Critical Review of Battleground
	In Battleground, Stephen Bates narrates the account of a court case in a small Tennessee town. The court case started with a mother helping her child with a reading assignment. This mother could not believe what she was reading. This mother’s name was Vicki Frost, who was a home keeper. Frost went to the school and told the principal what she thought about the books. She believed that the books went against everything she taught her children. She believed Satan wrote these books. She took her children out of class during reading time, from that point on. When the school told her that her children would fail if they didn’t attend class, Frost was astounded. After many battles with the local school, she took her case to court. The school said the books were appropriate for the children to read, and if parents did not agree they could transfer their children to another school. Both sides had different organizations backing them. The case gained national attention. The federal court sided with the school district in the end, but Vicki Frost did raise attention on how schoolbooks are chosen for our public schools.
	The book by Stephen Bates brings up a very controversial issue, should parents be able to control what their children read in public schools. Bates does not criticize either side during this book. Bates does a good job narrating the book giving good details and letting the reader make his/her own decision. Vicki Frost is a parent who does not want her kids reading books that contradict her families beliefs. Frost did the right thing by addressing the school about this problem. I could not decide which side I agree with while reading the book. Both sides made good arguments against each other. Men who believed in God founded this country. "IN God WE Trust" is on federal property that we use everyday, but the school system sometimes teach something different.
	I agree with Frost that parents should control what public schools teach their children. Parents pay taxes, which fund public schools and pay teachers salaries. But public schools can not have different classes for different religions groups either. The Holts Books are like many other books; people get different understandings of the books. People think different, so people will translate the meaning of books differently. ...
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...ides have really strong arguments in their favor. I agree with public school cannot teach about religion because of the 1st Amendment. The 1st Amendment states that religion should play no role in anything that is state supported. I also believe that Christianity as well as other religion should have no place in public schools, unless it is student lead. My reason for this is that so many people have their own beliefs, that if one religion is taught, the school is discriminating against the other religions. I believe those good morals and values should be taught at home, but they should not be taught at school. I believe that teachers should practice using good moral and values around students. This topic will always be a controversial issue, because there is really no right or wrong to the Frost case. If parents want their children to get a good Christian education, their children will have to be home schooled or sent to a Christian school. I wish this wasn’t the case, but of the 1st Amendment it must be this way.
Work Cited
Hrezo, Margaret. The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. Dec. 1990. Pg. 450(1)
Levinson, Sanford. Michigan Law Review. May 1994. Pgs. 1873-1892.
In cases having to do with constitutionality, the issue of the separation of church and state arises with marked frequency. This battle, which has raged since the nation?s founding, touches the very heart of the United States public, and pits two of the country's most important influences of public opinion against one another. Although some material containing religious content has found its way into many of the nation's public schools, its inclusion stems from its contextual and historical importance, which is heavily supported by material evidence and documentation. It often results from a teacher?s own decision, rather than from a decision handed down from above by a higher power. The proposal of the Dover Area School District to include instruction of intelligent design in biology classes violates the United States Constitution by promoting an excessive religious presence in public schools.
The issue at hand is one of teacher endorsement and whether or not displaying a student’s religious work represents a personal endorsement from the teacher regarding religion or religious practices. Because the works of all students are displayed, the teacher is neither presenting nor endorsing a personal belief. If there is a concern over student interpretation of a teacher displaying the work, teachers can take an educational tact by explaining to students that a religious story presented by a student is their personal story and not a story of the teacher’s or the school, thus allowing the student’s work to be presented without violating the Establishment Clause (Ross, 2014). This piece of writing and the artwork that went with it are a personal belief to the student and represent who the student considers to be a hero, and do not represent the beliefs of the teacher or the school. Justice O’Connor explained this as an endorsement test, asking two questions: “whether government’s purpose is to endorse religion and second, whether the statue actually conveys a message of endorsement” (Schimmel, 1994, p. 16). In this case no endorsement is made because the teacher displays all student work and is in no way advancing a personally held belief. Having examined the appropriateness of displaying the student’s work, the next step is to determine how the First Amendment applies to
In America, the existence of so many different cultures and religions can inadvertently cause one religion to impose its values upon another religion. In Grace Paley’s “The Loudest Voice”, however, the school system directly imposed Christianity onto Shirley Abramowitz and other non-Christian students in the school. Teachers in the school tried to enforce Christianity onto the non-Christian children whenever and whichever way possible. The major illustration of this attempt of “brainwashing” was the production of a Christmas play performed mostly by Jewish students. This was an obvious attempt by the school to try to force the other students to learn the value and history of the Christian religion.
