That's a terrible terrible thing to see. Just awful. Absolutely horrid.
The thing is that these kids(I feel funny calling them 'kids', I'm only 20 myself') don't have any frame of reference...they are told about the first amendment, but then they are very nonchalant about it because they can't fathom what the alternative is. You have to understand, many, many, high school students are completely ignorant not only of major happenings in the history of this and other countries, but of what's going on in the world right NOW. They may hear/read about world events like the war in Iraq or the Iraqi elections or see stuff on TV about it, but they're not comprehending it...they're not realizing that one of the MAJOR reasons for conflict in the Middle East is that they DON'T HAVE what we have in the first amendment. These kids just aren't being persuaded enough to start paying attention to the world in which they live.
There are several reasons for this.
One, as someone else said, many school systems are just very hesitant to allow anything that could even REMOTELY be the least bit offensive to ANYONE, to be taught in schools. They're afraid of parents finding out and getting angry and doing something about it. First of all, these parents should think about not getting so outraged whenever anything that goes against their own culture/beliefs is taught. To truely appreciate one's culture or to truely believe in this or that, one has to know why he/she doesn't appreciate or doesn't believe in the other culture or belief, and to have that knowledge, they must learn. That's step one, parents not being so sensitive to stuff like that. I'm surprised there aren't more stories about parents getting angry when students are taught about communism during the Vietnam and Cold War units(which any American history class should have).
Two, most public high schools are a joke-worthy. Trust me, I attended one until 18 months ago. Let me just say that football/basketball/baseball/whatever coaches should not be allowed to teach any kind of history class, unless of course one was a teacher before one was a coach, in which case it's ok, but that's not all that common of an occurance. There is no point in being taught about the seminal events of world history by a guy who knows nothing about it and is basically teaching by reading out of a book. Now, in contrast to that, I had in my Junior year an American History teacher who was far and away the best teacher I ever had up until college. Because he made the students in his class converse about history. He didn't lecture all that much, he just gave us reading assignments and then in class he would start conversations, ask one student what a certain event entailed, ask another why that event was important, maybe spark some debate. And if people were going in the wrong direction factually he would steer them back on course. This sort of conversational teaching is ideal for History. Schools should pay more attention to what teaching styles work best for what subjects, and when I said 'work best', I mean have the most effect on the students. Just doing that could possibly improve students' learning experience and leave them with a better understanding of what they're supposedly learning.
Third and final, I don't really think kids are encouraged/persuaded enough to keep themselves informed about the news. I don't care if you get it by reading a newspaper or by reading news online(what I do most of the time), the point is that if you are 14 or 15 or older, you are old enough to start paying attention the world you live in. Even if it's just watching the condensed and quick news pieces on the networks' evening news programs, or better yet in-depth news on CNN(or other 24-hour news networks), just keep informed. It's not hard. It's a good and important thing to do and kids are told that enough.
I was always told by my parents and a select few history teachers that the purpose of learning history and keeping up with world events is so that we don't repeat history. And that's true. This article proves it.