Each morning when I was in school, we would start the day by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Thankfully, many schools still honor the practice, but it is becoming painfully obvious that patriotism is the next target of the left wing thought police. In Oklahoma, a student was given the assignment of reciting the Pledge in Spanish, and now in a New York town students are not even saying the full Pledge. The school kind of starts it then stops. What in the world is going on?
As FoxNews.com reports, in Edmond, Oklahoma, an eighth grade student was told he would be given a zero if he did not complete his assignment of saying the Pledge of Allegiance in Spanish. The assignment was part of a Spanish class, but the mother, Melissa Taggart, said, “There are poems, lyrics, and great writes that she could have chosen that emphasize the Spanish culture and to teach our children. … Why the Pledge of Allegiance?”
The school district claims that the Pledge was used, because “students need to learn something they are familiar with, like short phrases in the foreign language.” Sounds fair enough, but there are plenty of choices to use rather than the Pledge, right?
Then there’s the North Collins Elementary School in New York that’s not reciting the full Pledge at all, whether in English, Spanish, or whatever language you pick. According to FoxNews.com, a member of the school board has resigned after the board voted not to require “students to recite the entire Pledge of Allegiance together — not just the opening line.”
They only say the opening line of the Pledge on the school’s PA system, then they stop? Why, you ask? According to the school board member who resigned, Rosemarie Troidl, “The principal doesn’t think the children get the full benefit of saying the Pledge as a group because children say it at different speed.” Different speeds? What kind of reason is that?
Basically, the principal is saying that students don’t recite the Pledge of Allegiance because it’s too hard to say in unison. Hmmmm. That’s interesting because the students at this school DO start off the day saying a “character pledge” in unison. Once this pledge is recited, the PA announcer recites the first line of the Pledge of Allegiance, and then the PA system is turned off.
Here’s the school’s “character pledge”:
I pledge each day to do my best,
In Reading, Math and all the rest,
I promise to obey the rules,
In my class and in my school.
I will respect myself and others too,
I will expect the best in all I do.
I am here to learn all I can,
To try my best and be all that I am.I AM PROUD TO BE ME!
So… the students can basically pledge allegiance to their class and school but not to the country and flag that have given them the gifts of freedom and liberty?
Troidl sums it up like this: “If the children can recite the character pledge in unison, they can recite the Pledge of Allegiance. It’s a 68-word character pledge. The Pledge of Allegiance has 31 words.”
Time and time again we see the Pledge of Allegiance coming under attack by the left. Whether it’s the words “under God” or the patriotic nature of the Pledge itself, the left would rather “embrace diversity” (whatever that means) than teach patriotism. Just look at Democrat Betty McCollum who for some reason was picked to lead the Pledge of Allegiance in Congress one day:
Patriotism should be right up there with the 3 Rs. If we forget where we came from and the price it took to get here, we will surely lose track of where we are going.
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