That's just more evidence for 'bizzare".

No kidding. But when you get right to the bottom of things here, our political fights are rooted in our big cultural fight. Over religion, over gender roles, over whether we're still a wild west people, whether our founders were demigods or just people. The right-most thinkers here are saying that the schools are the place to combat the dreaded liberalism of modern times.

Doublespeak for "let's indoctrinate our kids".

Precisely.

"Indoctrinate" is a harsh word but it fits here ~ I'm thinking the "more conservative" mindsets are afraid of losing the values and traditions they themselves grew up obeying and respecting ~ just as they themselves reject the newer, less conservative values and traditions ~ I see it as an unending battle between generations ~

Sooz

Oh good Lord(I apologize for offending the sensibilities of the atheists on board). Legislate to take the pledge and the National anthem out of the schools then.

I think this is fully a tempest in a teapot.

I also think if the student had a choice in not doing this assignment, his rights were not violated.

I will now be proud of being labeled to the right of Mitch O'Connell.

In kraut land we arrived at school, went to our classrooms, a bell rang and class started. Everything else seems odd.
I believe my dad had to pledge something and sing the Horst-Wessel-song or something similar.

More and more small similarities between the US and some not-so-nice regimes.

So what do they do in homeroom in Canada? Australia?

Couldn't say. Haven't been in school for over 50 years.

but you KNOW it's better than anything we do here. LOL!!!

My wife was a teacher until recently.
The bell rang, kids went in, unpacked their stuff and class started.
Rather mundane and practical, eh?

Oh, and I didn't claim to KNOW that anything was better (or worse) than anything else.
That came from your fertile imagination.

I could cry! Schools in germanic countries don't even have a homeroom concept! Students are always in the same room and we let the teachers move between classes.

We had that as well. I've always thought that moving a few adults around was far more effective than moving several hundred overactive kids.

Cattleman, there are a lot of people who think US public schools are hotbeds of radicalism, secularism, licentiousness, oneworldism, anti-Christianity, and just generally dens of socialist iniquity

What's amazing is that conservatives even tolerate the Pledge of Allegiance. It was written by the leader of the American Socialist Party and, getting to your oneworld thing, he wanted it to be the same pledge for all countries.

As I hinted earlier my dad had to pledge something in school (or was it at Hitler youth meetings?) but since 1945 we don't pledge anything except when we join the military. I also don't remember a flag in school. There were crosses on the wall in deep catholic Bavaria, but no prayers except at the beginning of "Religion" where a catholic priest tried to put his spin on world religions. Religion was optional and there was a special room for us heathens where we could catch up on home work or smoke some haschisch at the open window.
The Bavarian and later on the German anthem we learned in Music class.
The hand over heart thingy you only saw in sport class when the chubby guys were exhausted after a little sprint.
Nevertheless, Germans are quite proud to be Germans. And Bavarians (the true ones ) are even prouder.

Yep, Americans do some odd stuff to their kids.

Details....

https://cbssacramento.files.wordpress.c ... 1-14-1.pdf

Home room? We used to go to a class room at the beginning of the school day and the role was called.

And the students had to move around for the very obvious reason that we didn't all do the same subjects at the same level. It would have been a bit silly for the woodwork teacher to come along when a lot of students were doing French.

On digging through my ancient memory there used to be a school assembly once a week where we'd all stand out in the school yard while the deputy Headmaster harangued us about various sins that had been committed, and I seem to recall some kind of pledge being made. I think it was actually to the British Empire, but also included a reference to God. No one took it seriously and it was abolished decades ago.

I'm an atheist Kathy. was there something you wrote that I should have found offensive? I didn't notice anything.

I don't think the "culture fight" is at the bottom of it at all Gramps. That's just the smoke and mirrors to hide the economic war being waged by the 1% on the 99%.

yeah, Kathy, it is a teapotempest, and I don't think the kid has a case. But it makes me question to what extent it's properly the role of public schools to instill patriotism. On one hand teachers are required to encourage mass rote declarations of allegiance, and on the other hand we require them to encourage critical thinking in students (at least that was true when I was taking education courses in college).

So anyway, for the sake of argument, what would be the effects of making schools neutral in matters of nationalism as well as religion?

Mitch McConnell's in no danger of losing his conservative world championship to you.

Great find, Chaos! ~ there are ALWAYS at least 2 sides to every story ~ and for those of you who don't believe there's a case here, I suggest you read the letter [loaded with precedents] in Chaos' link, which also strongly supports Roseanne's #8 post:


Sooz

I guess it's a church/state issue. The school is requiring kids to profess a religious belief.

And I think a majority of parents historically have expected this of public schools, sort of under the in loco parentis doctrine. I.e that teachers take on the responsibilities of kids's parents to act in the kids' best interests...and these parents include in that responsibility the duty to convey the community's religious and patriotism mores.

But is that necessary or desirable?

huh. ok.

More like "freedom as advertised" vs "freedom as permitted".