Some Utah educators are so enchanted with the extremist egalitarian classroom schemes required by "outcome-based education" (OBE) that they fail to see the folly in punishing an entire high school for the admittedly outrageous misdeeds of a few football players.
Partly at fault are group conformity ideals promoted through OBE's pedagogy called "cooperative learning."OBE educators have chanted such cooperative learning mantras as "We sink or swim together" and "I can attain my goal only if you attain your goal" for so long now that they actually believe the individual should not act without the group's consensus.
This "group think" theory is so strong that educators are even encouraged to administer group grades - peer pressure psychology.
Some theories are best left in the lab. All it takes to prove this point is for your child to come home complaining that he got a bad grade because the teacher chose the lowest individual grade in the group to give to everybody.
The resulting resentment would be similar to the anger fueled by the school district's group punishment, apparently meted out by educational idealists who disregard human nature.
Isn't there something somewhere in Utah's dominant culture a statement of beliefs (or even in constitutional law, for that matter) that says individuals should not be punished for the wrongdoing of others?
Cherilyn Gulbrandsen
Provo