Maryland has opened its first PUBLIC Military Academy. That’s right, we will soon have little Big Brother Youth squads popping up all over in order to instill ‘discipline’, indoctrinate young people, and to develop the militaristic, fascist mindset. You have to get them young and mold them into compliant yes-men and women. The individual mind must be subdued and controlled. This is disgusting.
FORESTVILLE, Md. (AP) _ The 14-year-old slumped in his desk chair, sinking into his baggy jeans and oversized T-shirt, was trying to talk back, but retired Army Sgt. Charles Moore wasn’t listening.
“It’s ‘Yes, sir’ or ‘No, sir.’ Is that so hard to explain?” Moore barked at the teen, who slouched lower with each word. “You’re going to have to start getting used to it.”
Things are different this year for the roughly 400 ninth-graders, boys and girls alike, who started school Monday at Forestville Military Academy, the new name for Forestville High School.
Once Prince George’s County’s lowest-performing high school, Forestville is the first in Maryland to become a public military academy. It’s part of a growing trend nationwide among districts that hope military-style discipline can turn around struggling schools.
A handful of other public military schools already exist, including the nation’s first, Franklin Military Academy, which opened in 1980 in Richmond, Va. …
“Our push is for these students to leave and go to college. We’re not pushing the military,” said Eric Lyles, Forestville’s principal. “If a child wants to go to the military, that’s between them and their family.”
Yeah, sure. I’m sure you have no preference one way or another.
The Army will pay for the four types of uniforms the students have to wear and for books and other materials for their JROTC classes, Lyles said. Many of the new faculty are retired Army staff like Moore.
Those close ties have caused concern that the academies will simply funnel students into the armed services, especially the low-income and minority students who make up much of the enrollments.
A 1995 study funded by the American Friends Service Committee found that 45 percent of JROTC graduates nationally went on to join the military.
The rigid structure also discourages independence, said study author Catherine Lutz, a University of North Carolina anthropologist.
“What it does is discourage people from dissenting and asking questions,” she said. “It encourages children to be followers rather than leaders.”
Bacon said students at the Chicago academy are encouraged to be freethinkers in class. But there are times, like morning drills, when following orders is required.
“You have to have an analytical, critical mind,” he said. “But you also learn how to do what you are told to do.”
I kinda like that concept!
Compulsory public military education?? Say it ain’t so, Joan.