David Ancell / Sunday September 01, 2002
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I read stuff like yesterday’s New York Times article about September 11 lesson plans. Someone please explain the meaning of this one:
Among what Mr. Newberry called “100 gentle lessons” in the N.E.A. curriculum is one where middle school students make color wheels to relate color to how they feel.
Um . . . okay . . . so what color are you feeling today? If some teacher made me do this when I was in middle school, there would be smoke coming out of my nostrils. Then, I’d be dismissed as the school crank.
Here’s the response of Jerald Newberry, Director of the Health Information Network for the NEA, to critics of their suggestions:
The criticism to the lessons on tolerance, Mr. Newberry said, is thinly veiled bigotry. “If you boil down the concerns of the opposition, what I would call the far right, ultimately it boils down to is: `I am not comfortable with my child being in school with someone who’s different. I want to keep my child surrounded by people who are identical to me. The world is getting too diverse, and I’m scared.’ “
I must wonder if it ever occurred to the folks at the NEA that the problem with their lessons is that we don’t see the need to use this time to rehash every wrong done at the hands of an American. Our country is not perfect. However, regardless of the black marks on American history, what these guys did on September 11 was wrong. I agree that we shouldn’t tell our children that Islam is to blame, but we don’t need to hide the fact that the terrorists were Muslims. I wonder when the NEA will develop a lesson plan that says that we shouldn’t blame Catholicism for the sexual abuse of children by clergy. The principle is the same.
Really, I see a much broader problem involved. The NEA lesson plans are based on the principles of secularism and moral relativism in which tolerance is the only virtue and intolerance (i.e. declaring that some action is a sin) is the only sin. Therefore, considerations of good and evil were ruled about before September 11 ever happened. Along comes September 11, and a deed is done that can hardly be described as anything less than horrific evil. One would think that this would be enough to make someone believe that real evil exists, but for some this is not the case. In fact, they are attributing the terrorist act to the only evil they know . . . INTOLERANCE.
Sadly, secularists cannot see the whole picture. We as Catholics can. We know that evil is a reality. While we are horrified by September 11, we are not driven to despair. We have hope in a time that seems beyond hope. Our gracious and loving God will win in the end. The hope that we have enables us to see the day when we are united in Heaven, and none of this evil will ever happen again.
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