Here’s yet another example of a school run by righteous idiots.
A high school junior has sued the Palm Beach County School Board, claiming he was ridiculed and punished for refusing to stand during the Pledge of Allegiance.
Cameron Frazier, with the support of the American Civil Liberties Union, is challenging the school district and Florida law that require students to show written permission from their parents before declining to recite the pledge.
Teacher Cynthia Alexandre called the 17-year-old student ”so ungrateful and so un-American” after he twice refused to stand for the pledge in her classroom Nov. 8, according to a federal lawsuit filed Thursday.
Does anyone really think that punishing and ridiculing kids will get them to love America?!
Children give up many constitutional rights when then enter the school yard and that has held up in court. The school paper doesn’t have the right to free speech like regular newspapers. The principal can censor it.
This law doesn’t treat the flag or the Constitution as sacred.
It treats the classroom as sacred.
I believe the breakdown in discipline in our classrooms is the #1 reason for children not learning. Having to standup and follow the teacher’s instructions should be the minimum requirement for being in school. They aren’t telling the students what to think or what to say. They can remain silent if they want. But in a classroom setting, remaining seated when the teacher has told everyone to stand is the equivalent of yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater. Just ask James Dean.
30 years ago the students at my alma mater in Berkeley fought for the right to do and think and say what they pleased. They fought the “en parentis locus” policy that the university should act like local surrogate parents to its students. But those students were ADULTS!
We expect teachers to get our children to pay attention and learn, at the same time we sue away their ability to enforce discipline. The schools are having to act more and more like parents, while the parents sue the schools in order to have their children treated as fully-formed adults.
My children will be attending a Jesuit Catholic school – where I was privileged to go — where they teach you to think your own thoughts, but if you don’t walk the walk, you’ll be out on your ear.
thast kinda funny really – back in my highschool days I had the best excuse – because its hard to play the sousaphone and do the “hand over heart” thing – its over rated anyway… repeating some boring series of phrases doesnt make you any less american or patriotic – it makes you different, thats what people hate.
David Clark >> I always loathed saying the pledge because I felt it infringed with my personal religious beliefs.
All the monotheistic religions should have a problem pledging TO A FLAG. It goes against a core theology we share.
It’s perplexing that the Religious Right — who claim to be such good Christians — are the first to beat somebody down for not pledging to an icon.
Good point about the classroom being the real sacred place. Now, wouldn’t it be nice if teachers in our culture were respected (and paid) more for being the custodians and administrators of that sacred place, if they’re good at it? And yes, students need all the caring, positive discipline they can get (and best of all, to learn self discipline).
Geez… ‘sacred’… bad choice of a word, sorry I used it.
But then again, you’ve got to admit that an awful lot of people put an aura of holiness around the flag as if it were handed down by God or something (and not just in the good ‘ol USA, either). And the Constitution? Just a foolish notion dreamed up by a bunch of those self-defeating “liberals”. Toilet paper.
mmmm………..isnt america the paladin of democracy? the master of freedom in this world?……don’t you think that is quite shoking that ou have to stand up and swear like you were swearing to a king?…..mmmm, i think and feel that america is having a lot of problems internaly after 9/11, and dont misunderstand me, thats was horribly for saying the least, but who gave the gov the right to tell you whats you have to do BY LAW? isnt funny that the empires always had this double moral? does it happend all the time in human history that the empire applys law…..to the others and not to himself?.
and by the wat america is goingo to construct a wall……….like the one of berlin……….just courious dont you think.