And the Kiddies Say 'Praise Obama!'

All we need is for somebody is to found “Saint Barry’s First Divine Church of the Holy State filled Overcoming Community Organizers with Signs and Wonders Following” and we’d have a violation of the separation clause.

[quote]jsbrook wrote:
Bill Roberts wrote:
Ah, this kind of thing has been going on for a long time. (Not that that makes it acceptable.)

I was in the first grade in the year of the '68 election.

At age 6, I didn’t know anything about the candidates. It is unlikely that any of my classmates would have had real knowledge either: if they even had name recognition, it would only have been from whatever they had heard from their parents, most likely.

Anyhow, the teacher decided to have an “election” in the class, and passed out pieces of paper and wrote the names of the candidates on the board.

Namely, Humphrey, Nixon, and Wallace.

As mentioned, I had no knowledge of the candidates – not even name recognition. All I had to go on was the names.

I didn’t like the name Humphrey, didn’t know what to think about the name Nixon, but it occurred to me that the name Wallace sounded like wallet, and perhaps he had money and could help us.

(What do you want: I was only 6.)

So I wrote Wallace on the piece of paper.

Well, as the teacher went through the “ballots” and read names, she got to that one and became FURIOUS. Her face became – not as a figure of speech, but reality – white with anger. She demanded, in an obviously furious way, to know who had voted for Wallace.

Now, supposing that a kid had had an actual political philosophy and experienced his teacher reacting with such rage and demanding to know who had cast such a vote, wouldn’t that be “indoctrinating” ?

Indoctrinating against, but still indoctrinating.

Pretty funny story, though. Did you speak up?[/quote]

Nope. I didn’t develop my outspokenness until some later age :slight_smile:

They don’t have school prayer at this school, do they? I’d hate to see any kind of indoctrination going on.

[quote]Michael570 wrote:
Ugh. That’s just wrong and the music teacher is an idiot.

But mandated “patriotic moments”, usually taking the form of the Pledge of Allegiance, are worse. I’m wondering if the conspiracy nuts get their panties bunched up over those too.[/quote]

My fifth grade teacher made us all say the pledge, but then again, she was a complete bitch about everything. Otherwise, no other time have I ever had to say the pledge. I choose to, but I like how we’re not forced to.

That’s the problem with elementary school. Kids always do what their friends do and what their teachers tell them to. They don’t know any better. This would never happen in high school, and even in some middle school.