August 9, 2018 11:18 AM
Why Does This *Atlanta* Elementary School HATE America?
Won’t someone think of the children?
The “reason” according to principal Lara Zelski said in a memo circulated to parents is “to begin our day as a fully inclusive and connected community.”
She added: “Over the past couple of years it has become increasingly obvious that more and more of our community were choosing to not stand and/or recite the pledge.”
If we had even more local control of schools this would never happen!
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edatlanta
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Trump tweet coming in 5..4..3..2..
If he Tweets about this I will only eat sub sandwiches for lunch for a month.
Please no.. that’s just… crazy talk.
So if a school doesn’t force a kindergartener to say the pledge, it must hate America? That’s completely insane.
I applaud the school’s decision. I’ve always found it bizarre that we have kids “pledge allegiance” to the United States when they don’t even understand what a “pledge,” “allegiance,” or the “United States” is. And as someone who’s not religious and is not going to force religion on my child, I’m uncomfortable with my kid blindly reciting “one nation under god” without any inkling of what that language connotes. If you want to make your kid a patriot, do it on your own time–I just want my kid to learn.
Those who are familiar with Ed will know that he was being facetious. I think. Perhaps pre-empting others’ comments to come.
Interesting history:
“The U.S. Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag was written in 1892 by then 37-year-old minister Francis Bellamy. The original version of Bellamy’s pledge read, “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic, for which it stands,—one nation, indivisible—with liberty and justice for all.” By not specifying to which flag or which republic allegiance was being pledged, Bellamy suggested that his pledge could be used by any country, as well as the United States.
Bellamy wrote his pledge for inclusion in the Boston-published Youth’s Companion magazine – “The Best of American Life in Fiction Fact and Comment.” The pledge was also printed on leaflets and sent to schools throughout the United States at the time.
The first recorded organized recital of the original Pledge of Allegiance took place on Oct. 12, 1892, when some 12 million American school children recited it to commemorate the 400-year anniversary of the voyage of Christopher Columbus.
Despite its widespread public acceptance at the time, important changes to the Pledge of Allegiance as written by Bellamy were on the way…
In 1954, the Pledge of Allegiance underwent its most controversial change to date. With the threat of Communism looming, President Dwight Eisenhower pressed Congress to add the words “under God” to the pledge.
In advocating for the change, Eisenhower declared it would “reaffirm the transcendence of religious faith in America’s heritage and future” and “strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country’s most powerful resource in peace and war.”
On June 14, 1954, in a Joint Resolution amending a section of the Flag Code, Congress created the Pledge of Allegiance recited by most Americans today:
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
https://www.thoughtco.com/pledge-of-allegiance-brief-history-3320198
” …of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands…”
I never got this. Isn’t the United States the actual Republic?
Maybe it’s meant to more or less mean “To the ‘community’ “or “To the ‘togetherness'”?
And if it’s just about the flag- why in the world would you pledge allegiance to a physical object? “I pledge allegiance to the United States of America” at least makes sense.
Also, I’ll say it: Pledging allegiance to a physical object is called idolatry. In my learning, idolatry is forbidden in the Commandment to have “No other Gods before God”. So, I’m fine with connecting the country to God, or if people want to substitute in whatever like “one nation, one universe”, I wouldn’t care.
But having “allegiance” to a physical object is wrong.
The issues you raise have been important to Mennonites for generations, and still are.
https://themennonite.org/opinion/white-privilege-patriotism-mennonites-colin-kapernick-protest/
Ah…facetious. As in charter schools have the greatest local control and we should be glad that this merry band of de-pledgers have quarantined – I mean gathered – themselves together away from the public schools. Unfortunately those kids are missing the lesson of how to get along in the greater community outside their school. It’s like shaking hands even after the other team cheated to beat you. Or even easier, singing Oh Canada or other anthems before games with the other team. Just be neighborly and bless their hearts knowing we can do better.
As the co-worker of a board member of this charter school, I can tell you that the Pledge of Allegiance was NOT eliminated. It was just taken out of the morning gathering the school does. Now it will be up to every individual teacher to decide WHEN in the day to recite the Pledge.
You know, I thought the pledge was stupid even when I was in elementary school. It always sounded like prattle from mindless drones when it was recited.
I felt the same way. Time to drone out the pledge is what I remember. My mind would wander onto other things while the class was saying it.
I say be inclusive and say “one nation under God, Buda, Vishnu, Spaghetti Monster, Guru Granth Sahib, Ahura Mazda, The Great Spirit, Zeus, Zaltron, ect…”
this might make me a rino, but i so don’t care if some charter school in atlanta decides not to say the pledge as part of their morning routine…this doesn’t affect my life in any way shape or form…and i doubt it affects speaker ralston’s either…of course now i am going to have to ask my kids if they still do the pledge thing in the morning or not at their schools…
Kinda like the latest sanctions against Russia.
“just a bunch of b.s. stirred up to make some geriatrics show up to their polling place on Election Day.” Like telling those same geriatrics that Repubs want to take away your Social Security/Medicare…
It’s just another way for sniveling libs to take a knee, tear down a statue, not play the star spangled banner at a ball game. Another way to wear a vagina hat. It just shows us another way to be a d-bag, disrespectful, in your face and take their whiny little selves back to their safe spaces and wish the communist/socialist wing of their wacko party would go ahead and take total control.
Just notice nothing these clowns do is positive, helpful or optimistic . Why would you want your kids to be around such miserable negative folks? Not me. Why not focus on something that is actually helpfu.
You know like passing 242 new taxes, confiscating all of the money, having no borders, letting illegals vote, banning free speech on campus much less social media, frame the president, , stealing your guns, and calll everyone you disagree with a racist. To basically act like a spoiled a—!
As a challenge to my liberal friends… what the hell have the libs done in 10 years to help the average Joe get a job or improve his life?
Andrew, don’t forget conservatives want to starve grandma too. Oh and kids lunches at schools… a couple of the liberals all time favorites!!
Andrew how did any of Obama’s 242 new taxes he passed help create a job? Make anyone’s life any better. How did Benev’s joke about passing a $10 tax on golf balls to help the golf industry? Can’t the same thing be said for the other 242? I want to see how some genius lib rationalizes that.