LEFTIST BRAINWASHING IN AUSTRALIAN HIGH SCHOOLS

Conservative Australian columnist Andrew Bolt gets a lot of space in the press so he gets a lot of email from High School students who have never before heard the conservative side of the many issues that he discusses. He describes and responds to some of the emails concerned here. (Excerpts):

"Many of our teachers are fine professionals. But some insist on shoving their opinions on to students. Happily, the kids are fighting back. The e-mails I get from students should worry me, but, guys, you make my day. Several times a week now, another e-mail from one of you bleeps into my inbox. Some of you have written in anger, and some as if you've figured something you hardly dare to believe. My teacher may not be telling me the truth, you write. Can you help? Send some information, maybe, to help me argue back?

Here's a typical e-mail from one of you in Year 12: "We are studying Stolen, the play (about the "stolen generations") and are also looking at the history. We were constantly shown evidence that 'it did happen'. Our 'unbiased' teacher was completely sure the stolen generations did happen. Are there any other articles that you could direct my attention to so to help me with an upcoming oral?" Most of your letters are much the same. In fact, more than a dozen of you have asked me for help after being made to study this same play, but that's very far from your only worry.

"The bias is shameful and blatant," stormed one of you, a young man with a Chinese name who graduated last year. "I feel cheated and deceived by our education system. I studied geography and one of the topics in the second semester was global warming. Surprise, surprise, every single handout painted Western countries, particularly the USA, as some kind of big, evil polluting satans responsible for a largely natural process. Then in English, teachers would continuously show their anti-war bias when we studied media texts."

Another of you, a Year 11 student from a Catholic school, helped me to understand why so many protesters turned up to anti-war rallies in school uniforms. "After I had listened to the first 20 minutes of blatant propaganda about the effects of the United Nations sanctions and the appalling way in which the US had conducted the last war, it came time for another member of the staff to preach to us about our duty as Catholics to stand up for 'those poor Iraqis'. "As I walked out of the theatre among a nervous silence and looks of guilt I noticed posters pinned to the wall encouraging students to join in anti-war marches."

One boy in a country school refused to join in this group-hate, as his proud mother told me: "When my son stated that he did not want to write a letter supporting this view but requested he be allowed to write one in support of Vanstone, he was told, 'OK, but it won't be posted'. "When two of his friends then made similar suggestions, (my son) was told to keep his opinions to himself and 'stop influencing others'."

No, we can't have you thinking for yourselves.

Yesterday I launched Why Our Schools Are Failing, a book by a friend, Dr Kevin Donnelly, who shows in chapter after chapter how you're not being taught the facts about so many subjects, but opinions. Your teachers' opinions, usually. As Donnelly explains, quoting many examples, over the past 40 years "academics, teacher unions and sympathetic governments argued that the Australian education system should be used as an instrument to bring about a more socialist society". And you're their guinea pigs, I'm afraid."