I’m sure they did too, though I have run into a few American Scots that are a bit right of center.
I certainly never meant to infer that the bands would go along with it.
Yikes.
Jef
Jef: there was a PBS special about Berkeley High a few years back. I believe they covered that. I spent an afternoon talking with kids who attended there right around that period. I assume the separate commencements have continued. I hope they haven’t and I am wrong.
P.S. For the last few months, there has been a hubbub to change the name of Jefferson Elementary School in Berkeley to something else, because “Jefferson owned slaves and it makes the children uncomfortable.” I think they are about to vote to change it to Sequoia. Deeep thinkers.
there’s an easier solution:
Weeks, a check of their PDF handbook on the BHS website shows that this year’s graduation is a singular event on June 17. Looks like someone came to their senses.
Jef
i know 
Irish music isn’t for conservatives, right wingers,…
in America, they would be all communists for what they sing.
Irish music has nothing to do with right wingers.
but there’s allways some money hungry musicians that don’t care who pays them.
Oh yeah…Like those old guys who show up at Highland Games events wearing Gulf War camo-pattern kilts. Eeeewwwww. Seriously ugly.
Most of the Scots I know are absolutely horrified and disgusted that the KKK lifted the burning cross idea from the “crann tara” of the Highland clans…An absolutely sickening and out of place appropriation…
I do remember once hearing a story about Dick Gaughan, one of Scotland’s greatest singers of modern times, and someone who has had more than his share of trouble getting US entry visas thanks to his history in socialist politics…Apparently, he got wind that some white supremacists had shown up at one of his concerts in the midwest US and he responded by dedicating Brian McNeill’s excellent ballad “Any Mick’ll Do” to them.
Nice one, Dick! Rip 'em a new one!
It is such a shame that today everyone must be divided into groups. I don’t mean by you, I mean by the conditions in our country. I too find that sometimes I must identify with a group just because it is, to me, the lesser of two evils. I taught school for 30 years. I worked long hours for low pay and gave it my best. I visited homes of sick or injured children after school so they would not fall behind. I turned down higher paying jobs because I really wanted to make a difference. When I started teaching over 30 years ago the pay was low but a teacher was a very respected person in the area I lived in ( the South). Over the years conservatives continually complained that our schools were terrible. Gradually, people lost the repect they once had for those in the teaching profession. I used to consider myself very conservative (and still agree with conservatives on certain issues). But there came a time when I simply could not identify with a group that attacked my profession (and in doing so attacked me). I feel I am a moderate, but that translates to liberal in the mind of any conservative. I can sympathize with your situation and understand why you feel the way you do. Even though the area I live in is somewhat culturally diverse (college town), we have not experienced the problems in our school system that you describe. One last thing: when public schools are attacked it is the teachers who feel the greatest sting, even though they have little, if any, voice in policy decisions.
Pops:
I know that a lot of my observations may not be applicable in other parts of the country, let me say that. Here are just a few vignettes to make my point.
In my sons’ elementary school, there were portraits of Martin Luther King Jr in every classroom. No Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln. In fact, most classrooms didn’t even have flags until a new Principal came in and went out and bought them using miscellaneous school funds and resurrected daily pledges. Of course, MLK Day is a holiday, complete with curriculum requirements, from drawings at K level up to essays at 5-6, while the various US Presidents just had the Presidents Day holiday with no special curricular acknowledgement. Everybody knows all about em right? Wrong. It starts at school and with a substantial immigrant population, it is not a given until history instruction sets in.
But history has been changed to “social studies” and in mandated California history, for example, a much greater time is spent studying the Indians than the succeeding arrivals. This makes sense in terms of actual years spent on the continent but there are larger questions about how much relevant value can be extrapolated studying a culture which was superseded by others. Of course its important, but when you have 4th graders that are lucky to even reach the Gold Rush by May, you realize that its may very well be out of balance.
In the Level Plan (an operating manual for the school) part of the mathematics curriculum was to make sure that the children knew that there were mathematicians of “color.” This could be achieved by a mini-history lesson outlining a minority mathematician or having a guest speaker (for a fee of course) come and show the children in the flesh that they existed. I mean, its an okay idea, but is it relevant to teach math, when you also have history and social studies curriculum?
At the other Weekenders public school, there are no daily pledges of allegiance. Around the time of 9/11, there was a tattered flag left flying 24/7. I have told the story in the Forum of what happened when she used the 9/11 national patriotic reaction to teach a unit about the pledge and the flag (which was teaching at its best, imo). There was a resulting firestorm calling for her to be disciplined. It was during this period that the Admin discovered that in fact, daily patriotic observances were mandated in the local ed code. Still the teachers, except her and one other, chose not to do the pledge. The other Weekender got a photo of a Nazi saluting the swastika flag put in her mailbox from another teacher, admonishing her that doing pledges was not a good thing.
