Military Academies: Bringing Values To Urban America
By Paul M. Weyrich (04/08/05)
Too many American children are being raised by parents who have inherited a 1960s mindset. It is that mindset which jettisoned important qualities – namely, discipline and faith – and cast aside important institutions vital to this country’s success and security. The result is that the ignorance and even the sins of the parents now are being visited upon children.
A recent Kaiser Family Foundation study determined that many children are exposed daily to over eight hours of TV, video games, computers and other media. A generation ago many parents set strict limits on TV viewing. Too few do that now. The choices of entertainment fare have broadened. The study determined that video games, instant messaging and computers also are consuming a young person’s time, often to the detriment of more challenging activities, such as reading, physical exercise and play.
An interesting finding in the study determined that lower grades in school were received by a child who devoted more time to video games and less time to reading.
Even parents concerned enough about their children to set limits on TV viewing are fighting a difficult battle. The children know many of their peers constantly are watching TV, playing video games and incessantly instant messaging. That ignites a pint-sized determination to “keep up with the Jones” by watching more TV, playing more video games and sending more instant messages.
Yet in the midst of bleakness signs of hope can peak through the clouds.
THE NEW YORK TIMES reported military academies are a growing trend in American urban school systems. Chicago has three militarily-oriented high schools and eight of the school system’s high schools also have established militarily-oriented programs.
The academies not only preach the gospel of discipline but insist their students incorporate it into their lives. Paul Vallas, former CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, told the TIMES, “The programs teach individuals teamwork and personal responsibility. I think it’s a very effective character-building experience.” Students who attend the academies tend to be motivated by the opportunity to succeed and they thrive in a disciplined atmosphere that is much safer than that offered by most other public schools.
Philadelphia this past summer opened its own military academy. Students at the Philadelphia Military Academy take a daily course in military science and also receive weekly instruction in military fitness. They visit military institutions, such as the U.S. Naval Academy. Not every student will be accepted into such a program. Philadelphia’s academy requires a rigorous interview to weed out those students who really are not prepared for the discipline required to succeed. Students at the military academy who present disciplinary problems soon will find themselves back in the regular public schools.
The Left, of course, is mobilizing against these academies, and employing warmed-over 1960s rhetoric against the academies. One critic of Philadelphia’s program called it “a training ground for killing and killers.” An effort now is being waged to block the opening of a proposed naval academy in Chicago.
America’s urban youth are benefiting from the discipline offered by the military academies. What about the middle class kids living in the suburbs? Military academies are less predominant there and the private military academies to which many affluent parents once sent their children suffered a noticeable enrollment decline in the 1960s. Even after 9/11 the concept of “duty, honor, country” lacks the resonance it had only forty years ago. It is good to know that some students, primarily those in the inner-city, are presented with the opportunity to discover that sentiment at the military academies. The academies are an institution that should benefit more Americans regardless of whether they live in a large city and come from families of modest means or live in affluent suburbs and have TVs, computers in their rooms and instant messaging.
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