Academic Freedom
James Madison once said, "A people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power that knowledge gives. A popular government without the means of acquiring information is a prologue to a tragedy." It is because I agree with Madison that I stand in strong affirmation of the resolution, "When in conflict, academic freedom in U.S. High Schools ought to be valued above community standards." To better clarify the round I offer the following definitions (definitions). The ultimate value that will be upheld in today's debate will be that of Knowledge, knowledge is generally defined as acquaintance with fact or truth. It is the state of knowing or understanding. I have one observation dealing with my value: my opponent my argue that knowledge is undesirable because the information we require my be untrue and leads us astray. You should note that this argument is illegitimate because it does not attack knowledge; it attacks false hood, which by definition cannot be knowledge. My value will be supported through my Criterion of the Cost Benefit Analysis, where I will show you that the benefits we as a society would receive through academic freedom greatly outweigh the costs. Therefore the person that can show more ben
On to my third level of analysis: The marketplace of ideas is necessary in America's High Schools. Frederick Frieseke once said, "The key to your universe is the right you have to choose." Step one in this level will show that the Right to Choose no longer exists in Public Education. Children a have right to learn; however, when we look at public education the students do not have the right to choose what they want to learn. This may be argued that a student has a right to pick certain classes for electives, this is true. But I am not talking about the right to choose classes; I am talking about what is being taught in the classes. Students should have the right to learn more than what a small group of adults think they should. If a student wants to learn more about a certain subject he must provide his own means of doing so. However, the limits placed upon on their education also extend to the computers and libraries in the schools, and in many cases even the public libraries, making it even harder for a student to increase their knowledge on a particular subject. Step number two will present how the Right to Choose Must be Present in High Schools. Until an adolescent reaches the age of eighteen he or she is required by law to be in school for a certain amount of hours each year. The reason for this law is to make sure that our country consist of well rounded, educated people. However our public school system is a contradiction of itself. If we require students to come to school and to be taught, the school has an obligation to educate the student. The marketplace of ideas symbolizes the learning process. In order for a person to make a decision and learn from it, they must have more than one thing to choose from, otherwise there is no choice to be made and in result no knowledge is gained. Plain and simple, if we require students to be in school, we must require the schools to teach and not read a script. Now on to my second level of analysis: Restricting academic freedom will make society more vulnerable to irrational prejudic
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Approximate Word count = 1380
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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