>From the sound of some of the posts it seems we have hit a nerve, so the fly asks is culturalalladay really a positive uplifting experience for students or just another PC anti- American day ? According to a poster “Cultural Alladay was proposed by STUDENTS in 1992 to honor the diversity of cultures on this earth. It helps kids learn about their own heritage and culture while learning from and respecting the heritages and cultures of others.” Buts heres where the fly and other posters smell a rat, the poster continues’” You may not agree with all aspects of a “foreign” culture, but the mindset that allows you to thereby write off complete cultures is what leads to conflicts and wars. Honestly, if other cultures use your standards — and only judge us by the way we treat women (non-equal pay, skimpy maternity leave, etc.) or by our problems with handguns or drugs, or the lack of healthcare for the poor — would you blame them for writing us off? The “culture of freedom”? HAAAAAA you gotta be kidding. Cultural Alladay celebrates the ARTS of different cultures and the use of art to encourage peace and understanding. Your immature, selfish injection of politics into something simple and peaceful is gross.” Apparently this poster is un aware that in many countries women are still considered property, there is no health care, the secret police run your life ,there is dire poverty and there is no individual freedom what so ever .
>Cultural Alladay or Down with America day ?
15 thoughts on “>Cultural Alladay or Down with America day ?”
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>Watch out PJ we are crossing the “politically correct” line. We must watch what we say.
Entitlement is running this country to the ground…we are no longer the “melting pot”, we are “culturally diversified” – the difference, those immigrants of the past wanted to become part of this country… today America must apologize and grant all special interests each entitlement…GOD BLESS AMERICA
>Not sure whether culturalalladay falls squarely into this category, but my spouse and I have begun to wonder whether there is a correlation between the reduced value placed by administrators on ensuring that students demonstrate individual mastery (e.g., through test-taking performance or other hallmarks of good scholarship) in the various academic disciplines, and the increased desire on the part of the public schools to invest time, money (ours), and effort into programs and special events geared toward imbuing students with what they consider to be positive personal traits and attributes befitting an enlightened community and society.
For what it’s worth, the latter activity sounds a whole lot like the “it takes a village to raise a child” philosophy. The only way this idea could possibly work is when the bulk of society shares the same basic outlook on how children should be raised.
In today’s day and age, and in this country in particular, good parents are justifiably leery about ceding any of their child-raising responsibilities to people they don’t really know very well, and that they are not sure they can trust in terms of reinforcing the moral and ethical messages their children are receiving at home.
To those who consider this an extreme position to take, I say, physician–heal thyself, and while you’re at it, keep your hands off my kids!
>This is a link to an interesting article that discusses the impact recent educational trends have had on the emotional condition and educational achievement of boys.
https://www.townhall.com/Columnists/RossMackenzie/2007/11/08/rallying_boys_to_a_dangerous_standard_of_normalcy
Sort of makes you wonder whether whether we should begin holding Testosteronealladays…perhaps for the sake of ensuring our cultural curriculum is “balanced”.
>I would be the first to come out against something that I felt was impacting my children’s education, but I think you are barking up the wrong tree with Cultural Alladay. It has very little impact on the curriculum as a whole, nor on the actual school day in most schools in the district. Yet at the same time it sends out a nice message. As we all know, Ridgewood is becoming more diverse with each passing year. I don’t see the diversity, nor stopping once a year to celebrate “all” people, as a bad thing.
As someone new to the blog, I have a question. Are the front page “articles” all written by one person? If not, is it a group that actually knows one another? How does someone get access to contributing? I ask because in my limited experience (3 days) reading the site, I have noticed a few conflicting pieces. I gather that the group is against wasteful spending (not a bad thing), against the math programs at some Ridgewood schools (TERC is not at all of them), and a bit overly critical of the teachers and administrators as a whole. I sense a lot of anger, and I am not sure much is accomplished under those conditions. As someone who teaches and lives in town, I think there is a big “middle ground” that is being overlooked. But, then again, I have only been following the site for a few days.
>you can post to the Ridgewood Views … just send your post to any BOE member and they’ll ensure it ends up front and center there
as for here
seems the Fly pulls interesting comments and places them front and center
and also, unlike the Ridgewood Views, the Fly is actually a known person in town
so send your info to him
>Cultural Alladay (is this a real word?) is another misguided attempt by the social engineers who pretend to be educators.