It would take pages and pages to describe the subtleties that I have witnessed but my point remains that overemphasizing race, overemphasizing one groups accomplishents over the other, distorting history to “harmonize” a supposedly enlightened ideology, and denigrating the Constitutional culture because of the sins of the past, is not the answer and children both act on and simultaneously rebel at the messages, leading to undesirable consequences.
PS. I agree that teachers take the brunt of all of it and its a damn shame.
Weeks - would that we had 100’s of teachers like Mrs. Weeks…
I’m going to have my first “exposure” to public school next year. Nate went to parochial his entire time. Noah had gone to parochial until the end of 6th grade, when we switched him to a private school for gifted kids. But this coming year (he’s entering 9th grade) his father demanded that he go to the local public school that you need to pass a test to get into.
I’m used to having direct contact with every teacher, and being able to discuss my worries, and give “attaboys” when appropriate, too. I’m used to having my kids ideas taken seriously, especially if they have data and documentation to back it up. I’m used to having only one standardized test that is required (the Ohio Graduation test - which is a joke).
I’m hoping he doesn’t get “lost in the crowd”. It’ll be interesting…
Australians aren’t big on flag waving. At primary school in my day we pledged an oath of allegiance on a daily basis to the British Queen. I really have no idea what most of us made of it.
Long before multiculturalism, I distinctly remember as a child walking past the one house (amongst many thousands) in the neighbourhood I grew up in that actually had a flag pole in the front garden. I still remember thinking that it was one of the oddest things I’d ever seen. I never actually saw a flag on it that I can remember although the Australian flag might have gone up occasionally. But I remember thinking: why on earth would anybody want a flagpole in their front garden? Everybody who lives here is Australian. Who would you be sending a message to? I was mystified then and I’m mystified now.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a flagpole in a private garden in Wollongong. You see flags at public ceremonies and at international sporting events. That seems about right to me. In case you think that Australia is not a very conservative place, we have had a conservative federal government in power for over 10 years.
BTW, I have no idea how anybody could make a link between white supremicist groups and celtic music of any style.
Every school is different, thankfully and you just never know.
I was really proud of the school that I volunteered at, because the teachers REFUSED to adopt the math texts that the district chose, which were very trendy outcome-based and which elicited bi-partisan eye-rolls from teachers and parents. Two years later, we were courted by the textbook company reps and chose something more sensible. Hey, that was an eye-opener in itself. Don’t get me started about textbooks. CSkinner has written for some and probly has her share of stories if she is viewing this.
ah - yes - textbooks…
I took “offense” at a 5th grade science textbook that defined a “metal” as something “hard and shiny”. I told my son to ask his teacher about mercury (at least at earth’s atmospheric pressures).
Well, as an example of rewriting history, the Houghton-Mifflin text for California history has a whole page illustration with text of a Spanish-California cowboy. Only problem is, they changed the gender and call it “La Vaquera” instead of El Vaquero. There is a female with what you might know as a gaucho hat, and other accoutrements of the early cowboys. Trouble is, ladies wore dresses and had an elaborate side saddle when they rode.
It’s a complete fabrication and mangling of our cultural heritage in order to somehow send the message of equality in the sexes.
I teach history in a public school in Noprth Carolina. AP Courses, luckily, so I do get to choose my own books.
But in case anybody was wondering, ideological textbook doctoring cuts all sorts of ways.
I do kind of resent the implication that I’m responsible for the growth of skinhead groups. 
I’m sure you do your best, Vermi. But the larger ideological directions of curriculum and school culture have to be on the table and teachers are told what to teach and what to emphasize.
it’s really perverse. The more my son’s current high school emphasizes diversity, the more polarized the kids become. Many of them will tell you it, not just my boy.
We are the great laboratory out here. I have no idea what goes on there. But the much-lauded “dumbing down” of education in order to make children feel good over nasty achievement standards could have a definite impact on critical thinking. I think enough noise has been made about it that things are changing.
Imagine teaching this lesson: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=25997
In the days before multiculturalism, I think history teachers would have lost their jobs if they’d told the truth about Australia’s past. Were you taught about what happened to the Cherokee nation? We weren’t taught about the killing of aborigines although there were a few hints that dispossession hadn’t happened by fair play.
