Re-thinking the emergency

So I came a bit unhinged on Monday in regard to the report on students attitudes towards the first amendment and free media. I've had some time to consider why students feel the way they do.

I sometimes have a tendency to lump 13-18 year olds in with adults on certain issues. What may, in fact, color those statistics is the environment those kids exist in. At that age range, kids are expected to obey authority in all things. We drill that into their heads, from doing homework, listening to teachers, to curfews. Obviously there needs to be ground rules for all young people.

I think that when you condition a child to put full faith in authority figures, that can easily translate into full faith in government. How is a child supposed to know the difference between censorship around the dinner table, and censorship in the media? I doubt very seriously that many families have the sort of political arguments at their dinner table that we had at ours when we grew up.

When I encourage teachers to emphasize free thinking in their classrooms, it hadn't occurred to me that many parents would be upset by that. I'd imagine quite a few would prefer to indoctrinate their children, rather than guide them. Having not taught children, I can only imagine how hard it is to encourage free expression while not getting fired.

As a result of my rethinking, I think a better benchmark would be to poll 25 to 30 year olds. If a high percentage of that age group thought the first amendment goes to far, and the government should be approving media reports, then we're all in big trouble.