(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Books, and therefore education, are powerful [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-12-13 Children are the future, obviously. And can thus be used or abused for nefarious motives. Full transparency, I was a teacher for 35 years, mostly not in the United States. Thus I have a few not so well known understandings. I was in South Korea for nine years. There are certainly some issues with public education there as the Korean version of SAT is a one shot deal and often results in many suicides on the day results are released. But North Korea teaches that the South, or the US, started the 6/25 War. North Korean students are also required to read the Diary of Anne Frank in order to teach how not to behave when the Americans invade again. Defectors have many a similar story but that all is for another day. Kuwait was a seven year teaching assignment. There, like all US based international private schools, US text books are used as the goal is High School graduation with immediate entrance into US universities. In Kuwait, the Department of Education was/is very strict regarding the content of those text books. When a new book was selected, one copy was sent to the government and returned with black magic markered sections to be censored the same in all the rest. The Persian Gulf was the Arabian Gulf, Jesus was not born a Jew, any artwork of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) were also blackened out. I just tore the pages RE the Holocaust out. Some of my students did voice concerns that they would be lacking in education once they were in US universities. This was before the internet. Colombia and Australia had different issues. The current state of education in the United States is terrifying. But when I saw this, this morning I was reminded of other times in history when children were indoctrinated to be racists. The CSA (Confederate States of America) had enough time to write some rather disgusting text books. And even after the end of the war, text books in the South remained unacceptable. And no one should forget the Hitler Youth and the text books in Germany then. So seeing this video, made me cringe. https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2023/11/21/israeli-state-tv-video-shows-children-singing-about-gaza It is two minutes. (Sorry about the ad in front) Children of Israel glorifying the destruction of Gaza with a comparison of Ukrainian children imploring for peace t the end. I am bewildered about using any children for any wartime stuff but here the difference is compelling I think. But wait. There is more. The above video was in the following article. https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/12/13/its-not-shocking-to-see-israeli-children-celebrate-the-gaza-genocide As you can see, it was written by Rifat Audeh, a Palestinian-Canadian human rights activist. If you are still with me and have read the full AL Jazeera article, I think Mr. Audeh alerts us to some profound text book issues in Israel. (And of course similar indoctrination goes on in Gaza.) But one quick quote. “Israeli scholar Adir Cohen, for example, analysed (sic) for his book titled “An Ugly Face in the Mirror – National Stereotypes in Hebrew Children’s Literature” some 1700 Hebrew-language children’s books published in Israel between 1967 and 1985, and found that a whopping 520 of them contained humiliating, negative descriptions of the Palestinians. He revealed that 66 percent of these 520 books refer to Arabs as violent; 52 percent as evil; 37 percent as liars; 31 percent as greedy; 28 percent as two- faced and 27 percent as traitors.” Yes I know…the madrasas. The Arabic schools. But I have taught many Muslim students in both Kuwait and Egypt, including some Palestinians. Their parents were willing and able to send them to private US based schools in order to be able to go to US or Canadian university. Wait. Was I indoctrinating them to be in love with the United States? I don’t think so. One of the best compliments I ever received was from a Korean student who told me he was annoyed that US history was a requirement but that it ended up “OK” from me. This I do know. Children taught to hate, from all directions, learn to hate. And it takes many years to unteach the hate. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/12/13/2211465/-Books-and-therefore-education-are-powerful?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/