Indoctrination has no place in the classroom

Teachers should tell their pupils about George Orwell who warned the world about groupthink.

Instead of indoctrinating schoolchildren with political ideology, it is a pity some teachers don’t instead seek to enrich their knowledge by having them study the works of George Orwell who offered chilling warnings, almost a century ago, of the dystopian future awaiting us if liberal freedoms were sacrificed and groupthink allowed to flourish.

That is, assuming of course, this generation of teachers ever studied and understood those important classic works themselves.

John McLeod, Sunshine Coast, Qld

I wish the striking students well. While it is likely that most will be able to throw off the shackles of their school indoctrination in later years, dogma has a habit of sticking.

So I ask them to question more, even at the risk of ridicule. Here’s one that might challenge teachers:“Why is it that we think CO2 is a gross pollutant and the primary controller of this warm planet’s temperature such that it is going to kill us all?”

In 2008 there were 39 molecules of CO2 for every 100,000 molecules in the air (it really is a trace gas), and our human emissions for the five years until 2013 increased that number from 39 molecules to 40. You could ask Roy Spencer who manages those NASA satellites — he said this.

Rod Fripp, City Beach, WA

Well might we criticise children protesting about climate change when they should be at school, but many of these young people have another eight decades of life ahead of them. When they have NASA, the UN, CSIRO and David Attenborough telling them and their parents that climate change is real, why shouldn’t they be concerned?

We all know the political manipulation involved, but unless those who oppose the concept of climate change come up with a more compelling argument than they’ve done to date, then what we saw last week is sure to be repeated.

John Capel, Black Rock, Vic

The sight of school kids across the nation demonstrating against the federal government’s climate change policies would have had Bill Shorten jumping for joy. Imagine his euphoria after seeing the image of tiny tots holding signs mirroring their teacher’s political views. Labor already has GetUp, the unions and our ABC on its team, and now it has snared our kids.

Dale Ellis, Innisfail, Qld

How far will we go to manipulate decision making in our country? This is equivalent to indoctrination. This is how Mao Zedong and the leaders of North Korea controlled the majority — by indoctrinating children.

Indoctrination is a process of planting ideas, attitudes, and cognitive strategies in a person’s mind, then robbing them of their power to view ideas from different perspectives and make an informed, logical decision.

Some teachers are seeking to influence and indoctrinate children and then use them as a force to change national policies — children who have not yet reached an age to fully process a concept and come to a logical decision. This is the thin edge of the wedge of anarchy.

Margaret Beaumont, Mt Coolum, Qld

The comments by Scott Morrison and Matt Canavan over the schoolkids’ strike show how out of touch with reality they are. First, missing a few days of school won’t put these kids on the dole queue. Second, these students fully understand that there are no jobs on a dead planet.

The students’ concerns and actions are grounded in concern for the future, based on science. Climate researchers endorse the position that humans are causing climate change.

These students’ lives will be affected by what we do, or fail to do. I applaud them for their determination, and encourage them to persist. They are the future.

Donella Peters, Aldgate, SA

The problem is not CO2, the problem is the naivety and gullibility of young children. They lack wisdom, experience, scepticism and judgment because their critical faculties haven’t fully formed. They have been led up an education blind alley.

When you’re in pedagogical hole, stop digging and start thinking. Preferably, critical thinking, using your capacity to observe, analyse, logically deduce and reason. These weren’t always the natural order of things and great and good people fought hard for it in the 18th century during the Enlightenment.

Jim Ball, Narrabeen, NSW