Churchill called us the “American race.” And for good reason, there are very few of us who are of one race whether black or white, Asian or whatever. We are a melting pot of races, like it or not.
We are made up of many races, comprised of even more ethnicities. However, we are one culture, the American culture. Our breadth culture grows as immigrants move to this country seeking its blessings. The best practices of these cultures are welcomed and assimilated thus expanding the quality of our lives. One the other hand, we discourage the less life enhancing aspects of new cultures for they usually violate the founding principles of nation.
To celebrate different ethnicities is one thing, cultures another. And there is a difference between the two. How about we teach geography instead of all this PC crap? After all, geography is the study of the world’s land and people who live off it.
Humans are a product of their environment and many cultural practices are based on the conditions of where people live due to geographical circumstances. In fact, geography plays a major part of how we evolved physically in different parts of this planet.
Studying the reasons for why people have different physical attributes, dress, foods and customs in the academic discipline of geography would surely be more legitimate than this stupid little, made up, feel good holiday. It would provide a solid foundation for understanding people “who are different” from us.
The fact that educrats and their lay followers feel a need for such a day is a bi-product of their deconstructionist affects on our education system by dismissing geography as an essential course of study for our young children.
Do you know where Cameroon is?
>Public schools show their anti-intellectualism and laziness by avoiding the pursuit of known truths (such as the study of geography) with the pursuit of an illegitimate ideology based on racial identification. This is very sad and will help to end, ultimately, the average person’s belief in public education. How pathetic that they do not acknowledge the difference between one’s culture and one’s ethnicity. And how easily they create terms, such as “multi-culturalism” to malign and dismiss those differences.
>3:57pm- Yes, I know where Cameroon is. Do you know they were part of the “Coalition of the Willing” because they sent 1 tank (yes, one tank!)to fight in Iraq? Now, that’s more interesting. Can’t pick that up in geography class.
>CULTURALalladay has morphed, people! Ever since my kids started attending the village’s public schools, it hasn’t been about culture at all! It’s been about inclusion of the handicapped, tolerance, not being a “bystander” when you see bad things going on, etc. I can’t remember far back enough to say that it really ever was about different cultures, which is what I always thought it was supposed to be about.
On a different note, I don’t see it being “anti” American, as one poster labeled it. At BF, they just did something about Varian Fry, and they lauded him as a hero. That’s about as PRO American as it gets, no????
>Sorry 11:51 but the comment about Cameroon’s tank went right over my head. What on earth is your point?
>I’m very proud of Cameroon joining this war against terror.
>8:50 good point. Words have little or no real meaning in public school systems. Look at the buy in to the global warming frenzy in our schools. Kindergarteners are being used to manipulate their parents. Come on already–this is just a political movement using the planet as a means of controlling the GDP of wealthy countries. So cultural alladay is not about culture. Then why is it there? Schools should leave it to parents to teach lessons on public courtesy and civic behavior. The schools just mess it up, unable to leave their knee jerk racial politics out of it.
>2:21pm- me too! They got millions of dollars in aid for that little tank. Where do I send mine?
My point in replying to the person asking if we knew where Cameroon was is that it is not enough to know the drill- where in the map is this country- there is more to it and you don’t pick that up in a geography lesson. You don’t pick that up in a cultural alladay either but if you integrate knowledge accross the board you will be the richer for it.
A perfect example was the presentation about Darfur from art students and the integration to other subjects such as English and Social Studies. It was well thought out and planned and I think the results were outstanding, The level of awareness was raised not just for students but for the whole community. I attended the exhibit at the BOE building. There is much to be proud of in our schools.
Now, let’s see how I get chastised for this one.
>8:46 AM wrote:
“My point in replying to the person asking if we knew where Cameroon was is that it is not enough to know the drill- where in the map is this country- there is more to it and you don’t pick that up in a geography lesson.”
“Drill,” there’s that word again. As if all that was taught before “reform” minded educrats saved us, was drill and kill academics.
I don’t know who taught you geography, but when I was taught (1968), we studied the land, the foods produced from the land and the customs of the people who lived there.
3:57pm
>3:57: “you know the drill” that’s a common phrase having to do nothing with reform anything.
Never mind, you don’t get it because you don’t want to get it.