The RECORD

APPLES OF GOLD

"A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver."

(Proverbs 25:11)

QUOTATIONS FOR THE DAY

"There's a brave fellow! There's a man of pluck!
A man who's not afraid to say his say.
Though a whole town's against him."

(Longfellow)

"Candor in speaking is the seal of a noble mind, the ornament and pride of man. The sweetest charm of woman, the scorn of rascals, and the rarest virtue of sociability."

(Christian Bentzel-Sternau)

"A man of courage is also a man full of faith."

(Cicero)

CALL YOUR LOCAL THEATER

"Brokeback Mountain" is still going strong in theaters throughout Maine, despite the objections of many in the Evangelical community. Only a comparatively few people nationwide have been brave enough to protest the film, but their efforts are having an effect. It was reported that the movie "Crash" beat out "Brokeback Mountain" at the Oscars, because the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, received nearly one hundred thousand e-mails from people across the county protesting the film.

Of particular concern are the young teens who have been going to see the movie. No matter how hard the mass media try to present the movie in a favorable light, parents remain worried that their children will be introduced to a lifestyle which has deadly consequences. One woman who picketed the movie here in Maine observed large numbers of young people under the age of seventeen being admitted to the movie without being accompanied by a parent.

The League is calling on members of the public to contact their local movie theater to say "enough is enough" -- and ask that the movie be dropped in favor of more wholesome entertainment. The League is also asking people to remind the managers of the theaters to strictly enforce the R rating.

ETHICS AND COURAGE

Is a lack of courage the real reason why misleading notions of sexual morality are taught in our public schools? The answer to this intriguing question is provided in the following column by John Frary.

One fad or another regularly appeared during my thirty-two years in the academic ranks. They would emerge suddenly, sweep through state departments of education, and attract the interest of colleges and universities with the hope of grants. They inevitably ran their course and disappeared, leaving no trace, save for a new article of furniture in the homes of grant-writers and supervisors.

I experimented with novel teaching techniques of my own invention from time to time, but none of these fads ever penetrated my classroom. I was, however, drawn into the fringes of the "ethics across the curriculum" rage. I was strolling innocently toward the Middlesex County College student center one day when the Director of Institutional Research appeared suddenly at my side. Some ethics conference committee was assembling and the college needed one of its own faculty to sit in.

Mildly curious, I yielded to the director's pleas and agreed to go along and take my seat at the conference table. I found a group of social scientists, engineers, biologists, educationists, etc., professors from other community colleges, gravely discussing "ethical dilemmas." For example, how would a German locomotive engineer resolve the ethical dilemma posed by the realization that his locomotive was drawing box cars full of passengers to a death camp?

After listening to my colleagues discussion of increasingly complicated cases, I felt called upon to point out that Aristotle believed the sovereign virtue to be courage. Without courage, in his view, every other virtue shrivels into nullity. In citing the ancient Greek philosopher, I was trying to make the point that the ethical problem facing 99% of the human race 99% of the time, is not the intellectual question of selecting which course was right and which wrong. The problem is to find the courage to do what we already know to be right.

The reaction was almost unanimous, and entirely expected. I was denounced, quite vehemently, for being "judgmental." A couple of those present hesitantly protested that I might have a point, but the majority were having none of it. My goodness no! They weren't going to sit mute when someone tries to corrupt a serious intellectual discussion about ethics by introducing questions of courage and conviction. There was one sin, at least, that posed no dilemmas for those conferees - judgmentalism.

They knew when they heard it and they weren't going to stand for it.
So the discussion resumed its predictable course. I'd attended as requested, registered my objection, and was content to sit with tranquil disinterest as their pointless babble about the proper techniques and processes for resolving ethical dilemmas washed over me.

I thought then, and I think now, that there must have been an unarticulated and incompletely formed thought in the back of their minds that the development of a specialized pocket calculator would provide the ultimate solution to all ethical problems.

Run into a dilemma? All you will have to do is slip the calculator out of your pocket and keyboard in the problem. Presto -- the solution! All that will remain is to obey your electronic counselor. Courage, conviction and character will not be required.

This belief in technique and process shows itself in the current Westbrook debate over sexual instruction for eighth-graders. There was a time within living memory that the issue could not have arisen at all. Parents, teachers, school board and the whole society would have stood firm in the conviction that thirteen-year-olds should not indulge in sexual relations with one another.

That day is past. The case for abstinence is presented by many, perhaps most, of its advocates as a superior method for restricting the libidos of children. Even those who see it as a question of morality are likely to argue in terms of method.

We know that teen-age pregnancy is a problem because the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention tells us so. The district health coordinator is called upon to weigh the relative merits of contraception and abstinence. One can easily imagine the scandal and uproar if priests and pastors weighed in en masse to argue the case for moral strictures.

Suggestions for the inclusion of self-esteem, career goals, and parental involvement in the curriculum are acceptable, but the role of character, self-respect, and self-control are approached gingerly, if at all. Such "components" are unscientific and too closely tied to religious morality. -- by John Frary

MAINE CLASSICAL SCHOOL TO HOLD FIRST ANNUAL
CONFERENCE ON CLASSICAL EDUCATION

The Maine Classical School, the Christian school which brings Christian education back to its classical roots, will hold its first annual Maine Classical School Conference Friday evening, March 24th, and Saturday, March 24th in Freeport. The featured speaker will be Susan Wise Bauer, co-author of The Well-trained Mind: Classical Education at Home. The conference will be an excellent opportunity for homeschoolers and classroom instructors to gain or enhance classical teaching skills.

The Maine Classical School is featured in the March edition of the monthly RECORD.