They're going to be chanting to the wrong God.

[Mister Agenda]

I'd like to imagine that he can't really think that the us government is endorsing aztec religion or proselytizing aztec religion to it's students - but some people are that thick.

It's for his distaste for leftwing activism, and not any credible belief about the above, that his panties are in a twist.

They are chanting prayer to Aztec gods, no? Maybe the article is sensational & that isn't really what it is. But if they were teaching about the Italian unification the war against the Papal States & had the students chanting Ave Maria I think that would be a problem, no? If they are having them chant to Aztec gods, how is it any different?

Because chanting to the Aztec gods is unlikely to be taken any more seriously than reciting a spell from Harry Potter. That said, I don't think it's appropriate for K-12, particularly if it's mandatory.

[The Grand Nudger]

I don't see the value, but do see great harm, in waiting until a person turns 18 years old to teach them that there are and were other people in the world with beliefs other than ones own or one's peers. That's sort of the point of the curriculum. Ethnic.......studies......

Firstly, they already know there are other people and other beliefs - we're not peeling back any virgin eyelids. We read classics with exhortations to gods familiar and exotic from 5th grade onwards....and we generally only wait until fifth grade because that's the average time it takes a student to learn to read the words and begin to comprehend them.

As to it being mandatory - what are the odds...do you imagine...of the school forcing some christian nutbar who thinks he's being taught how to utter cantrips to do that, or subject his child to it? Precisely zero. Even more specifically, in california, where there's probably more interest in mesoamerican culture from a purely personal standpoint than there is in..say, Peebles Ohio...being needed to be forced to do any of this? I'd say the same odds as a person in the gulf needs to be forced to learn about carribean people and cultures and beliefs (and, ofc, mesoamerican people, cultures, and beliefs as well). Students are very literally learning about their ancestors and their peers ancestors - which is a thing we take for granted in our schools when the ancestors and peers are white and western. In fact, you might even say it's the entire point of a whole category of education that we demand of our schools.

If, though, we find ourselves in a place where a kid in peebles ohio will never be afforded the opportunity by their school system to go to the serpentine mounds - on account of how that would be black magic...or learn to shake a woodland rattle to a woodland drum..because that would be an invocation of a foreign god, or what the words in the chant meant and how that is pregnent with their beliefs.....and all of this..because some piece of shit christian™ is angry that public schools aren't adequately indoctrinating children into his own political beliefs.....then fuck it. Burn it all down, it's nothing worth having in the first place. I don't see any reason to tiptoe around it.

[brewer]

School kids in the US celebrate pagan religious rituals and holidays. But christians don't care because most have been co-opted by christianity.

This is probably one day of chanting, not repeated indoctrination, and most kids won't take it serious to begin with. Considering how much christian crap shows up in schools already, this guy don't have much of a pot to piss in.

[Seax]

Chanting prayers sounds like religion to me.

-and it sounds like witchcraft to the nutbar who makes the disingenuous complaint out of his genuine frustration that the left exists..but in mere reality, it's neither.  

You can chant all sorts of prayers (and to all sorts of gods) in american schools, and not only does that not amount to a religion - it's legal.  He complains, very obviously, that it is illegal for him to do what he wants to do, that public schools will not help him create the society he wishes to see - and so to rail against the injustice of that, he insists that others are doing it.  It's never not projection.

Is social engineering not the purpose of state schooling? Mandatory government education is a product of Nineteenth Century nationbuilding, before that education was a religious, charitable or commercial, not a government, concern. One motive was that emerging nationstates of Europe wanted literate, numerate citizens for their economies and militaries, but equally important was instilling a sense of nationality & common loyalty to the state. This was especially important in countries like Germany, France or Italy where there was no homogenous common language; linguistic & ideologic unity would bring social & political unity.

It's completely disingenuous to pretend as though the author 'wants... public schools... [to] help him create the society he wishes to see' and is therefore wrongly 'insist[ing] that others are doing it.' He is certainly guilty of the first charge; he wants to use public schools for social engineering. He might also be guilty of hypocrisy if he denies that, I didn't read through the article so I can't say. But to pretend as though the current public education curriculum is apolitical and the author of the article is 'project[ing]' his desire to use them for social engineering onto the existing power structure is either hopeless ignorant or dishonest. Public education is inherently political, and always has been.

[The Grand Nudger]

The author is projecting a great many things, not just that. You might even say that his penis is hanging out of his pants in full view.

Meanwhile, the kids involved are learning about the cultures that dominated the continent, of which many of them are descendants, in the pre and immediately post columbian periods. He can bitch and moan about this being an establishment of religion, and he can bitch and moan about leftists - but even if the latter were true, the former is still not.

[Seax]

Chanting prayers sounds like religion to me.

Does it? So we should stop all archaeological excavations in Egypt because it get one closer to the religion of the Pharoahs. We should stop all attempts to discover their texts and language as spoken way back then, right?

Of course not. Such exercises (including the school class to which you refer) are not attempts to somehow re-establish any dead religion. They are attempts to understand how such ancient civilisations actually worked.

And you know this yourself. Has the study of the norse mythos made you somehow believe in Odin or Loki? Of course not.

Do people recreate the associated rituals today? Of course they do.

You have made an absurd claim, and now that it has been pointed out, you are attempting to double down.

Grow up.

There is a huge difference between teaching about a religion or trying to understand it from an academic or historical point of view, promoting it & forcing students to take part in it. When I took Medieval History the professor explained Arianism to us, and said it made more sense to her than the Chalcedonian doctrine she had grown up with. We learned about Saints & she explained some of the Catholic theology to us, as it was important to understanding Medieval Europe. As a historian that studies Medieval Christianity, this was completely appropriate. At no point did she ever try to prosthelytise to us, let alone instruct us to participate in prayer or religious chanting. Surely the difference there is not too subtle for you?

[The Grand Nudger]

You'd have to be smoking crack to believe that christian children are going to be forced into anything over the objections of their parents in the us. You cant even force biology or math on those nuts. You can't force them to authorize life saving medical procedures for the same children, let alone homework. We're a very accommodating people.

You can't even force them to send their children to the school.

[Seax]

You'd have to be smoking crack to believe that christian children are going to be forced into anything over the objections of their parents in the us.  You cant even force biology or math on those nuts.  You can't force them to authorize life saving medical procedures for the same children, let alone homework.  We're a very accommodating people.

You can't even force them to send their children to the school.

I don't really think the tiny minority (especially in California) of fanatical believers that won't send their kids to public school is really the concern here. I think it has more to do with the official ideology imposed by education shifting to an anti-colonial, you could even say anti-America, & certainly anti-Christian, one.

[The Grand Nudger]

Smoking..crack.

Can't recycle in schools, because recycling is a leftist religion and I can't cram supply side jesus down that kids throat!

If anything, people like this demonstrate the actual problem with our schools..that they're very clearly failing people like this.

[Seax]

Smoking..crack.

Not an argument. I went & read the article.

“Students first clap and chant to the god Tezkatlipoka... asking him for the power to be ‘warriors’ for ‘social justice,’” Rufo wrote, describing the curriculum. “Next, the students chant to the gods Quetzalcoatl, Huitzilopochtli, and Xipe Totek, seeking ‘healing epistemologies’ and ‘a revolutionary spirit.’ ... Finally, the chant comes to a climax with a request for ‘liberation, transformation, [and] decolonization,’ after which students shout ‘Panche beh! Panche beh!’ in pursuit of ultimate ‘critical consciousness.’”

That certainly sounds anti-American to me, at least if America is understood as the nation created by European settlers.