High Schoolers Don't All Believe in Constitution

[Techie2000]

<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/01/31/students.amendment.ap/index.html">AP Article via CNN here</a>.

Feeling better about the future of America? Anyways I'm wondering if this is an idealogical issue or lack of education issue. Anyways here is to hoping the 17% don't end up in any government positions...

[Biker]

"Schools don't do enough to teach the First Amendment. Students often don't know the rights it protects," Linda Puntney, executive director of the Journalism Education Association, said in the report. "This all comes at a time when there is decreasing passion for much of anything. And, you have to be passionate about the First Amendment."

With a good chunk of America not trusting the media or journalists in general, the article does a huge disservice by highlighting their organizations as being concerned about this.

I also find that schools don't have the time or funds to teach about our basic rights pure bunk. This is another case of schools needing to sit down and getting back to basics as far as education is concerned. There's too much fluff in the existing curriculum.

[ravital]

That schools are failing to teach many subjects, including civics and the Constitution, is not in dispute. But it shouldn't surprise anyone that the media speaks out only when it has a vested interest, as it does in the First Amendment.

For starters, how many in the media do you think would fight for the rights of Matt Drudge, if his site were suddenly shut down?

Then, take a look at this quote from the article:

Only half of the students said newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories.

As with all surveys, a loaded question with only "Yes" and "no" boxes for the respondents to check. If someone advocates, for instance, time-restrictions on the publication of election results and exit-polls, so that none of those are made public until the last polls in Hawaii and Alaska have closed, so that all voters have a chance to vote without being influenced by any knowledge of results on the East Coast, is that the same as advocating government censorship? Or restrictions on telegraphing military moves and plans to the enemy in a time of war, which we've seen too many of in the last two years - is that censorship? Does it enhance my civil rights, to inform Al-Qaeda of the next moves the Marines are making? Hogwarsh.

You also have to bear in mind that a high-school graduate is still very much a work-in-progress. S/He is still going to learn an awful lot in the years immediately following graduation, and have plenty of reasons to change his/her mind.

Where is all this pitter-patter, when it comes to students who suffer administrative action against them (http://hq.protestwarrior.com/?page=/featured/PHS/PHS.php), because they dare post leaflets with a political agenda contradicting the mainstream of the political views of their peers and teachers?

[Techie2000]

That's not censorship. Just because you don't tell the media something doesn't mean you are censoring them, it only becomes censorship when they know something and aren't allowed to publish it. And so to all these little problems regarding them knowing troop movements and publishing them or election results, I have a revolutionary idea. Don't tell them until you want them publishing them. Nowhere does it say "we must disclose all election results and troop movements to the media before or as they happen."

Rav, based on the examples given, you appear only concerned with the free speech rights of conservatives while complaining the media is biased towards the left's free specch rights, after I cited an article about a non-partisan poll of high school students. Partisanizing the first amendment is a weak move IMHO. While it is true there are organizations on both sides that highlight only certain parts of the first amendment based on their ideaology, for the most part, if we fall into the same trap, then we aren't any better. There are quite a few in your links that displayed a not so great understanding of it, and that is too bad.

[mikepd]

There is a big difference in being liberal versus being a leftist. Leftist has radical overtones that a liberal classification does not have. JFK was liberal but no leftist as he was a scion of one of the richest families in this country and if you look at his voting record, he was for social issues but not a socialist.

There is way too much knee-jerk labeling going on now with no real thought as to what the labels really mean from a historical view or the fact that a person can hold different views depending on the subject at hand.

Civics and the understanding of what are the rights and duties of every citizen in this country is so very important for it is vital in order to maintain the freedom of self-expression even when we do not agree with what is being said.

Anytime one group or another can choke off self-expression then we as a nation are diminished.

[ravital]

Rav, based on the examples given, you appear only concerned with the free speech rights of conservatives while complaining the media is biased towards the left's free specch rights, after I cited an article about a non-partisan poll of high school students.

I can understand why you might get that impression, but it is mistaken. The one and only link I provided, pointed to a clear and blatant example of censorship in a school. The school, for what it's worth, is under no obligation to allow any stuents to post or distribute leaflets or other communication of a political nature, but this one clearly exhibited a preference for one political slant over another. Apply the same rules to everybody, is all I'm asking.

You seem to labor under the misconception that political slant in both directions, exists in the media in equal quantities, with equally matched spheres of influence. Not so. The most casual perusal of the daily press will demonstrate the opposite to any neutral observer, if there even is such a thing anymore. The press is quite artful at masking its own slants, but it really is not difficult to see it. All you have to do, to see it, is read more and more of it, and every time you read something by XYZ, remember what s/he wrote the day before, the week before, etc., and what they're leaving out that is pertinent to what they're talking about, and you'll see it too.

Which brings me to this obvious, non-earth-shattring conclusion: A political slant in journalism, any political slant in any direction, is of very little use to any of us. We definitely are at a point where the person who does not read newspapers or watch the news, is actually better informed than the one who does.

[jfcjrus]

We definitely are at a point where the person who does not read newspapers or watch the news, is actually better informed than the one who does.
At first glance, that statement sounds like the sort of cynical, grumpy statement that I might make.

But, the more you think about it.......
....the more truth it might depict.

Which is pretty sad. :(

Regards,