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Monday, June 23, 2008

Do Your Own D@!# Research!

A READER ASKS:
"Please tell me where in any public school cirricula it says students ought to use drugs????? Please be very specific! As a Catholic who spent 8 years on a public school board in a community where ther is no Catholic High School I want to see a very detailed response...."
What am I? A reference clerk in a library? Your graduate student? Do your own research! Hehehehe....! 

But this research is quite easy.  Just look up "values clarification".  These educational programs are experientially-based and inculcate in students the absolute centrality of autonomous moral choice.  While being superficially intellectual, with endless dreary scientific-rationalistic descriptions of drug use and sexual behavior, oftentimes these programs use emotionalism to push a student into a particular direction, such as showing the horrors of botched back-alley abortions.   Also, let's not forget that teens usually think of themselves as being bulletproof: to them, bad consequences are for other people; so there is only an upside to this new knowledge of sexual techniques and pharmaceuticals.

The biggest values-clarification program is most likely Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or D.A.R.E., which does not tell students not to use drugs, but rather that each student must make an informed, autonomous moral choice, and be consistent with his following through on his choice, while respecting and dialoging with those who have made other choices.

I said:
"The fact that some people use recreational drugs has led to experiential-based public school curricula telling students that they ought to use these drugs if they so choose."
Objectively speaking, recreationally using illegal drugs is either morally good, morally evil, or morally neutral.  D.A.R.E specifically states that they do not portray drug use and violence as morally evil.  As they specifically disclaim that these are moral evils, the only other choices are that teen drugs, sex, and violence are either morally neutral or morally good.  If a student makes the autonomous choice that smoking crack cocaine is morally good, then to be fully consistent with this belief, in the absence of a higher moral good, he ought to do so, otherwise he is not truly following his newly-malformed conscience.

Jesus and the prophets preached morality, and not values clarification.   These kind of autonomous moral choices contradict the Church's teaching on the formation of the conscience. And instead of dialoging with those who think evil is good, rather we ought to avoid the persons, places, and occasions of sin.

Please note that none of this ought to be taken to indicate that I think that I am morally superior to anyone else, nor that I myself live a moral life.  I'm preaching to myself here.  Alas, I'm a sinner and make all of the usual lazy excuses why I'm not a saint.

7 comments:

  1. Dude spare me the rant! you made the statement which you claimed to be fact! Then be prepared to defend what you claim to be fact. So if a Catholic School has a DARE
    program it should be challenged as an advocate for values clarification. I suppose there is no drug problem in any Catholic schools just like there were no pervert priests. Were you raised in
    Boston??? Climb down off that tower that you have put yourself on and give us the whole story on why you became Catholic. Do you have the guts to post this?

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  2. mark scott abeln said...
    Its my blog and I'll rant if I want to.....! But please don't take anything as a personal attack. I am hard on ideas, but hopefully not on individuals. We all live in glass houses.

    The Catholic schools are very sick these days, and tend to have the same problems with secularism as the public schools. I will defend what Catholic schools ought to be, however, just as I will defend what the priesthood ought to be (that is, the best and worst job in the world.) The Church is in terrible condition, but this hasn't been the first time, and most likely won't be the last.

    Drug education is in most of the schools in the U.S., including Catholic schools, and I had the pleasure of experiencing an early program of values clarification. And predictably, some kids actually got turned on to drugs.

    By God's grace, I joined the One, True, Holy, and Apostolic Catholic Church, founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ — despite its many problems — in order to save my soul.

    How about you?

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  3. Born Raised Catholic...attended Catholic grade school public high school and Catholic College.....drifted during the sex scandal...I am disgusted that "men" hid the facts and complicated the problem....Vatican 2 went too far..prefer Latin Mass

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  4. puma,

    I understand, and plenty of people feel the way you do about the recent scandal.

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  5. "Alas, I'm a sinner and make all of the usual lazy excuses why I am not a saint" Look at it another way, better to be like "Avis" "we're number two and we try harder" Than to believe that you are already a saint! There are a fair number of people that I have met throughout my years who wanted me to believe that they were already saints and frankly I have my doubts!

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  6. "There are a fair number of people that I have met throughout my years who wanted me to believe that they were already saints and frankly I have my doubts!"

    Hehehe.... so true!

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  7. How about: using mind-altering drugs (including prescription drugs) damages the brain - always. Whether it is moral or not to consume a particular drug at a particular time and place is an issue of the "lesser of two evils".

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