Saying the Pledge of Allegiance

The "us vs. them" issue is something I'm addressing in my psychological therapy right now, as I often can feel threatened by parents, and in general don't get along well with peers, it's been kind of a cognitive development issue since early childhood.

I'm planning on being a math teacher, so there really isn't much room within class to bring up too many very controversial issues, and even said I cannot teach social studies simply because there is too much room to input personal controversial opinions into the curriculum.

However, what I was simply stating is that, the fact that some parents might complain is simply not enough to discourage me from doing something if I don't feel as if I'm doing anything wrong. I feel that it is obligation for students to be made aware that their participation in the pledge is optional and no consequences will come from it.

My goal in the long term though is to find a solution into how to make parents more of a partner instead of a competitor, and not see them as threats. Many make it pretty difficult though.

 

Spewing my morning beverage all over with this comment.

 

Some teachers make the partnership pretty difficult too.

The fact that you recognize your "us vs them" mentality is wrong is a positive step in the right direction, as is the therapy to address and improve that.

With any job, you have to choose your battles - determine which battles ARE worth fighting for and which ones can be let go. Even after you make that decision, the manner in which you fight the can be critical in determining the success of the outcome.

Abraham Lincoln was once asked "How can you befriend your enemies when you would rather destroy them?"
Lincoln answered "When I make them my friend, do I not "destroy" them as an enemy?"

That's a good lesson for all of us to learn and follow.

Parents can be your strongest ally or your strongest opponent. Which it will be depends directly on how you interact with them.

 

Standing ovation! :thumb: Wish more professionals would realize this.

 

As much as I have been supportive of your position on this topic, I have to caution you STRONGLY here. Calling the parents of your future students "stupid" as a generalization is a bad idea. Even if it's in your own head, you are making a decision to equate religion and patriotism with stupidity. For many, it's that religious fervor that keeps them seated during the Pledge. Keep it in perspective.

 

Keep in mind that your future students will generally be minors who are still legally under the care and control of their parents. Those parents are legally entitled to set expectations for their children. Encouraging them to rebel against those expectation is interfering with the parent-child relationship. No ACLU friends will be able to help you if you're accused of doing that within your role as a teacher.

 

If you don't get over the "me vs them" attitude, don't try to go into teaching. Period, end of story. Take your degree and get a desk job somewhere.

 

And as a future first year teacher, your main focus will really be to teach the subject and keep your mouth shut! Sure, you may have want to convince your students and admin that you're correct, but at the end of it all, you'll probably get canned for something like this. I'm about to finish my first year and I would avoid this discussion in a heartbeat! Just teach math!

 

I haven't commented although I have been reading. Until now I could overlook you "idealistic" ways that you would run a classroom because you obviously have no tact about implementing certain rules in your classroom.
With all that said, I would be one of those people/parents who you refer to as "stupid" because of my Christian belief. If either of my children were in your class and you began with you laundry list of reasons why you don't/won't say the pledge and then bled over into the religious issues you hold with this country, you can bet I would 100% be at your administrators office the next morning complaining. Especially if it is phrased the way you have here. Your opinion has no basis on what any child should or should not do and each child should be allowed to do/think as they please when considering the pledge.
I do however agree that each child should be taught and know the meaning of the pledge and not just recite some phrases, but that is not my issue to resolve outside of my two kids.

I think as others have said, you best option would be to not say the pledge and when the students ask why, you simply tell them I have made the decision to not say the pledge and leave it at that, or just redirect the questions.

 

I can't agree more!

 

Reading this thread, I've been getting the same impression, SF_Giants66. The way you're communicating your ideas on this thread seems very hostile to me, and because of that, I have to agree with Caesar753 and say that I would also recommend you avoid bringing this issue up.

I didn't say the pledge through high school, and since then I've only really said it to help children learn the words. I agree, I feel as though students should be aware that saying the pledge is a CHOICE and not a REQUIREMENT (I've always been aware of this; no administrators or teachers of mine ever told me that we HAD to stand and say anything if we didn't feel we wanted to). That said, if I was a parent of a student in your class, and you gave a speech about the pledge similar to what you've been saying on here, I'd break my hands-off policy and I'd be on the phone with one of your administrators the next morning, too.