Either you teach this stuff or you don’t. In Australia the history wars are being fought between those who see history as a sort of exercise in feelgood nationalism and those who don’t want to write the ugly episodes out of history. That’s how I see it. Our government won’t even tell the truth about it’s treatment of asylum seekers a few months ago.
What’s the alternative as you see it, Weeks? Diversity is a fact of life and the 20th century shows that we haven’t found a civilised way of handling it. By civilised I mean a way of living with diversity that doesn’t involve people coping with diversity simply by adopting a them-and-us attitude. In an increasingly globablised world, I don’t see multiculturalism as some sort of liberal luxury but as the only currently available option which directly addresses this unavoidable fact of life; either we find ways of getting along or we are doomed. I just can’t see how emphasising nationalism could have any role to play in finding a solution. If multiculturalism fails I simply don’t see a future. Of course, some ways of implementing the idea are downright stupid but abandoning it for what, uniform nationalism, would surely be a disaster unless international relations and the global economy are organised very differently.
There has indeed been a dumbing down of education. I don’t see why teachers are to be held primarily to account for this, though. I think the grasp that the corporations have on the minds of our youth through highly effective advertising targetting the very young, turning them into consumers and trivialising their entertainment has every bit as much to do with the problem. There are lots of other factors too, especially the withering of grass roots democracy and teh dumbing down of the media.
That’s very interesting, Wombat. Americans (meaning from the USA) are very, very big on flag waving. On the major patriotic holidays, like Independence Day, the 4th of July, it’s easier to count the number of houses without a flag hanging from the front porch. And many of those houses have two flags displayed; the American stars and stripes and the Irish green, white and orange tricolor. After the holiday they take down the stars and stripes but the Irish flag stays up until it shreds into pieces. We don’t do either. Between my Italian-Swiss-English wife and I we figure we don’t have a big enough porch.
Mike
That’s just it Wombly. Through the unofficial law of unintended consequences, they are being taught to view the world through multi-racial filters and the easiest way to do so is to create ethnic stereotypes, enhanced by cultural programs that emphasize THE COUNTRY THEY WERE FROM, not the place they are now. I believe that this leads to desires for “pure” blood and identity.
As I tried to point out before, this leaves multi-racial kids in the dust. I have read personal accounts of a Mexican and African-American mixed kid at Berkeley who was shunned by both groups. It was heart-breaking.
I will take the chances of an eyes open wide exposure to American history, with minimal bi-lingualism, that emphasizes the constitutional culture of the U.S. Despite the British overlay, there is no official ethnic culture of the United States. We sing to the flag, not to the Queen.
And its a lonely place for many. I have given my bilious rant elsewhere that the culture leaves some longing for an ethnic identity and my opinion is that I would infinitely prefer to be a hybrid American than to adopt customs of an old World country, including the prejudices etc etc.
I believe that the new thinking is causing a return to the old thinking it seeks to replace, by emphasizing the VALUE of the other immigrant cultures and languages and implying that its better that they be retained, reinforced and celebrated. And I disagree. With the exception of American Indian languages, I can see no justification to teach in any other language than English in the U.S.
To the theorists, and I have heard this first-hand, the U.S. is no longer a melting pot, because “bad things happen when people lose their cultural identities.” Instead, we are a salad bowl, where each group retains its identity but co-exists. This basically denies the evolutionary process of coming to America and changing into a new type of citizen, including constitutional responsibilities. This is the basic idea, and I think its what I call “dark spot” thinking, because when the evidence appears that it doesn’t work, the idealogues keep pushing for it.
I know that this flies in the face of cultural relativism, but if you want a weak society, vulnerable to tyranny as well as segmented advertising, divide and conquer! And, by emphasizing bilinguialism, you are limiting the exposure to the English language, leading to a smaller vocabulary and in my way of thinking, a smaller capacity to learn from the vast repertoire of English-language information sources.
At the risk of invoking the jingoism and nationalistic thinking that the intelligentsia shuns, I would rather see the American flag around here than Mexico, India, or anywhere else. Not because it reflects my basic ethnic identity (since a part of my background includes people from New Spain, before it was Mexico), but because it represents the best hope out of patterns of tyranny from other failed systems, no matter how flawed the U.S. can be or has been.
From what I know of supremacist groups (not much I never was invited to their meetings) is that for recruiting they like to find young, groups that are outside of the “normal” realm and “be their for them” as they grow they plant seeds of information. You could question what the Skin heads fundamentalist Christians and Satanists have to do with supremacist groups. I just think that they see it as a recruit rich environment. Mostly looking for that young man that seems to be looking for an identity.
I’m a proud Mutt! (Mostly human)