Issues of censorship in public schools are contests between the exercise of discretion and the exercise of a Constitutional right. The law must reconcile conflicting claims of liberty and authority, as expressed by Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter in Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 1940 in “Banned in the U.S.A.: A Reference Guide to Book Censorship in Schools and Public Libraries” by Herbert N. Foerstel (23).
Some people don't particularly like seeing a woman breastfeed. It makes them feel "uncomfortable". Woman are asked to leave the room or to stop breastfeeding by those who feel uncomfortable. Breasts are viewed as sexual items rather than a natural way of providing nutrients and comfort for a child. Some people are against public breastfeeding because they don't want to explain what is going on to their child. Woman are often told that their child is to old to be breastfed. It is no ones business but the mothers how...
Time is another big struggle for college students. I know the feeling of applying for classes because it’s tough to decide on if there’s time to get from one class to one another; also if there’s time to get a bite to eat. Wendell Berry’s “The Pleasures of Eating: In What Are People For?” article suggests taking pleasure in eating a few ways to help anyone be a healthier eater, but “time” is an obstacle for the solutions. First off, both Berry and actually Pollan suggest students grow their own food in gardens. Specifically, Berry says to “Participate in food production to the extent” and “You will be fully responsible for any food that you grow for yourself, and you will know all about it. You will appreciate it fully, having known it all
Women do not breastfeed long enough. Although healthcare workers try to promote the breast method, many women do not continue with it. Breastfeeding does come with challenges; however, the phrase “breast is best” is the role of the nurse in conjunction with education. A mother a...
The Houston Chronicle, pp. C14. Retrieved December 2, 2002 from Lexis-Nexis/Academic database. This article emphasizes the point that censors go too far when they attempt to not only ban a book for their own children but want to remove it altogether from a school library, so that other students cannot read it.
I want to look at Cognitive psychotherapy and Behavioral psychotherapy. Cognitive psychotherapy uses the ABC model as a base. Albert Ellis created this model. The ABC model stands includes the following: A – activating even, a problem, or a negative event, B – beliefs or interpretations or expectations, and C – consequences, both feelings and behaviors. Cognitive theory states that a person’s beliefs determine the way their feelings and behaviors. The therapist has to teach the patient how to evaluate their assumptions, interpretations, and beliefs. There five techniques to cognitive therapy. These techniques include: helping the patient to monitor the negative automatic thoughts, teaching the patient to generate a variety of possible causal
...n the rise. Spanning through history and a plethora of different cultures breastfeeding has always been a respectable and beneficial way to feed a child. The choice is up to one’s own personal beliefs in today’s times
Margaret is an intelligent, articulate, and ambitious woman who desires to rise up in social status by marrying a man of higher social rank. She attends to those above her, in hopes of elevating her status as she becomes closer to the upper-class. As a minor character, she plays a small yet crucial role in advancing Don John’s plot to slander Hero and spoil her wedding. As a lower-class character, Margaret serves as a foil to the rich girls, particularly Hero, who embodies every attitude and mindset Margaret does not. But she also offers an alternative perspective on the upper-class characters in the play. Because Margaret is victimized because of her social ambitions, punished for wanting to rise above her ...
Censoring school books in libraries can often lead to censorship of our basic freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment. In some cases, a minority ends up dictating the majority in censorship
At the start of the novel, Eliza Haywood places her protagonist in a very interesting, unique position, with regards to society of the time. The nameless main character is first illustrated in a playhouse, observing the interactions of the strangers around her. She notices a prostitute, surrounded by a swarm of men. “She could not help testifying her contempt of men who...threw away their time in such a manner, to some Ladies...the greater was her wonder, that men, some of whom she knew were accounted to have wit, should have tastes for very depraved” (257-258.) “Fantomina”, as she later comes to be called, oversees all of this. Haywood seems to put her above this crowd of men and prostitutes, while she observes and makes judgments on the nature of their behaviors. She expresses that she is disgusted by the mindlessness of the men in this situation. One might argue that this depicts a reversal of gender roles. Typically, men would look at women in this way, and the male character wo...
Women need to stop being scolded and frowned upon for using their bodies in a way they are meant to be used. Breast feeding is a good example of this. Many people frown upon breast feeding, mainly in public. They say that such a sight makes them uncomfortable. However, what about breast feeding makes people uncomfortable? It cannot solely be the sight of a woman’s breast, because often times, people are still uncomfortable when it is covered, simply because they know that it is under there. Perhaps the reason for the uncomfortableness that is experienced when seen that a woman is breast feeding in public is caused by the connection often made between women’s breasts and sexual acts. However, women have breasts for the sole purpose of feeding their child, and the objectification of women’s breasts as “toys” has created this uncomfortableness when women use their breasts for their original and proper purpose.
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