 

I actually didn't say I thought people were stupid just for being Christian. What I said is many of them were being raised by stupid parents teaching them misconceptions such as the pledge was always part of tradition when it wasn't, and "one nation under dog" was part of our original motto, when it wasn't part of the pledge until 1954, and telling them the pledge should be as is, while neglecting to tell them that it was changed in 1954, and is unconstitutional. Also, that they are teaching their kids that we are a Christian country, when the constitution explicitly states otherwise. Are you one of those parents that lies to your kids? Then yes, I would consider you stupid. If not, nothing I said applies to you.

The fact is, religion is responsible for much of the bullying in schools. Christianity has come to the point where its goal is pretty much to teach hate and intolerance to both secular people and gay people, and they cloak it by their clever little, "god loves the sinner, but just hates the sin" nonsense.


So, no, I don't consider people stupid just for going to church and believing in Christ, but that just seems to be the store front for the speakeasy of hatred which Christianity is pretty much all about anymore. I hardly go a week anymore without being told I'm a sinner and evil for being gay, and that not believing in god means I'm gonna burn in hell, not to mention all the times where people say they have no desire to waste their time on anyone who doesn't believe in god right to me.

 

I have to tell you that if you were to share some of your views in the classroom as the teacher of my child, I would find it offensive. I would have my child removed from your class.

What you do and say on your own time is your business.

 

I think you are very confrontational especially to those that are not saying what you want to hear. The fact is you will alienate yourself not only from your future students and parent, but also your future colleagues and administration with your comments. You might not like the fact that people teach their children to say the pledge, believe in God, or that they raise their children in a religion. That is the right of a parent. You as a parent have that same right, and it is not your place as a to tell people they are stupid because they don't hold the same beliefs as you. You need to consider if teaching is the right career choice for you. You don't or refuse to understand that you cannot make parents or students conform to your way of thinking because you disagree with them.

 

Well so far, nobody really has given me an example of what I said that they found offensive.

 

They have pointed out many areas.

I will absolutely teach my future children that Christianity is the majority religion. I will also teach them that we respect people of ALL religions, not just the one we believe in. I will teach them that there are laws that mirror our bible and other religious texts (thou shall not kill is pretty big in most religions). I will teach them there is a time and a place to share religious beliefs. I will teach them to be respectful of people who say the pledge, those who leave out that line, and those who don't say it at all.

Most importantly I will tell them that we never call people stupid for what they believe in. I will teach them how to engage politely and enter healthy debates where they are respectful above all else.

 

With all due respect, I've not once met a parent who has never lied to their child. Are parents stupid for teaching their kids to believe in Santa? Are they stupid for telling their kids that there's no more ice cream in the house, when really they just don't want them eating any more sugar for the night? Are they stupid for saying that the family pet went to "live on a farm" (or some other variation)? For telling their kids that "looks don't matter at all"? For telling them "you can be anything you want to be!"?

It's more the tone that comes across that I find offensive, not exactly any one statement. Though, if you really want one example: the fact that you're calling anyone stupid.

 

There's a difference between telling something to a 6 year old and telling something to a 16 year old. There are also things parents tell their children, knowing that eventually it will be outgrown. If parents were teaching about Santa Claus in such a way that they still believed it as an adult... I wouldn't consider it stupid, but I also wouldn't consider it a healthy behavior.

SF is taking his disdain of Christianity to a far extreme (there are few conditions where I would consider it okay to consider somebody "stupid"), but there are many things Christians have a tendency to do that I have a problem with, and most of those things involve what they tell their children. I've seen 8 year olds talk seriously about how a character in a story would be going to hell, and that's the sort of thing that parents should be ashamed of.

 

Oh, I understand that there's a difference between telling an six year old there's no more ice cream and telling a sixteen year old they should say the pledge; I was purposefully exaggerating the issue to the extreme to make my point. (Though, I'd say the whole Santa thing is a little less ridiculous than the ice cream point, because there does seem to be some contention among parents who do teach about Santa and those who do not.)

