Monday, June 11, 2007

Supporting (Former) Troops In The Classroom

From this week's EIA Communique:

Quote of the Week. "A number of us have been concerned that the whole Troops to Teachers program would be used more as a tool for propaganda than simply a way to help former soldiers find good employment. Anecdotes we've heard from time to time have indicated that our fears were well-founded." – Rick Jahnkow, program coordinator for Project YANO (Youth and Non-Military Opportunities), which "strives to provide young people with an alternative point of view about military enlistment." (June 6 Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)


Ah yes, military propaganda is flooding our schools.

3 comments:

allenm said...

Anecdotes we've heard from time to time have indicated that our fears were well-founded."

Well there's a forceful indictment.

I wonder if the vagueness is a measure of the validity of the case?

To a "program coordinator for Project YANO" a teacher who was a troop may be propagandizing by just not being quite tearful enough while admitting his part in imperialist wars of aggression to further the rapacious greed of globalizing capitalists.

Anonymous said...

Gee, can't have people who won't just wring their hands in despair while teaching in the nation's "needist" (read: poor and inner-city) schools. Can't have kids exposed to strong role-models who know how to get things done.

Sounds like a pretty good place for ex-military who want to make things better at the bottom line.

Anonymous said...

Hmmm. Perhaps Jahnkow is on to something here. After all, he's heard anecdotes. We certainly wouldn't want as teachers people who are disciplined, hard working, results oriented, who have risked their lives for our nation and the very students they'll be teaching, who are above average in intelligence before they set foot on a college campus, who know how to work and play well with others of all ages, and who are, for the most part, unabashedly pro-American. No. That would be wrong.