Protesting Second Graders in New Jersey
You’ve probably heard about the 2nd grade class at B. Bernice Young Elementary School that was videotaped singing a song about President Obama earlier this year that has caused quite a bit of controversy. After it was blasted across the internet via You Tube with the slug “School Kids Taught to Praise Obama” – conservatives have been calling into talk shows, and making noise about how they say the song shows how schoolchildren are being indoctrinated to idolize Obama. The students first performed the song during a Black History Month assembly in February, and then once again when the author of a book about Obama came to visit the school.
Today, members of several anti-tax Tea Party, and 9-12 Project groups held a protest across the street from the elementary school to denounce the children’s participation in the song, demand that the school’s principal be reassigned for allowing the children to sing it, and to register their dismay at the song that was written for what they say is “a President who hasn’t accomplished anything yet”. Our team drove to Burlington Township New Jersey this morning to catch the action, but we missed the protest. We did however; catch up with concerned parents and neighbors of the school who were still lingering outside when we arrived. I talked with one parent whose child was videotaped, without her consent back in March, performing the song. Andrea Ciemnolonski told me that she felt that her child’s image had been “hijacked” and spread through the internet without her consent, and wanted an apology from the person who shot the tape. I called the author whose associate made the tape, and posted it originally, but she had no comment for us. This concerned parent also agreed with school officials who released a statement today saying that the demonstration of the protestors was inappropriate. The Burlington Township School District contends that the protest could have been intimidating for children who were coming to class today, and many outside the school voiced their concern about that.
I was able to get the organizer of the protest on the phone to ask him why he would call for adults to stand outside a school where 4-7 year olds would be walking into school with their lunch boxes, and backpacks to yell and chant and holler across the street. Bill Haney, who runs the 9-12 Burlington County Project told me that they originally scheduled the event when they thought kids would not be in school, because it was Columbus Day. He said it was too late to call the event off after they realized that school would be in session (the school apparently switched Yom Kippur for Columbus Day days off) because the event was all over the internet. The school district also posted a letter they sent to Haney online, which asked him to reconsider holding the event on a day when children would be coming to school, and offered to meet with him and his group to talk about their concerns, but they apparently declined and went forward with their rally.
I asked Andrea Ciemnolionski how she prepared her 7-year old daughter for today’s event… how she would navigate past the bullhorns, and screaming adults across the street. She said she told her daughter it would be over fast, and that there were some people who would be loud near school today and that everything would be alright.
There is a planned school board meeting this Wednesday that will be open to the public, parents and teachers to discuss the situation. Check out the school’s response and explanation to the events leading up to today’s protest at: http://www.burltwpsch.org/?pageID=00013&docset=pr&docid=200910002.
Laura Ingle has been with FNC since 2005, and was also a
correspondent for FOX’s syndicated news magazine program, “Geraldo
at Large.” Ingle has covered major criminal cases and natural
disasters, including the Scott Peterson and Michael Jackson
trials, wildfires, mudslides, and Hurricane Katrina. She most
recently covered Pope Benedict’s visit to New York and the
Manhattan crane collapse that killed seven. She was formerly a
radio reporter and news anchor with KFI-AM 640 in Los Angeles and
with KFBK-AM 1530 in her hometown of Sacramento. She is currently
based in New York.
I was born in a country that suffered two types of socialism, the National Socialists of Germany and Soviet Communism, each are a very harsh totalitarian dictatorship. They both attempted to program children to their way of thinking. The propaganda began with being earth friendly (recycling paper etc.) and ended with asking the kids what their parents were saying at home about the government. They set up day care centers where the children’s loyalty was directed away from the parents and towards the state. They were putting a wedge between the parents and their children, trying to assure a loyal, dependent, and obedient populous with no connection to the past.
It seems that all despotic rulers used this tatctic.
And just another example of how liberals like to get the focus off the problem and on to the victims. Our children should NOT be learning “Praise Obama” songs, what is this? Nazi Germany?!! And of course the “bad guys” are now the whistle blowers, those who tell the truth about how the schools are over stepping their boundaries!
It is amazing what is and is not appropriate in the eyes of the school board. Indcotrination of children from a position of authority is a-okay, but don’t raise a voice in protest or you’ll be shamed as a child molesteor and torturer. Young minds can take indoctrination but not protest? Fire the teacher, fire the school board and move on. Indoctrination is wrong, wrong, wrong and speaks volumes as to why home schooling is best. This past election we saw the results of 16 years of indoctrinaton by liberal teachers, professors and the media when an inexperienced, arrogant, communtiy activist was elected. Time to take back the schools and get rid of the indcotrinators. Politics should be banned from school just like religion is. You can’t sing Christmas carols or see a Christmas play, but you can sound like Cuba and Iraq and praise the leader at 7 years old. Spare me. This is a joke and if it wasn’t so deadly serious it would be funny.
Sounds like these tea baggers need jobs.
Well, I read that they tried to contact the person who took the video, the protest organizer, but what about the teacher who thought those children the song? If someone has to be held accounted by this is the person or group of persons involved in teaching this kind of things to children. If they wouldn’t done that in the first place, the rest of the story wouldn’t be realized.
Children need to be allowed to be children. I consider separating the children from their parents believe to be a form of child abuse. How can you shake a small child’s sense of safety they should have in their relationship with their parents and not think this is detrimental? These liberals are truly child abusers. In fact, it’s the liberals that are letting the molester’s go free, NABLA wants to have sex with children, all liberal organizations. I don’t subscribed to those who teach their children bigotry, but quite honestly, the playing of the race card every 3 seconds is creating hatred between the races. I always bristle at the word “liberal” These groups are anything but libera. They want government control, bondage. The only thing they are “liberal” about is sex, drugs and the media.
GOD HELP US.
Most of my family, including myself, escaped from Communist control East Germany. As a child when I attended elementary school we were ‘indoctrinated” to Hitler’s way of life by singing songs and praising him in every way possible. I am sorry but this appears to be the thing going on in this country. It scares me because I see what I went through as a child happening to this country. I may visit Germany from time to time but I am always glad to return to this country that I love so much. My mother scraficed a lot to leave the socialist way of life. She lost property including a theater that we owned and she could have kept all this if she had accepted an offer to join the communist party in Germany. GOD HELP US.
The Teacher has to get Obama help as he has not accomplished anything at all except in front of camera or on Air Force One.I think it is a disgrace that a Teacher chooses one President over others. He is not BLACK. He is white and black.
Protesting is always appropriate. This is America and we the people have a right to protest what we believe is harmful to society. Indocrinating young children is never appropriate. Those kids should be learning reading, writing and arithmatic…NOT Democratic politics. Fire the teacher. Reeducated the kids so that they are able to identify attempts to control their minds. Civil war will be the ultimate result of this type of behavior if it is allowed to continue. Anyone want that?
The teacher should be fired on the spot. Otherwise, all the parents should take their children out of that school and either home school them or send them to a different school. This is a cult, not a school for children. Please reteach the children the constitution Nd the pledge of allegiance, let them have Holloween and Christmas. These are good kids under communism run school.