My point was just to say (and I apologize, because I should have clarified this) that parents obviously tell small lies on a regular basis in order to parent as best as they can. They also tell kids things that they believe as truths, too, even though others might not. Raising their kids in a certain religion and telling them certain things as facts (ie. "God exists."; "Your grandmother is in Heaven."; "You shouldn't do that; that's a sin."; etc) can fall into this ambiguous area, obviously. I think that telling their kids that the pledge of allegiance is important and that they should say it can also fall into this category. ...I'm not explaining this right, I apologize. I just mean, that people don't seem to have an issue with the straight-up lies that we tell our kids, but for some reason, things more ambiguous, that can be perceived as lies OR as truth depending on one's perspective, cause heated debates. I find that interesting.

I was also just trying to point out that clearly SF wasn't calling ALL parents who EVER lie to their children "stupid." No, SF was focusing specifically on one group: religious parents.

 

I'll be glad to help you out with that.

1. As mentioned above, calling anyone "stupid" for any reason is pretty offensive. Calling parents (in general) "stupid" for teaching their kids something YOU think is wrong is very offensive (not to mention pretty stupid itself).

2 "one nation under dog" - The first time, I gave the benefit of a doubt that it might be a typo. The second time confirms that it's just your way of taking a childish pot-shot at Christianity and the Christian God by changing his name to a more demeaning form. That's disrespectful, at the very least. Changing the name of any god to a deliberately demeaning form is going to be quite offensive to those who worship that deity.

3. "Christianity is pretty much all about hatred anymore" - That might be your view, but that doesn't make it a fact. I understand your view is shaped by your experiences, but that still only makes it your view and not an absolute fact. As above, stating ANY religion is "pretty much all about hate" is likely to be very offensive to those who follow that religion.

Those are the most obvious examples that jump out.

Most people of faith do take their faith very seriously and they ARE going to be offended by anyone they feel is being intentionally disrespectful of their beliefs and their faith. Thus far, you have not shown the ability to state your own views without going out of your way to be confrontational (and somewhat hostile) about it. As one of the early posters commented, it sounds as if you're almost daring people to disagree with you or take offense at what you say so you have even more reason to continue shouting from your soapbox. Unless you can change that style of communication, then you may not reach the your stated goal of 100 complaints on your first day, but you'll come pretty close. And, like all the others have said, you're gonna find very quickly your admin and colleagues are NOT going to come to the defense of a new teacher who goes out of their way to alienate and/or upset the parents because of their beliefs.

 

Teaching children religious faith is generally something I see as abusive with some exceptions.

When I was growing up as a teenager, I can't remember a single Sunday where we weren't told about the fearful dangers of anything related to sex. We were told we were sinful and wrong for masturbating, for having any sexual fantasies other than vanilla type sex with our spouse, told it we were sinful for homosexuality, etc. It got to the point where I beat myself up for years because I simply could not make myself attracted to women no matter how hard I tried. It was shortly after all this that I learned this is pretty much mainstream Christianity in our country. If you're gonna make your kids go to church, you might as well just sign away their sanity and emotional well being.

In 2004, a girl in high school was kicked off the basketball team for not participating in the Lord's Prayer at a public high school. In 2011, a guy's parents threw his stuff out on the lawn and locked him out of the house for telling the school that it was unconstitutional to make everyone say a prayer before high school graduation and got it called off.

So yes, religion is pretty much places a pin on people that puts them on a pedestal over other people in their minds, and makes them more intolerant and hateful towards everyone. I don't even care that people believe in a different philosophical idea than I do.

As far as lying goes, telling your children this is a Christian country just because Christians are a majority is the same as if you were to tell them we are a white country if whites were the majority. To tell them our founding fathers intended for the country to be Christian is deceitful and wrong.

Religion seems to have become the #1 justification for bullying and intolerance in society, and carries over to the problem of bullying in schools.

To not give children a choice over their religious affiliation is simply wrong and abusive. Yet, I haven't really been told by any Christian parents that they allowed their child to not be Christian if they chose to reject it.

Also, to say that parents are the only ones who have a right to influence their children is a joke. Their children are going to be influence by many spheres. Other family members, friends, and yes, even teachers.

