Why Leaders for Truth?
How is Leaders different than JROTC?
Is Leaders supported by the military?
If Leaders replaces JROTC is this unpatriotic?
JROTC serves over 1,600 students in San Francisco
alone. Can Leaders serve this population?
Who started the Teach Peace Foundation?
Why is promoting militarism in high schools a problem?
Has No Child Left Behind increased militarism in high schools?
Is JROTC a trojan horse for military
recruiting?
How can I help?
Leaders for Truth
is a leadership education and training program for high school students.
Students are taught to think critically and live life helping others
with integrity, humility, compassion, and courage.
The following quotes explain why it
is important to offer a high school leadership program with an emphasis
on 21st century learning.
"Do you know what astonished me most in
the world? The inability of force to create anything. In the long run
the sword is always beaten by the spirit."
Napoleon Bonaparte
"If we do
not teach our children peace, someone else will teach them violence."
Coleman McCarthy, author of I'd Rather Teach Peace
"I object to violence because when it
appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is
permanent." Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
"I would
teach peace rather than war, love rather than hate."
Albert Einstein
"I like to believe that people in the
long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments.
Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days
governments had better get out of the way and let them have it."
Dwight D. Eisenhower
To reach peace, we must teach peace. We
provide leadership education and training to young people because they
are our future leaders. As Gandhi once observed, "if
we are to reach real peace in the world, we shall have to begin with the
children."
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Leaders's leadership education and
training is rooted in caring for and loving people. Leaders teaches students to find the way to make peace and offer it to
others. Students are taught leadership with examples that extend beyond
the military and include businesses, non-profits, and a range of
government services. In a sentence, Leaders is superior to JROTC because
students develop peaceful leadership skills.
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Leaders |
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| Promotes nonviolence
as a force more powerful than violence |
Yes |
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| Teaches critical thinking vs. blind obedience |
Yes |
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| Shows the connection
between harmful foreign policies and both poverty and terrorism |
Yes |
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| Teaches about federal overspending and how this
threatens America's democracy |
Yes |
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| Educates about nuclear bombs and a world free of
nuclear weapons |
Yes |
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| Instructs on caring
for the environment |
Yes |
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| Locally controlled instead of
controlled by the Pentagon |
Yes |
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| Prohibits sharing student information with recruiters |
Yes |
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| Staff diversity valued and required |
Yes |
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| Welcomes the disabled
and does not discriminate |
Yes |
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| Nationally bans guns
at school as part of the program |
Yes |
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| Discusses the root causes of war and peaceful
alternatives instead of glorifying war |
Yes |
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Many of the Teach Peace Foundation's
members are veterans. They enthusiastically support Leaders because
it is about being for something that makes our democracy a better one.
Teach Peace is not against the military
and some leaders in the organization, like Dave Dionisi, are former
military people who are motivated to teach peace because they care deeply for the
military. This is one reason the Leaders program includes
a specific class titled Caring for Soldiers.
Unlike two baseball teams competing,
any organization competing with JROTC is likely to be falsely labeled as
anti-military instead of entrepreneurial, innovative, and simply
offering a better alternative.
People wishing to keep JROTC make the
case why throw out the baby with the bathwater (e.g., the baby of
leadership development with the bathwater of Pentagon control, discriminatory
practices, glorifying war,
targeting low income communities, creating passivity instead of critical thinking,
offering biased textbooks, and in some parts of the country actually bringing guns
into schools at a time when Columbine and Virginia Tech like massacres are raising public awareness for
gun-free schools). The Teach Peace Foundation agrees that it is better to keep the baby of leadership
education and training and correct JROTC deficiencies by implementing
Leaders.
In summary, Leaders is supported by
many military and former military members because students actively seek
to help veterans, are taught to love everyone, and the nonviolent skills
they learn have the potential to prevent wars from starting.
Leaders is a gift to the military
and our country.
This is because Leaders teaches nonviolent strategies to prevent
wars. Military personnel are often the first to acknowledge that every war that does not need to be fought is a gift.
The Teach Peace Foundation teaches what
is great about America can fix what is wrong. We value competition and
winning or losing school contracts based on the merits of the programs
we offer. We teach the power of being for something and the limitations
of investing energy to be against something (which is not to be confused
with holding people accountable for their behavior or opposing harmful
behaviors like glorifying war and discriminatory practices like
excluding disabled students from participating in JROTC).
The Pentagon spends over $3.4 billion
dollars on publicity and recruiting each year. This equates to over
$14,000 per new recruit (see http://www.pscelebrities.com/whitelightblacklight/2007/07/militarization-of-american-youth.htm).
The massive advertising budget may be targeted to label true patriotism,
such as promoting an end to the Iraq War or an alternative addressing
JROTC's deficiencies, as unpatriotic.
