As the state of Indiana — in alliance with shrill helicopter parents and right-wing politicians and extremists — continues to destroy the teaching profession and the public education system, a crucial question goes unanswered: Is this really in the children’s best interest?
I attended Indiana public schools in the 1960s and 1970s, and I received an excellent education. Like today, there were political challenges then. As tweeners and teens, my generation lived through the implementation of civil rights legislation and desegregation, Vietnam War protests, “race riots” at school and in the streets, the sexual revolution and a growing drug culture. We also witnessed the assassination of a president, his brother and the leading civil rights leader.
Though our teachers and parents did their best to provide us with safe havens, they didn’t try to protect us from reality: They taught us to live in the real world because they knew that as adults we would be confronted by many challenges. Today’s efforts to ban books and exploit the cultural war “them against us” mentality, coupled with the demonization of teachers, will leave one legacy: A more isolated, further divided country filled with ignorant, unsympathetic citizens.
Michael Snyder
Bremen
The survey says
There are those who claim that Russia wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine if Donald Trump were still president — 62% of those polled in a Harvard Center for American Political Studies-Harris Poll survey. Of course, we’ll never know. Another thing we’ll never know is whether Trump would have sanctioned Russia and Vladimir Putin. After all, Trump may have believed Putin’s reasons for unprovoked military action against a sovereign nation. It would be curious, then, if there are 62% of Americans who believe Ukraine deserved to be fired upon.
Howard Brenneman
Michigan City
A positive change
Thank you for adding Rex Huppke’s column to the opinion page of the South Bend Tribune. I have read him in the Chicago Tribune for several years. The addition of his wit, insight and humor is a positive change for readers of our local newspaper.
Jim Olson
Mishawaka
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Culture war battles and Trump’s support of Putin, plus Rex Huppke