 

Seems you have the same problem with hatred, intolerance, and bias of which you're accusing the whole of Christianity.

 

Teaching falsehoods about the pledge and constitution to children with attempt to get them to develop your worldview is either stupid, or just down right abusive. Take your pick.

 

Might you consider the possibility that perhaps those specific examples might not be indicative of "religion" as a whole?

Are you upset mainly or only with Christianity, or do you deem all religions abusive?

 

Frankly, I'm beginning to think those adjectives apply to you.

 

I'm mainly angry at any religion which people try to dominate a society with. Jews in America are not attempting to take over and make our laws about their beliefs, so I generally tend to make friends with them a lot easier.

 

How can you possibly justify that?

 

This, to me, is an offensive assumption that you are making, and, to me, screams of intolerance. I'd have to side with comaba here.

I think you're making a very hasty generalization, here. There are plenty of Christians who have no issues with homosexuality, and plenty of Christian Sunday services that talk about issues completely unrelated to sex. Step outside of Christianity, and there are plenty of religions where people are often accepting of homosexuality, too.

To say that bringing a child to church is going to sign away their sanity and emotional well being is just straight up inaccurate. Many different churches (in fact, I'd even say MOST churches) offer so many programs that are hugely beneficial to children's emotion and social well-beings. So many only offer lessons on good morals and smart decision making skills, and there are plenty that even inform children of all of the different religious options and beliefs that exist. Most churches foster tolerance, and I am very sorry that you clearly had a bad experience with yours, but you should not assume that that is the norm.

You really shouldn't try and use two isolated examples to try and argue that religion as a whole is negative.

Religion can also make people MORE tolerant. Christianity teaches of acceptance and love, Unitarian Universalism teaches of acceptance for everyone, of exploring beliefs, and Buddhism teaches of all life being precious.

For the record, it's also deceitful to tell children that religion is evil and causes intolerance.

There are plenty of parents who allow their children to choose a different path, for the record. You probably haven't run into any who have told you this because it's not a common thing to come up in a discussion, as it's all very personal. Although, I'm guessing if the topic did come up, they wouldn't be interested in contradicting you if you became confrontational about it.

Of course, children are going to be influenced by everyone. But in our society, we allow parents to choose what to educate their children in. They can be educated in religion, and they can be homeschooled if that's desired.

 

Well, I could fashion a long diatribe about your oversimplified and prejudiced statements about a segment of society, your unequivocal beliefs that Christianity is evil, and your contempt of others' beliefs and values, but I don't see the benefit.

I will say that I am a Christian, I support marriage equality, I would have loved my children if they were gay just as I love them now, and I am offended by your statements.

But just because YOU have offended me, I won't hold it against all gay people.

 

1. When you are not tenured - aka new - Admin can let you go for whatever reason they want. I see it every year. Make Admin angry, rile too many feathers and they will PIP you (which is common here for new teachers anyway), then they will fire you.

The PIP is Admin's protection from your claims that you were fired over the Pledge.

2. What you might think is the "right thing," others may argue is the wrong thing. Your moral convictions do not make you right, IMO.

 

You are very offensive towards Christians. I'm sure if people spoke to you in a similar manner about your beliefs; you would scream discrimination, hatred, bigotry, intolerance, etc.

You obviously have issues with Christianity.

 

All this anger over simply telling children that they don't have to say the pledge, and informing them that the pledge was changed in 1954.

 

SF_Giants66, I'm curious about where it is that you live if you are being reminded weekly of your impending damnation. Uganda? Saudi Arabia? The Westboro Baptist compound, perhaps? hmy: I'm an atheist and a lesbian who was raised in a very religious environment in Georgia. To say the least, it was awful. However, in my adult life I've lived in cities and have never been told that I was going to hell. Not once, and I'm very open about who I am and have several Christian friends. In fact, if somebody were to tell me that I was going to hell, I would wholeheartedly laugh at the absurdity of it. If you are being told regularly that you are going to hell, then there is a serious problem. Either you are living in an unwelcoming environment, you are arguing with people on the comment section of YouTube, or you are discussing religion with people and making your own interpretations of what has been said to you. This is not a normal experience, so I highly recommend making some changes in your life.

