Pushing Charities on Kids

The Mystic River Press (story is on B2) has what is meant to be a feel-good story about a teacher spreading moral responsibility by teaching her middle school class about a charity she likes, Heifer International.

Before you get too angry with me, I need to set a few things straight. Of all the charities out there, I really believe in what Heifer is doing. I love the idea of "passing on the gift", and it seems like a really well-assembled program without a lot of political ideology tainting it. Furthermore, giving to charity is one of the most important things that any person of privelege can do (and let's face it - if you can read this, then you have a computer and are thus a person of privelege).

The thing that really bugs me about this is that promotion of a specific charity has no place whatsoever in public school. Giving to charity, and specific choice of a charity to give to is a personal choice that should be reserved for the individuals doing the giving. A teacher telling her students that they should give to Heifer makes the children feel compelled to believe that she is right. She is in the position of power. But a child should give to a charity in which he or she believes very deeply. Middle school kids have a pretty well developed sense of values, and are quite capable of making a decision about who to give money to.

Fortunately, in this case, it is a good neutral charity with a mission just about anyone can appreciate. But what if a teacher did this for some charity with a deep social or political agenda? Would you want your child subjected to this type of captive marketing for MoveOn.org? How about if Focus on the Family came into your school to preach to your kids? What about the ACLU? Or GreenPeace? Maybe Michael Moore as a guest speaker? Or Bill O'Reilly? Once you have school officials condoning specific charities, it is a slippery slope towards political influence coming into your classrooms.

I also don't like the idea of some guy coming into the class with a handful of rice to show the kids how most of the world lives. This is a blatant attempt to make the kids feel guilty for their abundance of food choices. Their response to the guilt will be the programmed response by their teacher to give to Heifer. It is a dirty sales tactic that is being used here. And it is being used on your children.

Now let me say again, that I like Heifer. We have given money to them. My young children love the idea of giving real animals to kids in some other part of the world. But the thing is that we chose this ourselves. Nobody that we put into a position of power came onto us in a situation we could not escape from to tell us to give to Heifer.

This is just another example of the absence of personal freedom and choice that is the hallmark of public school.