Leaders's program design highlights
serious foundational JROTC deficiencies (see the above "How is
Leaders superior comparison matrix). The Pentagon spends over $250 million
of taxpayer funds on JROTC. The illumination that JROTC funding is both
inefficient and an inappropriate use of our national treasure is a threat to
the Pentagon's expansion plans. People may also be presented with
disinformation about Leaders, sometimes coming from people directly
benefiting from JROTC. For example, the average JROTC instructor in San
Francisco earns over $105,000 per year (JROTC teachers usually earn
significantly more than other high school teachers). The quarter billion
plus of tax dollars spent each year translates into thousands of people
who have a reason to attack competing programs, not based on program
curriculum, but on the false claim of not being patriotic. As Samuel
Johnson observed: "Patriotism
is the last refuge of a scoundrel" (quoted in Boswell's Life of
Johnson and he was an English author, critic, & lexicographer living
from 1709 to 1784).
Yes.
Our full time staff is able to meet
the city of San Francisco's need to serve approximately 1,600 students.
Depending on the implementation option selected, the Teach Peace
Foundation can deliver peaceful leadership education and training in
four months or less. For example, our existing full time staff and on-hand inventory of materials enables us to
operate smaller pilot programs with just a few weeks notice.
The train-the-trainer sessions for new
Peace Teachers last 60 days. Peace Teachers are assisted with a Teach
Peace Foundation Certified Peace Professional for the first year. One
Certified Peace Professional
rotates to schools to assist Peace Teachers. The optimum ratio for the
first year is 7 Peace Teachers for every Certified Peace Professional. For year two
the numbers of Peace Teachers increases to 12 for every Certified Peace
Professional.
The
organization is the result of grass root calls to reach peace by
teaching peace. In 2005 and 2006,
a series of
"blueprint for peace" meetings were held in northern California
leading to the creation of the Teach Peace Foundation.
A list of the founding members is on this
site. Click here to see the list.
 Dave
Dionisi is the President. He is a former Fortune
500 executive and has successfully managed multi-million dollar
projects, started an orphanage in Africa, created businesses, and served
with distinction as an Army intelligence officer. Dave worked
passionately to prevent the unnecessary Iraq and Afghanistan wars by delivering peace
education. He is the author of several books and his peace articles are
published around the world. Dave’s senior executive leadership,
training, electronic commerce, process design, financial planning, and
marketing experience help explain how we offer unparalleled leadership
education and training.
Offering a superior alternative to JROTC does not require Leaders supporters
to oppose military training. The key point is why not offer high school students
the best leadership education and training possible?
The
Teach Peace Foundation does strongly support education and training that is age
appropriate. Many Leaders supporters find JROTC is inappropriate because of
the age of the students.
Consider that the age for legally consuming alcohol is 21. States like Vermont
have found a 40% reduction in vehicle fatalities by banning alcohol for people under 21. While the military allows people as young as 17 to be
trained to kill, an existing practice that seems odd especially given other
societal age restrictions like consuming alcohol, people often conclude military
training is inappropriate for high school students. Other age appropriate
examples include prohibitions for recruiting in high schools, as exemplified by
San Francisco.
Promoting militarism in high schools limits critical thinking and thereby promotes passivity (e.g. JROTC teaches "loyalty to
those above us in the chain of command, whether or not we agree with
them" as an imperative). Training techniques like marching drills teach students to obey
commands without taking the time to think.
School boards across the country are
finding militarism in high schools is wrong. Academic research, like the "Making
Soldiers in the Public Schools" report summarized below, increasingly
observe that JROTC is controlled by the Pentagon, discriminatory, glorifies war,
targets low income communities, creates passivity instead of critical thinking,
and offers biased textbooks.
Key Findings by the American
Friends Service Committee
"Making Soldiers in the Public
Schools: An Analysis of the Army JROTC Curriculum," is an American Friends
Service Committee publication. The publication raises concerns about the large and rapidly growing military
presence in American high schools, via the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps
(JROTC).
A comparison of the JROTC curriculum
and two widely used civilian high school civics and history textbooks
demonstrates that the JROTC curriculum falls well below accepted pedagogical
standards. Units on citizenship and history are strikingly different from
standard civilian texts on these subjects.
For example, the citizenship sections of the JROTC texts portray citizenship
as being primarily achieved through military service; provide only a short
discussion of civil rights; and downplay the importance of civilian control of
the military. By contrast, the civilian civics text treats political
participation as citizenship's defining feature and describes the Constitution's
framers' intent to control the power of the military by making a civilian the
commander of the armed forces. In comparison to the civilian history text,
historical events presented in the JROTC curriculum are distorted by the
omission of certain facts and/or perspectives. History is described as a linear
series of accomplishments by soldiers, while the progress engendered by regular
citizens is marginalized. America's wars are treated as having been inevitable.
JROTC curriculum defines leadership
as respect for constituted authority and the chain of command, rather than as
critical thinking and democratic consensus-building. JROTC consistently
conflates leadership and followership. Finally, the text encourages the reader
to rely uncritically on the military as a source of self-esteem and guidance.
