at the higher education level." and "17 percent of first university degrees in the United States were awarded in science, mathematics, and engineering-related fields, the lowest percentage of all the G-8 countries." http://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=23424 Overall, it has me concerned about organizations like the NEA and other "educational groups" pushing leftist agendas and social engineering experiments in the school system, the fundamentals of teaching people to compete after their eduction is greatly diminished when compared to other countries. In all, it adds to the decline in quality of life for your average American. They are not equipped with the necessary skills to compete with people in other countries, therefore less good jobs are available in the US. We need future doctors and engineers in the work force.
Look at the innovators of the first personal computers that we use today. The standard prior to the innovations that formed Apple we products created for the office and business environment. It was the innovations of the founders of Apple that revolutionized the industry that we all benefit from now. It was drive, trial and error, and commitment that made Apple the success it became. To become those future inventors, children need a concrete understanding of that trial and error, and positive results can come from that failure. Failure is not always a bad thing. Not learning from that failure can be though.
While I would not promote raw greed, I would certainly hope educators would promote self-motivation for their students. The problem with Pelo's version of collectivism is many of those things we call innovation are not fostered or supported, even so far as demonized because you are punished for your successes. With the resulting "power" or private ownership additions that result from your success, that is now violating the economic equality and social justice perspectives that Ann Pelo describes. I would like to think that values come from parents, and teaching stuff is the job of a teacher. Ann Pelo should seriously keep her political ideologies out of a classroom environment. It reminds me too much of this:
Teacher Bullies Student Who Preferred McCain To Barack Obama
Ann Palo's ideas are an aspect of liberalism that I vehemently disagree with. While groups of people can do great things, it goes against our very nature to not want to excel in what we do as an individual as well. Also, it is not fair to blatantly take from those who do innovate and are successful. Results from that also do create jobs and better other people's lives. I can certainly see how Ann Pelo made the list of "100 People Who Are Screwing Up America." In honor of her, I'll try and not to miss the Blue Angels when they are in town. I would call them excellence in flying, who represent some of the best who volunteer to risk everything to ensure our freedoms.
Lastly, I wanted to include this really good write up from a guy who has kids on the same topic:
"I have young children. When they see planes flying overhead their first or second thoughts have nothing to do with anyone killing anybody unless this thought is planted in their heads yet the children in Ann’s care appear to have their slogans prepped and ready for the first anti-military, war protest they can find. As for what the parents might feel about Ms. Pelo’s political agenda Ann’s co-author states in their book, “Ann didn’t ask for parents’ input about their letter-writing—she didn’t genuinely want it. She felt passionately that they had done the right thing, and she wasn’t interested in hearing otherwise.” God forbid parents have the right to control the values their children learn.
Oh, and one more thing on the whole capitalism is evil thing. The rates for pre-school child care at the Hilltop Children’s Center range from $910 for three days a week to $1185 for four to five days a week. School age care ranges from $235 to $435 a week. The children involved in the leggo incident don’t arrive until 3:30 in the afternoon. I wish I could afford that kind of childcare but, hey that’s capitalism at work and Ann, in case you’ve forgotten, it pays your bills in an oh so sweet and hypocritically ironic way." http://conservativearena.blogspot.com/2007/03/lego-my-lego-and-evil-blue-angels.html
