...and I think it is on purpose.
Colorado Geography Teacher Quits over Foreign Flag Dispute
"Hamlin was hired to teach world geography to seventh graders at the school, which is in Jefferson County, Colorado. For the past eight years, he says he has taught in that district.
He prepared his classroom by displaying the flags of Mexico, China, and the United Nations, as he has in previous classes without incident, he says.
But when Assistant Principal Victoria Winslow came into his class on August 21, the day before school was to begin, and saw the flags, she told him to take them down.
“...That surprised me and caught me off guard,” he says. “I asked her why I had to take them down, and she said it was Jefferson County School District policy. I said I’d had the flags up before in Jefferson County, and if that was the policy, I had some issues with it. She left, and about an hour later she returned and said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry I was wrong. It isn’t district policy. It’s actually state law,’ and handed me a copy of a Colorado state statute.”
That statute says: “Any person who displays any flag other than the flag of the United States of America or the state of Colorado or any of its subdivisions, agencies, or institutions upon any state, county, municipal, or other public building or adjacent grounds within this state commits a class 1 petty offense.”
There is an exception in the statute for “a temporary display of any instructional or historical materials not permanently affixed or attached to any part of the buildings.”
..."Mark Silverstein, legal director for the Colorado ACLU, questions the validity of the state statute and the school’s interpretation of it.
“I have a hard time understanding how the state of Colorado’s interests are threatened by someone displaying a foreign flag in some state building,” he says. “Especially by a geography teacher using foreign flags as part of the instruction about different parts of the world.
The statute itself represents legislative overreaction to a non-problem, and the Principal's decision was an overreaction to the statute.”
God forbid any of the students in Colorado know what Mexico's flag looks like. And that evil UN flag! They must have been horrified to know that the world has a representative body filled with countries other than the US. No wonder the US is near the bottom educationally when compared to the other major industrialized nations. I think the only reason US citizens can identify their own flag is because of seeing it constantly wrapped around Bush & Co. I won't even get into how terrible my fellow citizens are at locating and identifying various countries around the world. It is sad and embarrassing.
"An enlightened citizenry is indispensable for the proper functioning of a republic. Self-government is not possible unless the citizens are educated sufficiently to enable them to exercise oversight. It is therefore imperative that the nation see to it that a suitable education be provided for all its citizens."
"Nor must we omit to mention among the benefits of education the incalculable advantage of training up able counselors to administer the affairs of our country in all its departments, legislative, executive and judiciary, and to bear their proper share in the councils of our national government: nothing more than education advancing the prosperity, the power, and the happiness of a nation."
--Thomas Jefferson
Colorado Geography Teacher Quits over Foreign Flag Dispute
"Hamlin was hired to teach world geography to seventh graders at the school, which is in Jefferson County, Colorado. For the past eight years, he says he has taught in that district.
He prepared his classroom by displaying the flags of Mexico, China, and the United Nations, as he has in previous classes without incident, he says.
But when Assistant Principal Victoria Winslow came into his class on August 21, the day before school was to begin, and saw the flags, she told him to take them down.
“...That surprised me and caught me off guard,” he says. “I asked her why I had to take them down, and she said it was Jefferson County School District policy. I said I’d had the flags up before in Jefferson County, and if that was the policy, I had some issues with it. She left, and about an hour later she returned and said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry I was wrong. It isn’t district policy. It’s actually state law,’ and handed me a copy of a Colorado state statute.”
That statute says: “Any person who displays any flag other than the flag of the United States of America or the state of Colorado or any of its subdivisions, agencies, or institutions upon any state, county, municipal, or other public building or adjacent grounds within this state commits a class 1 petty offense.”
There is an exception in the statute for “a temporary display of any instructional or historical materials not permanently affixed or attached to any part of the buildings.”
..."Mark Silverstein, legal director for the Colorado ACLU, questions the validity of the state statute and the school’s interpretation of it.
“I have a hard time understanding how the state of Colorado’s interests are threatened by someone displaying a foreign flag in some state building,” he says. “Especially by a geography teacher using foreign flags as part of the instruction about different parts of the world.
The statute itself represents legislative overreaction to a non-problem, and the Principal's decision was an overreaction to the statute.”
God forbid any of the students in Colorado know what Mexico's flag looks like. And that evil UN flag! They must have been horrified to know that the world has a representative body filled with countries other than the US. No wonder the US is near the bottom educationally when compared to the other major industrialized nations. I think the only reason US citizens can identify their own flag is because of seeing it constantly wrapped around Bush & Co. I won't even get into how terrible my fellow citizens are at locating and identifying various countries around the world. It is sad and embarrassing.
"An enlightened citizenry is indispensable for the proper functioning of a republic. Self-government is not possible unless the citizens are educated sufficiently to enable them to exercise oversight. It is therefore imperative that the nation see to it that a suitable education be provided for all its citizens."
"Nor must we omit to mention among the benefits of education the incalculable advantage of training up able counselors to administer the affairs of our country in all its departments, legislative, executive and judiciary, and to bear their proper share in the councils of our national government: nothing more than education advancing the prosperity, the power, and the happiness of a nation."
--Thomas Jefferson
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