JROTC's militarism runs counter to
many school-based initiatives to deter the spread of school violence. At a time
when schools are employing a variety of methods -- from metal detectors to peer
conflict mediation -- to curb incidents of violence in the schools, create safe
learning environments, and teach peaceful means of conflict resolution, JROTC's
introduction of weapons training, its partnership with the NRA to sponsor
marksmanship matches, and its modeling of militaristic solutions to problems
contradict schools' stated opposition to violence.
JROTC Facts
While JROTC materials produced to
attract school districts and individuals state that the program is not a
recruiting tool, 45 percent of all cadets who successfully complete JROTC enter
some branch of the service. Moreover, JROTC textbooks disproportionately tout
military careers as opposed to civilian ones. JROTC programs are more often
found in schools with a high proportion of non-white students, who now represent
54 percent of JROTC cadets, and in non-affluent schools. The program attracts
large numbers of women (40 percent of the total), but female JROTC teachers are
extremely rare. While schools may take on a JROTC unit hoping to gain resources,
in fact, JROTC drains resources from other educational programs through
cost-sharing requirements.
For
additional information, please see
http://www.afsc.org/youthmil/militarism-in-schools/JROTC-wrong-message.htm
and
http://www.afsc.org/youthmil/resources/military-free-zones.pdf.
Summary
Leaders is the superior student
leadership development alternative to develop citizens in a democracy.
Yes.
Prior to the passage of the federal
education bill (titled the No Child Left Behind Act) in January 2002, federal
and state laws allowed secondary schools to choose whether or not to release
student directory information (name, address, phone, etc.) to nonschool groups,
including the military. If schools chose to release the information, they were
also required to first notify parents and students of the right to not be
included. Under these rules, schools occasionally chose to withhold all
directory information from military recruiters. The No Child Left Behind Act
included a provision (fed. public law 107-110, Sec. 9528) that makes it harder
for schools to restrict military access to student lists. Now, if military
recruiters (or institutions of higher education) request students' names,
addresses and phone numbers, and the students have NOT opted out, schools must
surrender the information or risk losing federal funds granted under the
education bill.
Yes.
While many would argue that recruiting for the military is a good thing,
the issue is military recruiting appropriate for students as young as 14 years
old?
The
Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines have demonstrated that basic training adequately
prepares citizens to assimilate into military service. Military training is
unique in our society because it
teaches methods, tactics, and strategies of killing. Military training
intentionally values a life of an American as more valuable to help dehumanize
the "enemy" and facilitate killing on command. The military has proven
it can successfully train recruits for military service with existing active
duty training programs. Except to serve as a recruiting engine, there is no reason
to link leadership development with military training. Disguised as an education
program, JROTC is a trojan horse for Pentagon recruit high school students.
Consider the former United
States Secretary of Defense William Cohen referred to JROTC as "one of the best
recruitment programs we could have."1
In a February 2000 testimony
before the House Armed Services Committee, the armed service chiefs of staff
testified that 30%–50% of graduating JROTC cadets go on to join the military
(see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JROTC).
General James L. Jones,
Commandant of the Marine Corps testified that the value of the Marine JROTC
program "is beyond contest. Fully one-third of our young men and women who join
a Junior ROTC program wind up wearing the uniform of a Marine."
General Eric K. Shinseki,
Chief of Staff of the United States Army testified that "Our indications are
about 30 percent of those youngsters — we don't recruit them, as you know. We
are not permitted to do that. But by virtue of the things that they like about
that experience, about 30 percent of them end up joining the Army, either
enlisting or going on to ROTC and then joining the officer population."
General Michael E. Ryan,
Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force testified that "almost 50 percent
of the folks that go [...] out of the Air Force Junior ROTC go into one of the
Services by enlisting or going to ROTC or going to one of the academies."
Admiral Jay L. Johnson, Chief
of Naval Operations testified that "Even if the number is only 30 percent, that
is a good number. But think about what we get out of the other 70 percent. They
have exposure to us."2
General Colin Powell admitted
in his 1995 autobiography that "the armed forces might get a youngster more
inclined to enlist as a result of Junior ROTC."3
US Congress found in the
Recruiting, Retention, and Reservist Promotion Act of 2000 that JROTC and
similar programs "provide significant benefits for the Armed Forces, including
significant public relations benefits."4
Sources:
1Huet-Vaughn,
Emiliano (September/October 2001). School: A place to teach or to recruit?
10-11. The Human Quest. Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
22H.R.
4205 - Hearings on National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001
before the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, February 10,
2000.
3Stodghill,
Ron (March 2002). Class Warfare. Time Magazine. Retrieved on 2006-12-30.
4Recruiting,
Retention, and Reservist Promotion Act of 2000 (HR 4208) online at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c106:H.R.4208.IH:
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