Kesher Talk

Pomo narrative revisited. American Kaiser has the scoop on a misinformation campaign aimed at high school teachers. Central Connecticut State University held a workshop to advise them how to teach about the Middle East conflict. It sounds like their main advice was: don't let a few inconvenient facts get in the way of the grand sweep of the Palestinian "narrative." They passed out maps without Israel on them, and "fact sheets" stating that Israel's official language is Yiddish, not Hebrew, among other egregious disregard for facts.

The president of the university defended the workshop in the name of academic freedom. But there is also an issue of academic competence. You may well ask, why can't a state university do a fact-check within the reach of any seventh-grader? Well, this "university" is so arrogant and out of touch with reality that it doesn't care if its professors come across as idiots who can't even look up something in the school library's encyclopedia. They obviously think high-school teachers are stupid. My guess is that high-school teachers are much less brainwashed by pomo groupthink than university professors, and I doubt they all went home clutching this propaganda to their bosoms as if it were Holy Writ. And there are a few Jews in Connecticutt high-schools - my crystal ball shows a lot of parent-teacher conferences in the near future.

(via Meryl)

posted by Judith @ 8/28/2002 04:54:13 PM