 

It's a combination of things. I read people on the internet making rash religious fanatic remarks a lot. There are some street preachers every now and then trying to convince us to accept their religion to stay out of hell. Other than that, the in person remarks are very little. I've been called quite a few names on YouTube and political news comment feeds though.

 

Completely wrong. The responses you are receiving have absolutely nothing to d with telling children they don't have to say the pledge and informing them it was changed in in 1954.

You stated before that nobody had told you exactly which statements of yours were offensive. Since then, you've received several replies and all of them focused on your specific comments and general attitude towards religion in general and Christianity in particular.

You go out of your way to make confrontational statements about the majority religion of our society, then claim "all I said was they didn't have to say the pledge and it was changed in 1954". That's simply not true. You've said a great deal more than that and, in fact, simply used the pledge as a segue to insert your rants against religion. Very little of what you have said in this thread actually focused on the pledge itself.

Despite that, the replies you've received have not been full of anger. They have been examples of people explaining why your comments and attitude are offensive to them. Just because I or others explain why we find your comments offensive doesn't mean we are angry about them. There is a difference between being offended and being angry. Unfortunately, you have a LOT of anger and bitterness yourself towards Christianity because of the experiences you've had. I understand that, but until you find a way to acknowledge that anger, address it and overcome it, you're chances of succeeding as a new teacher are going to be slim because you honestly do not seem capable of NOT making offensive remarks about things you disagree with.

Your admin will be very likely to NOT renew your contract at the end of the first year, if you even make it that far.

You spoke in your opening post about your "friends in the ACLU". With your general attitude, all it will take is for one student to challenge YOUR views on the pledge and religion and a second student to use their phone to record your resulting diatribe against the evil influence of religion in this country and post that on YouTube. Then you will find your friends in the ACLU distancing themselves from you faster than Repubs running from Cliven Bundy.

 

The comment sections an almost ANY website are filled with hateful, ignorant remarks from ALL sides of any issue being discussed. Our society as a whole has become intolerant of differing views and that has nothing to do with Christianity or any other religion. It has everything to do with people using the anonymity of the computer screen to make themselves feel "big" by belittling any views of others that differ from their own.

The best advice I can give you is to AVOID the comment sections of YouTube and (especially) political news sites if you are going to take the comments there personally. I will sometimes read them just for laughs and entertainment, but I always end up shaking my head and just HOW MUCH ignorance, intolerance and outright hatred people express towards each other just because they have a somewhat different view than the other person.


Just like the isolated examples you gave earlier, the folks that DO participate regularly in comment sections are NOT representative of an segment of our society as a whole.

 

How about "one nation under dog" that you have repeated. That is offensive to me.

 

I will once again suggest that you do what you intended to do on the first day. Make sure you use the same words and let them know how stupid it is to do so and how stupid it is to be taught by their parents to say under God. Make sure to stress that you believe this is accurate and it is your duty as a teacher to make sure you teach them what YOU think is right.

You really need to do this at every job you go to. You owe it to the kids and the profession to make your views known as soon as possible and as clear and forceful as you can.

 

It's too bad that a rational, reasoned discussion has become a soapbox for one person's hatemongering.

Calling people abusive for teaching their own religion is ridiculously offensive and if you don't see that, you're either as willfully ignorant as the people you claim to be against or you're far too immature to teach children anyway.

 

Wow. My church is extremely welcoming. As a child my sanity and emotional well-being was just fine. My priest makes a point every week to talk about acceptance. He never judges people and has never once said anything about damning people to hell. He has blessed all different types of marriages. He is one of the most forgiving people I know. My grandmother who was extremely religious was one of the sweetest, kindest people I've met. There are mean people of all faiths and non-faiths. It's just a fact.

As an English teacher, I never change the words in anything we read. If there's cussing, we read it. If there's a mention of religion, we read it. I find it very insulting you purposefully change the wording of the pledge, whether you agree with it or not.

I hope my (future) child never gets someone who acts so offensively. If they do, I'll be the first parent in the office demanding something change.