Declaration of Independence Banned from the Classroom

Due to its reference to God, a California Teacher has been banned from refering to the Declaration of Independence while discussing American History.

http://www.reuters.com/printerFriendlyPopup.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6911883

Is it possible to excise all references of God contained in the fundamental founding documents and still teach American History properly?

Or has the Political Correctness gone too far.

 

interesting... yet i bet at that school they say the Pledge every morning

"One nation under god...." figures

 

Political Correctness has gone too far.

I am an Atheist, but whether a person is religious or not, it's still part of history.

 

This sounds like two religious fundamentalists, a teacher and a superintendant, conspiring to draw media attention to something stupid like this.

I remember a couple years ago a kid was suspended from a Texas school for saying "God." It later turned out that the kid and principal - both fundamentalists - had arranged this ahead of time to stir up a debate over religion in schools. This sounds suspiciously similar.

 

Except that it was absolutely essential to the founding fathers that government not impose or support specific religious practices. This issue is completely dependent on how this teacher presented this information--the Reuters article doesn't discuss this point. I agree that some people go overboard with political correctness, but if (and I emphasize if) this teacher was using the fact that many of our founding fathers believed in God (although not all of them considered themselves Christian) to further any particular ideology, then that crosses the line.

Principals (at least in my experience) do not generally want to get involved in these kinds of controversies--this has likely been an ongoing discussion at this school with this teacher. Discussing these historical texts is fine, it just cannot be done in support of Christian beliefs and teachings.

 

Something's gone extremely haywire when one of our key founding documents is banned from the classroom. Secular fundamentalists are now also rewriting the history of Thanksgiving:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,139304,00.html

 

People need to learn to pick their battles. Wether we like it our not, christianity is part of our cultural identity here in the US. We have the freedom to exercise whichever religion we like, and suffer no persecution for it, but that doesn't mean that we should strike all refrences to other religions out of our history and lives. Mentioning god in an historical document is completely different than forcing classrooms of children to pray. God and christianity are part of our history, and worth learning about. And definitely not worth cleansing from the history books.

Political corectness has gone too far...

 

History is history whether people like it or not....

 

This hits the nail on the head.

From personal experience dealing with a local Junior High I found this out. Basicly they had a public website up that also had a page on it with tons of biblical scripture, pictures of Jesus, and it even had a gospel soundtrack. The problem wasn't in the religion itself, it was in the fact that they were using the materials of the school to expand the base of a certain religion. It was definetely a blatant attempt at 'spreading the gospel'. They were certainly not approaching it from a scholastic angle.

It was amazing (though not surprising) to me how many of the xtians were jumping up and down about how I was trying to persecute them by demanding it be removed. Oddly, they also refuse to accept a compromise which was to re-vamp it into something that covered more than one religion from many viewpoints and make it a scholastic endeavor. I argued simply that there have been a number of religious figures who have had great impacts upon shaping history and perhaps they could re-think it to include a broader historical perspective. But, no , they couldn't have that either. The end result was that the page was taken down because I raised cain with higher administration. To this day, though, I'm still the guy that persecuted the Christians. The graphics on the site have also since been replaced with the classic picture of the twin towers burning and the crying eagle, lot's of American flags, etc... So, not only am I the devil persecuting Christians they probably think I'm a terrorist too.

But, in the case of this constitution let's say she did just read it verbatim or present it in an educational manner and they banned it. Then that too is wrong according to the standard. That would also be crossing a line.

 

If the Secular Fundamentalists can rewrite History, then I'll give it a go. The problem is how to sandwich gratuitous costume failures (a la of Janet Jackson) inbetween the mindless explosions and needless car chases.

Question: Did the turkeys of the pilgrims time come with or without fangs?

 

The majority of Americans have allowed no other option, I think. Whenever something changes there's always 100,000+ people going, "Well, what about this example". If they do still say the pledge, it wont be long before that teacher is either overruled, or the pledge is done away with in that school too.

 

the pledge reminds me of the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany...it really doesn't need to be around anymore. Everyone chanting in unison about pledging their allegence, doesn't seem like something that should be included during the schoolday in the "land of the free."

As far as not allowing the declaration if independence to be studied in the classroom, that really defies all logic.

 

There nothing unusual for any school system, whether its Nazi - Communist - Market based Capitalist, to instill some sort of national pride within students at a young age. It would be unusual if they didn't try.

Open question, especially to those outside of the United States. As students, did you recite a national pledge at some time during the day? For example do kids in England say something like "God Save the Queen", and in Germany: "God Save the Fatherland", and in France: "God Save the Vineyards"?

I remember in the first and I think maybe also the second grade, 6 - 7 years old reciting the Pledge of Alliegence. We used to do it the first thing in the morning. How common is this practice?

 

A great story. Too bad it isn't true. Stripped of all the right wing spin in the 11/24 entry here:

http://seetheforest.blogspot.com/2004_11_01_seetheforest_archive.html

It WASN'T the DOI that was banned. It was "supplemental material" (read--unapproved by the school board) being handed out by the teacher, which used quotes from the DOI and other documents to support a Christian fundamentalist agenda. The (presumably fundie) teacher is suing the school with the help of various right-wing Xtian groups to secure his "right" to preach religion to his students.

 

i had wondered about that, as the quote from the DOI that uses god goes:

"and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them"

and it was written by TJ, who was a deist, so in this case it's not a christian reference at all. something smelled funny.

 

Now it makes more sense. Thanks for the info.

 

I read the blog you cited, but unfortunately it doesn't include a single detail that describes the alleged "fundamentalist agenda" of these supplemental materials.

 

i can't possibly see any school whatsoever banning the DOI from history class. i think the story is totally bunk.

 

There does seem to be much more to it than initially reported in my first post. If the Blog link is correct, this would seem to fill some of the blanks in the Rueters coverage.

 

This makes it a totally different story. Teaching about a hostorical documents that refrences god doesn't give a teacher the license to start preaching about god to her students. From doing some reading at the link you provided it seems that she was putting together documents from american history that mention god in order to teach a lesson on god, not history....

From the link:

Some kids trying to invite their friends to sunday school during class is VERY different that a teacher, whom the kids take everything they say as truth or educational fact, preaching about god to students. If teachers want to do that they can get jobs in private religious schools, there are plenty of them.