Kids These Days

Yesterday, I got an email asking me to sign and forward a petition to the president (of all people), which would require kids in schools to say the Pledge of Allegiance every day. I didn't read the email until early evening, as I was busy doing things working people do on Saturday, but by the time I did read it, there was another one in my mailbox, chastising me for not signing, or at least forwarding the original.

Now, I love my country as much as the next citizen, maybe more, for all the chastiser knows, and I don't have a problem with kids saying the pledge, but I have a problem with being judged because I didn't immediately forward the thing, and I think I'm going to leave a child behind on this one. I'm already the clothing police, cell phone police, gameboy police, ipod police, cigarettes, drugs and alcohol police, and the closest thing to a mother some of the kids I teach have; I'm gonna pass on requiring a bunch of surly ninth graders to stand and "prove" they love their country at 8:20 every morning. I can't remember ever saying the pledge in a high school classroom, and I think I turned out fine.

Believe me, the pledge is the least of our worries in schools. I'd be more interested in petitioning for students' parents to have jobs that pay a living wage while their companies' ceos make millions and the people who can afford to invest heavily in company stocks pocket huge sums of tax-free cash. Let's pledge to give them all health care, instead of bloating the bank accounts of health care corporations; let's give them new text books, instead of sucking up school budgets with the costs of administering redundant tests, leaving the poorest kids in the poorest schools further in the hole; let's give them class sizes under 30, so if they aren't learning, they'll get noticed and helped; let's give them a school that's heated to above 67 degrees in the Minnesota winter, instead of refusing to control skyrocketing energy costs; let's fully fund IDEA so special education isn't viewed as an albatross that sucks resources from kids who really need an education; let's provide counselors- one of my students wrote about standing in line behind a parent to smoke meth before she went to school in the morning- our school has TWO counselors for 1600 kids, cut back from three because our dear governor promised no new state taxes. Of course this only forces higher property taxes, so schools in areas with poor tax bases suffer more, but Pawlenty stands there with his shit-eating grin, boasting that he's kept his promise.

Let's give our kids models in government who aren't playing golf at St. Andrew's on the taxpayers' dime, gerrymandering voting districts so they can win, propping up illegal lobbying, leaking classified secrets to further an ideology, sending kids off to fight a war based on lies, breaking laws because they don't like the checks and balances our constitution provides, stuff like that.

Before signing a petition asking the president to make students and teachers in beleaguered schools pledge their allegiance to our republic, let's start with HIM. And while they're at it, whoever wants to pray in school has my permission to get on their knees and beg for something to happen that puts an end to this nightmare. I won't be requiring either of these things, I'll be busy teaching and policing and mothering, so when the youth of America turn out to be a bunch of fascist heathens, feel free to blame me.