reason we were able to embrace politics and our hippie ways was because we had great public schools

[jodymarie aimee]

Turned MSNBC off and turned on the retro channel...Dinah Shore Show from 1953...just her Bobby Darin and Andre Previn playing the piano... singing gorgeous songs for 30 mins....Boy, we didn't know how great we had it, kids....And the reason we were able to embrace politics and our hippie ways was because we had great public school educations.....fighting for civil rights and the environment, stopping the fucking war, etal.... We had the basics...I fear the young ones today are rudderless...

A lovely half hour, now back to work on 2017 and a way out of this..

[mountain grammy]

1. I know I was taught Civics in high school

in the 60's. We also did current events all through school. My mother grew up during the depression, FDR, and WWII. She was very political. World events were always discussed at my house.

But, I think, like today, great public schools depended on where you lived.

[Demsrule86]

6. I am forced when reading this stuff to remind people that not everyone had it so great...women,

minorities...My older sister told me when she went to a wading pool in Charlottesville Virginia it was whites only...her aunt told her ...good thing you are a blond, or they wouldn't let you in here...my sister tanned very dark.Women were beaten by their husbands with no recourse. A woman couldn't have her own credit card. In Vietnam, the poor and often minority who could not afford college went to Vietnam via the draft..My older sister told me when she went to a wading pool in Charlottesville Virginia it was whites only...My aunt told her ...good thing you are a blond, or they wouldn't let you in here...my sister tanned very dark.This was in the earlys before me. And yes she also said there were still separate drinking fountains and bathrooms...desegregation had yet to begin. And the schools for Black people were inferior with old textbooks and poor buildings... In FDR's time, Black men were kidnapped and forced into slavery...some never came back...desperate family members wrote letters to Pres. Roosevelt. No action was ever taken. The good old days were not so great for many people.

[mountain grammy]

7. You don't need to remind me..

I was a Marine brat and we were stationed in Cherry Point NC in 1957-58. Military bases were integrated, but the kid next door couldn't go to my school. Heard my dad say it was a damned disgrace that the Marine next door fought in the same wars as him and his son couldn't go to school with us. Saw my first "colored only" sitting in the back seat traveling from Illinois. Don't even remember the state, I was nine. Asked my mom, what does colored only mean? She honestly couldn't tell me, she was so emotional about it. I sure found out later.

In 58 my dad died. We were kicked out of base housing within a month and lived with relatives until my mom could get on her feet. No, she couldn't get a credit card or buy a car without her brother signing for her.. my mom was 46 years old and has served in the Women Marines during WWII and she couldn't get credit as a single woman.

I know a thing or two about the "good old days." I feel lucky we ended up in CT, which had an excellent public education system and we lived in Hartford, so I was especially lucky to attend a diverse school which was rated high in educational excellence.

[bobbieinok]

2. History texts had history of unions and history

of all the federal laws and bureaus put in place in the early 1900s 'to promote the general welfare,' eg child labor laws, Pure Food and Drug Act, etc.

This was in OK public schools in the 40s and 50s.

Also history of publics schools and why they were considered so important.

[2naSalit]

3. In the many public schools

I attended, 14 in all, we were taught civics starting in second grade. Most of the schools I attended were in Maine and NH. We were also learning a foreign language in the second grade.

[MuseRider]

4. We certainly learned how to make a movement.

What an incredible time. I certainly do not mean that as incredible (good,fun) time, but it was that too in a lot of ways. We were doing more in my little city to protest the war than you see now. Where there are 7 people on the street corner now there would have been hundreds. Maybe that was the effect of the draft but we did do it, we got out and we did it.

My government class was taught by a man barely older than we were who looked like Paul McCartney. We sat in a group outside under a tree and passed around juice to share. We were learning so much. After a couple of months he left, he was drafted. Our new teacher was not as good but we still learned and argued and were not castigated for our ideas or ideals only presented other ways of thinking that we actually talked about without rancor.

Yeah, I'm a geezer but I do think our education was better. It was guided towards learning for information and personal fulfillment not just learning for a job.

[american_ideals]

5. That's why GOP has 4 million homeschooled kids - to brainwash them

GOP has realized that when they send carefully brainwashed conservative kids to public schools, the kids learn about the world and many become liberals.

Better to keep them dumb and brainwashed. That's DeVos' stated mission.