Quick, what's the scariest monster you can think of? A vampire? A zombie? A werewolf?
Me, I think of over-earnest old hippies writing drippy songs for little kids who get picked on in school:
New York City...seems to prefer, in these post-Giuliani years, to be an avatar of positive reinforcement...Over the course of the next year, the Department of Education will introduce into all of its elementary and middle schools “Operation Respect: Don’t Laugh at Me,” an intensive curriculum in character development. The program, which is the brainchild and heart’s desire of Peter Yarrow, of Peter, Paul & Mary, aims to combat bullying by emphasizing the moral lessons of folk music.“Don’t Laugh at Me” (or dlam) was born when Yarrow—a veteran of the civil-rights, gender-equality, nucleardisarmament, peace, and Amtrak-subsidization movements—heard a country ballad of that name at the Kerrville Folk Festival, in the summer of 1999. Moved to tears by its swelling harmonies and first-person testaments to the effects of ridicule—“I’m a little boy with glasses, the one they call a geek / A little girl who never smiles ’cause I’ve got braces on my teeth”—he decided to incorporate the tune into Peter, Paul & Mary’s repertoire.
At a gig with the National Association of Elementary School Principals, the group played the song. “The principals gave a tremendous response to it, and said, ‘We need this in our schools,’ ” Chic Dambach, Operation Respect’s president and C.E.O., said the other day. “And Peter, being the activist and the organizer that he is, said, ‘You won’t just have a song but a whole program.’ ” dlam is now used in at least twelve thousand American schools and camps.
Be sure to check out the assignments, as we learn how Magic Markers are useful for teaching people to “explore creating agreements around behaviors." Oh, if there are any parents of 14-year-old daughters among my Devoted Readers - be sure to let me know how you'd feel knowing that a man who was convicted of this in 1970 was designing these sorts of "educational" programs.
(Hat tip: Ace of Spades.)
Posted by kswygert at June 27, 2005 11:03 PM