Never a good idea… There is not enough :eek:'s in the world for this nonsense.
Don’t watch the youtube video on the site. The Press my local news paper for some reason choose to find a version with “scary” background music dubbed in for some reason. The regular version is plenty disturbing enough which can be watched here.
Lyrics are listed in the read more section.
Now the debate. Do you think this is appropriate in school? If your child was a child in the video what course of action would you take?
Mods: I couldn’t quite find the title I was looking for in this thread. My thread obviously lacks the “Church” part in schools. If you can come up what I was looking for please feel free to edit it. I missed the “5 minute” edit window imposed by the administrator.
How is High School students Singing Bye Bye Birdie Lyrics even remotely similar to this?
If this song was about George W. Bush during his presidency and I came across it, I wouldn’t be happy about it either. I have a feeling people’s views on this matter are going to be directly tied to whether or not they like the current president.
I sent my kids to private non-religious schools BECAUSE I thought there was too much religion in our public schools run by elected clerics. They had made a point of making every single after school musical event Christian and “optional” but no non-Christian songs could be sung. And they had the pledge of allegiance posted on every bulletin board with GOD in all caps and gold leaf. No subtlety in our school.
What does this have to do with the separation of church and state?
Why is this inappropriate on the surface? Nothing in the lyrics sounds all that bad and, whether you like it or not, the man is President. His face, his words and his actions are going to be present in schools. Just as it was with Bush I, Clinton and Bush II during my grade school-high school-college years.
I despise Bush and I can say honestly I would not fuss much if this was two years ago and they were singing about him. I’d find it mildly annoying but not enough to get in a twist over. They are kids, it is one song, they can still grow up to be young republicans despite this (although they may need regression therapy to excise this horror from their mind).
1.) I was trying to associate this to the same feelings of creationism and the words “under god” not being wanted in public schools. A mostly Liberal view but some on the right would disagree, which is not a bad thing.
2.) On the surface I imagine this kind of thing happening in a “public” school in North Korea. I never in elementary, middle, or high school years had to sing a song praising a former president or current president. The current President shouldn’t be bashed or praised to second graders period. Church just as well has no place in Public Schools.
Yeah, but… why? There’s nothing in those lyrics that even come close to some kind of religious-type worship language.
Again, why? Why are you making such a huge leap between what is actually happening here, and what happens in North Korea?
For example, here is an excerpt from the song these children are singing: Hooray, Mr. President! You’re number one!
The first black American to lead this great nation!
Now compare that with the lyrics of one of the songs sung in NK: We cannot live without you
Our country cannot exist without you!
If you don’t agree with it, that’s fine. But don’t try turning it into something that it just simply isn’t.
All your great accomplishments? This song was supposedly sung in February. Care to list the “great accomplishments” these second graders are honoring? What if president Obama turns out to be a “bad guy” by the time his presidency ends, will the children get to sing another song?
Although I think the OP goes too far in making this a church-state issue, it is true that other videos of the same school event show the schoolchildren singing “Jesus Loves The Little Children” with lyrics that substitute Obama’s name for Jesus.
Now, I think liberals and conservatives alike ought to be creeped out by that.
He is a black man who defied racism and the Clinton political machine to be elected President. It doesn’t matter what happens in the next eight years (that’s right, I said it), that’s still a huge accomplishment.
We are getting off topic here but I accept this as an accomplishment. However this alone should not be how you define the greatness of a man. Saying you don’t care what happens next is foolish.
Is it safe to say you find the video in question totally appropriate for a public school?
I didn’t say I didn’t care what happens next, I said it doesn’t matter what happens next. Regardless of how his presidency goes (and so far it’s been pretty decent), he will always be viewed as a President who performed a great accomplishment.
Yeah, I have to say that’s not really appropriate. I wouldn’t call it a torches and pitchforks situation, but the school administration should make it clear that that sort of thing is against policy. Or, if they don’t already have one, enact a policy against it.
Not really grokking the church and state angle, and the comparisons to North Korea are pretty ridiculous.
I stopped saying the Pledge in grade school because of the “under God” part and was forever bringing up West Virginia v. Barnette with annoyed & confused teachers (especially subs). One time in high school (my sophmore year?) I was in the office during morning announcments for some reason and one of the students who normally read them wasn’t there. A secretary asked me if I’d like to read them, I did including saying the Pledge, omiting under God. After I was done she smiled and asked if I forgot something because I was nervouse. I said I didn’t think so. She mentioned “under God” (still thinking I just forgot). I casually mentioned “Oh, there’s no such thing”. She got flustered and couldn’t respond.
Then there was health class were we had to learn about the 5 types of health; physical, mental, social, environmental, and spiritual. Spiritual health being defined as the ability to believe in some force. :rolleyes: My teacher (who I ended up having for gym next year) did not appreciate me (a 16 yr old junior) complaining about that part of the curriculum. He sure as hell did like it when, on the test for that unit, I defined spiritual health as the “having imaginary friends”. He marked it wrong (everything else was right); I argued with him. He told me to drop it. I was quite pissed by then (teenage hormones not helping things) so I went to our principal complaining about how “spiritual health” was nonsense and violation of seperation of church & state, etc. Finally he grabed a pen, changed my grade, and threw the test back at me saying “Here’s your damn A!”. He looked disgusted.
Alot of my teachers & classmates were “Christian” (in the sense that Protestant fundies will just say “Christian” without going into denomination). Being an out Atheist in high school was not fun. There was no fucking way I was willing to be an out, Gay, Atheist as well. The final indignity was that stupid prayer they snuck into our graduation ceremony.
Getting an awful lot of mileage out of two minutes and change of video, aren’t we?
The church and state angle is clearly ridiculous, and dragging in North Korea only sounds abysmally stupid.
I watched the video, and saw a multi-ethnic group of young kids singing about love, and accomplishment, and such-- stuff that I thought we wanted our young and idealistic kids to be all stary-eyed about. The fact that a black man is, for the first time in history, the President of the United States through a popular election sounds like a significant accomplishment to me. Then there is the rest of his personal history, including being a child of a broken home, product of if not actual poverty then at least a low economic level far different from “legacy” Ivy Leaguers. Then there’s Harvard Law review, US Senator from Illinois, successful author, and whatnot.
They seem to be practicing next to a stage, so I assume this bit was their class’ contribution to some kind of school assembly program. Given that the text suggests this was related to Black History Month, the whole thing seems perfectly straightforward, reasonable for their grade level, and perfectly appropriate.
The article says “the teacher who directed the song and is not shown in the video retired at the end of the school year”. Was that *last *school year?
Has this been languishing somewhere awaiting attention from the Hysteria Detail of the right wing Trash-All-Things-Obama Squad? Wassa matta, no other trumped up ridiculousness to be outraged about this week?
ETA-- just saw the ‘Poll’-- this was last February, for pity’s sake. Get a grip, people. It was right after the inauguration, and lots of people saw Obama’s election as a rather remarkable success story.
She got flustered and couldn’t respond.