God and School

[Tommy Martyn]

Yesterday I attended my first ever parent/ teacher conference. Henry, my son is four and a half. As you can imagine, I wasn't expecting any earth shattering revelations. I just wanted to know if he was happy or if he was having problems with his letters and numbers. Answer: he is, and no problems. Now one of the things that is readily apparent about me in conversation, is that I am not from Cincinnati. I fully expect to be asked about my past and have a million different ways of explaining it - usually depending on what I think the other person wants to hear.

In the course of our conversation Henry's teacher went on to tell me that her pastor was from Wales and went to the same school as me and Mrs Tommy. The conversation was going swimmingly until I pointed out that he probably did the right thing by coming to Cincinnati, because I had read in that day's Guardian that only 2% of my countrymen can be bothered to go to church. And that I wasn't sure if this included the figures for the Muslim community, who skew the figure up considerably. (Although it seems so low I personally doubt it.) I told her flatly that, almost exclusively, English people don't believe. You could see her face falling.

When I got back to my in-laws (where my kids were being baby sat) I pointed out that folks here openly tell you of their church affiliations and, as a matter of course, they are expecting you to reciprocate. "Oh yes. Our pastor is marvellous too!" etc. I pointed out that we secularists don't have the same opportunity to beam about the radiant good our rejection of loony dogma has had in shaping the world for the better in so many measureable ways.

I had joked the day before that I was going to bring up the pledge of allegiance thing. I didn't, but perhaps someone here could supply the answer for me. It is my contention that seeing as my kids have British passports they don't have to do the pledge to the flag. Is this right?

Anyway my original point was going to be about the way that religion seeps into everything here. These people are not evil. Many of them are christian in the spirit as well as the letter. (A point sadly missed when we talk of the red states.) Still, their confidence in their worldview is awesome and frightening to behold. Sometimes moreso in a harmless aside, than in the demented posturings of our president.

[martino]

when i was 6 i went to a nice elementary school in rye, new york. i pledged allegiance daily despite having a foreign passport -- that stuff doesn't matter to kids. later in term a fat australian boy joined our class. he was excused from pledging which amongst other factors led to his being cast as an outsider. he was bullied more and more as the weeks went by, until one day he said he would knife his tormenters unless they got off his back. word got around and he was expelled. perhaps multiculturalism has changed things since then but i wouldn't count on it.

[TragicPixie]

hmmm... I remember saying the pledge in primary school - or rather I remember standing and looking at the flag - not sure if I actually said anything... however, I remember that by the time I got to secondary school you only had to say it once a week and I could get by just standing there. Of course, by highschool, I didn't say a damn thing and then everyone got all patriotic when I was a sophmore and etc. and we were supposed to say it everyday and all sorts of people got terribly upset when I refused to say the pledge... oh and heaven forbid I defend someone who refused to say "one nation under god" ... *rolls her eyes*

Of course, it's fair to say I probalby lost a lot of friends by being unamerican. Not that I particularly cared about that either though...

[sara]

I didn't read your entire post Tommy, sorry, so I'll have to go back to see if Henry's receiving a public education. If he is you may be interested in the Children's Defense Funds' Leave No Child Behind (even if he's not you may be interested). As opposed to George Bush and his administration's No Child Left Behind. To me, in particular, because of my job and my community, these two things are really important. I don't really understand the purpose of No Child Left Behind, Leave No Child Behind, on the other hand Leave No Child Behind makes a lot of sense to me.

No Child Left Behind makes me very angry, but if anyone can explain why it shouldn't that would be great.