I love being a teacher and I absolutely recommend it to anyone considering it as a career choice. It really bothers me that we hear many teachers advise against teaching. Even though these teachers have every right to be heard, and often make good points, their views tend not to be counterbalanced by those who adore what they do.
I am a big advocate for encouraging children to think for themselves. I have no desire to brainwash my students or have them align their thinking to my own worldview. On the contrary, little gives me more pleasure than watching my students reach their own conclusions and engage in a robust exchange of ideas. On the flip side, it can be a bit disappointing that many children are so used to being spoonfed and mollycoddled , that it is becoming quite rare for a young child to form their own ideas.
A North Carolina high school teacher was captured on video shouting at a student who questioned President Obama and suggesting he could be arrested for criticizing a sitting president.
The Salisbury Post, which first reported on the YouTube video, did not identify the teacher in question, who is reportedly on staff at North Rowan High School. The video does not show faces, but the heated argument in the classroom can clearly be heard.
“Do you realize that people were arrested for saying things bad about Bush?” the teacher said toward the end of the argument, telling the student, “you are not supposed to slander the president.”
The student told the teacher that one can’t be arrested “unless you threaten the president.”
The argument started when the classroom began discussing news reports that Mitt Romney bullied a fellow student when he was in high school.
“Didn’t Obama bully somebody though?” a student in the classroom asked, referring to an incident Obama described in his memoir “Dreams From My Father.”
The teacher said she didn’t know — and the argument quickly escalated, as the teacher yelled at the student, telling him “there is no comparison.”
“He’s running for president,” she said of Romney. “Obama is the president.”
The student argued that both candidates are “just men,” but the teacher said: “Let me tell you something … you will not disrespect the president of the United States in this classroom.”
According to the Salisbury Post, the teacher is still employed and has not been suspended.
“The Rowan-Salisbury School System expects all students and employees to be respectful in the school environment and for all teachers to maintain their professionalism in the classroom. This incident should serve as an education for all teachers to stop and reflect on their interaction with students,” the school said in a statement, published by the Post. “Due to personnel and student confidentiality, we cannot discuss the matter publicly.”
Governments that poke their nose into people’s daily life are extremely annoying. It is a Governments job to provide people with the freedoms and resources required for living a comfortable life. The day they impose regulations that limit our basic freedoms, is the day they have gone too far.
The elementary school in Raeford, North Carolina, decided the four-year-old’s lunch — which consisted of a turkey-and-cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice — did not meet nutritional standards established by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Why? Because it did not contain a vegetable.
The USDA guidelines say lunches, even those brought from home, must consist of one serving each of meat, milk, and grain, and two servings of fruit or vegetables. Those guidelines — introduced last month as “historic improvements” by the federal government — spring from the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act championed by First Lady Michelle Obama as part of her Let’s Move! Campaign and signed into law by President Barack Obama. Dr. Janice Crouse, senior fellow for the Beverly LaHaye Institute at Concerned Women for America, sees the incident at the North Carolina school as historic in another sense. She says it is just another way government intrudes on the rights of parents. “It’s another way that the government says it knows best, another way to waste taxpayer dollars, quite frankly, and to really irritate parents,” Crouse tells OneNewsNow. The mother of the young girl, in an interview with Carolina Journal, says what angered her the most was the message her daughter received. “…Number one, don’t tell my die I’m not packing her lunch box properly,” she stated. “I pack her lunchbox according to what she eats.” The child, she reported, does not like vegetables; so the mom packs fruit instead.
Why do Governments resort to strict regulations and negative tactics to enforce standards which can be met without limiting freedoms and isolating people?
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