There shouldn’t have been a disruption in the first place, but the teacher didn’t know the rules or ignored them. Since he’s not required to stand for the pledge in the first place, they did not need to make sure the school was okay with it. And the school admits he doesn’t have to stand. It’s not in dispute.
In that sense I shouldn’t have described this as civil disobedience, which involves deliberately breaking a rule. He was expressly allowed to sit through the pledge, and as far as we know, that was his intent. It’s a statement. The teacher tried to force him to stand and it turned into a disruption. That’s the teacher’s fault.
Nonsense. The teacher not only overstepped her bounds by trying to make him stand, she started talking about his family. That’s obnoxious. If he’d mouthed off to her from the beginning, you might have a point.
True, but that’s not a planned part of the protest. It’s a normal reaction, particularly from a 10-year-old.
So now the parents are not only required to get permission for their son to do something that he is allowed to do, they’re required to anticipate the teacher’s overreaction and make their son’s protest, which was already silent and nondisruptive, more palatable?
Not required, but it would make things easier of they explained it to her beforehand.
I got the impression the Father hadn’t expected the kid’s reaction to the Teacher. “My first thought was, 'He’s dead.” "
If someone is teaching in public schools then she should be aware that it is unlawful to compel a student to stand or otherwise participate in the Pledge and that a student’s choice not to do so should not even be addressed. This is no one’s fault but the poorly prepared substitute teacher’s. Period.
Just chiming in to say it’s not much of a stretch for a very bright 10 year old to do that. My youngest brother has done similar things like that since he was younger. At age 4, he asked our babysitter if “she’d looked at the fall foliage lately”. :smack:
When he was 11, he physically broke up a fight in the hallway of school. Both fighters were furious he’d done so, and both accused him of being the instigator. When called into the principal’s office and accused of being a part of the fight, my brother “demanded to call witnesses” rather than explain himself. Two other kids were called in, who independently explained he was just breaking up the fight.
My mother tried to convince him later at home that it was best to “let people work things out themselves”, so she wasn’t even remotely in his court.
It turned into the passive voice, too, as soon as the kid did something bad.
This is all kind of my point. Mouthing off to the teacher because she said that his mother would disapprove was immature. And saying, “she started it,” kind of is too.
You’re straining at the gnat here. The parents knew he was in a confrontation with a problem teacher and they let it stew without helping him, until he got in over his head and got in trouble. They’re adults, and they’re looking out for the kid’s best interests; I just think they could have handled the situation more deftly.
Tom, I think you are reading a lot in that we don’t know. Like how much the parents knew about the situation before their kid ended up in the principal’s office (at my school, we don’t hear about minor infractions until the kid does end up in the principals office - except at the end of the week with a brief behavior report card). Or how reasonable the teacher would have been to permitting the protest - not all teachers like to follow the law of the land regarding free speech or religious expression in the school system.
I told my kids about this this morning. I sort of expect to get a call from the school when my atheist daughter decides that her religious freedom to not say “under God” is more important than “being polite” - which is what she said to me “I stand because its polite. But I don’t like it because I don’t believe in God.” But her teacher is pretty cool so maybe she will spend the rest of the year sitting through the pledge. She knows what she is in for, she was the lead of the “Santa Claus debunk” in first grade and an ethical vegetarian at four (chicken nuggets did her in though).
She’s really into philosophy and ethics for a ten year old.
The only thing that made me pause was his vocabulary – “a touch of malice in my voice”, for example. I don’t know too many ten year olds who talk like that. Not saying it’s not possible, just saying that the kid didn’t talk like a kid.
I presume that smarting off to the teacher was discussed at length, especially since he had to write an apology to her.
All I can remember about the Fifth Grade was bending over to get into the common desk storage space and noticing that my desk partner was wearing nylons. I may have dallied over integral calculus if I hadn’t been distracted in such a fashion.
An immature 10-year-old? The horror. It’s true that that isn’t a good response. Then again, I’ve seen some adults get rather pissed off by the same kind of comments.
Do you think he was reading from a script? No, most 10-year-olds don’t talk like that. This is a smart kid, and kids like that tend to have outsize vocabularies. It helps get adults to pay attention to their opinions.
I saw him on the Colbert Report last night, and I had mixed feelings. First, good for him for standing up on an issue he believes in. It is good to see kids thinking critically about issues and being brave enough to take unpopular stands.
However, I would be very, very cautious (if he were my son) before I would allow him to appear on any media, much less CNN. He is 10. No matter how well informed, he may live to regret being forever known as the kid who was on CNN because he wouldn’t say the pledge. He may see this as simply standing up for his beliefs, but can he really fully comprehend how his life could change as a result of this media exposure. Is it worth it if he is tormented daily at school for the rest of the year? 2 years? His whole life? Yes, this is an important issue but I would be worried my kid’s quality of life would be sacrificed.
I also know when I was 10 I had ‘firm beliefs’ in things I would be embarrassed to admit now. (I thought all abortion was Baby Murder, for example.) Not to say I think this boy is wrong or will change his mind. But, now I see how of course my opinions at that age were strongly shaped by my parents’ and church’s opinions. 10 is still too young to be objective enough to make these kinds of decisions, IMO, especially when they will be forever publically known no matter where you go.
It was on the Daily Show too. I don’t know the intentions of any of the parties… including the kid’s! Maybe it’s all part of his long term plan to gain notoriety and win over people’s hearts, only to become an evil lawyer.
Think about it; More marriage, more divorce, more litigation.
Exactly. A person saying that a kid should say he lives in a land of liberty - or else - is a bit unclear on the concept.
I wonder how many people who doubt he came up with this himself ever had ten year old kids. Ten year olds are very literal, and seeing the contradiction between liberty for all and the stuff he heard his parents talk about seems plenty of reason for him to do this. (Those without kids should read the Ramona books - Cleary is so good about getting into the heads of kids.)
As for vocab, I bet the parents are smart, and he has been exposed to big words from an early age. My kids had this much vocab at that age. And they initiated even weirder stuff like this without us.
Maybe he picked up that phrase from someone else, but I think it’s clear from his father’s attitude that this is the kid’s own crusade. The dad largely stayed out of the interview and let the boy speak for himself even if he was a little embarrassed by what his son was saying. In fact the father looked like he didn’t want to be there and was only doing it to help out his son.
I think the father has a healthy attitude about all this. At first he was upset that his child told a teacher to jump off a bridge, but then he realized that his son really thought this through, and that it would be wrong to discourage well reasoned action (especially standing up for the first amendment and gay rights). Now the father looks like he is carefully supervising his son while he pursues his little project. He did say in the interview that he discussed media attention with the child.
I see nothing wrong with this story other than the fact that CNN thinks it deserves national attention.
I’m not saying that I think the kid was coached – just that he really sounds very un-kidlike. That’s all. (Perhaps he was “coached” for the interview, not for what he’s doing)
Ever watch a spelling bee? Kids his age can have vocabularies much larger than the average college educated adult. Maybe he’s one of those weird people who reads books. That alone makes him suspect.
