Dad Furious After Finding This Crayon-Written Paper in Florida 4th-Grader’s Back

[If_I_Loved_you]

The words are written in crayon, in the haphazard bumpiness of a child's scrawl.

"I am willing to give up some of my constitutional rights in order to be safer or more secure."They're the words that Florida father Aaron Harvey was stunned to find his fourth-grade son had written, after a lesson in school about the Constitution.


paperAaron Harvey's son wrote as part of a school lesson, "I am willing to give up some of my constitutional rights in order to be safer or more secure." TheBlaze has redacted the child's name.
Harvey's son attends Cedar Hills Elementary in Jacksonville, Fla. Back in January, a local attorney came in to teach the students about the Bill of Rights. But after the attorney left, fourth-grade teacher Cheryl Sabb dictated the sentence to part of the class and had them copy it down, he said.

The paper sat unnoticed in Harvey's son's backpack for several months until last week, when his son's mother almost threw it away. The words caught her eye in the trash, and she showed it to Harvey, who said he was at a loss for words. He asked his son, who said Sabb had spoken the sentence out loud and told them to write it down. Harvey said he asked some of his son's classmates and got a similar answer.

"Everybody has their opinions," Harvey told TheBlaze. "I am strongly for proper education, for the freedom of thought so you can form your own opinion and have your own free speech in the future... [but] the education is, 'when was the Constitution drafted, when was it ratified, why did this happen, why did we choose to do this...all these things, why did they particular choose those specific rights to be in our Bill of Rights.'"

Kandra Albury, a spokeswoman for Duvall County Public Schools, which includes Cedar Hills, told TheBlaze she didn't know what prompted Sabb to have students write the sentence.

She said the principal had fielded one parent's concern about the lesson in January, but it wasn't Harvey. She said Thursday the district and principal were "checking into" what had happened.

Harvey, rather than asking the school for answers when he found the paper, wrote his concerns in an email, which was then forwarded to TheBlaze. He said he did it that way because he wasn't sure he would have gotten a straightforward answer if he asked the school directly.

He said he just wants to see a "proper, unbiased education" system and doesn't want any kind of religion or politics brought into the classroom."I believe in our Constitution. I am a veteran, I served for six-and-a-half years proudly and I served to protect our rights," he said. "Now whenever I have someone coming in and trying to pollute my child's mind with biased opinions...there's no education in that."Editor's note: TheBlaze has withheld the name of the child ad the father's request.

http://news.yahoo.com/dad-furious-finding-crayon-written-paper-florida-4th-124614291.html

[peestandingup]

Thats unacceptable. I'd pull my kid out of that school asap & homeschool if I had to. But thats the problem. Many people simply can't afford the time (or loss of income) to do that, or to put their kids in a decent private school. Since most families nowadays need to have two incomes (to keep up w rising costs of everything, inflation, healthcare, etc), then that means throwing their kids into the system, leaving it up to that failing education model & hoping for the best.

[ChriswUfGator]

Yikes. That's definitely a teacher with an agenda.

[JeffreyS]

That's what I thought. Maybe the teacher loves the patriot act, the TSA or who knows.

[TheCat]

[buckethead]

You crazy tea baggers and your concerns about "liberty".

When the turrists come to get you it will be too late to reconsider.

Why just the other day we got threatened with thermo-nukular war. If you resist government efforts to make us more secure.... The turrists win.

You're with us, or your with the turrists.

[buckethead]

THEY HATE US FOR OUR FREEDOM!!! One1

[NotNow]

^Now THAT is funny!

StephenDare! imagines Ms. Sabb to be a "right wing republican".  That is some spin.  Especially at the same time that the democrats are subverting the Bill of Rights in the name of "security".

[FlowerPower]

It seems like many assumptions are being made about why this child wrote the sentence. Without any real context provided, how can one become so sure there is some nefarious intent? Perhaps it was part of an exercise where class participants debate the declaration as true or false?  It would seem that understanding why rights exist and how they function together would be a worthy topic of discussion and debate.

[FlowerPower]

What if the kid had written this instead:  Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania , 175 :)9 US author, diplomat, inventor, physicist, politician, & printer (1706 - 1790)

[NotNow]

FP,

The article states that the Father questioned his son and some of his classmates.  They apparently did not conduct such a discussion.  The school district is supposed to be investigating, so the story remains unfinished. 

At least we can ALL agree with Benjamin Franklin.  We seem to just disagree on the meaning of the word "essential".  (And "infringed".)

[Adam W]

How stupid it this fourth-grader? Writing in crayon and not able to spell "rights" and "or"? It's depressing.

All joking aside - I agree with FlowerPower. There are a lot of assumptions being made here (and elsewhere) about the motivations of the teacher and very little evidence. No one actually knows why the kid was told to write this. So the speculation is more than a bit premature.

[buckethead]

Well... I'm a republican, although I don't recall taking a stand in favor of the patriot act, at least not after I learned what was in it.

I did vote for the simian who signed it into legislation. I did not however, vote for the intellectual who signed its extension into law.

Re- reading my first sentence reminds me how often I have debated a point from the perspective of ignorance. I am certainly guilty of that. I hope I have become more objective and informed. I was not a bad person, even as I voted for Bush, simply busy, and tuned in to a worldview which I allowed to be foisted upon me without having done the legwork to defend myself against it. So there's my daily introspection.

[urbanlibertarian]

Personal freedom and constitutional rights are under constant assault from the right, the left and the middle.

[BridgeTroll]

Well... I'm a republican, although I don't recall taking a stand in favor of the patriot act, at least not after I learned what was in it.

I did vote for the simian who signed it into legislation. I did not however, vote for the intellectual who signed its extension into law.

Re- reading my first sentence reminds me how often I have debated a point from the perspective of ignorance. I am certainly guilty of that. I hope I have become more objective and informed. I was not a bad person, even as I voted for Bush, simply busy, and tuned in to a worldview which I allowed to be foisted upon me without having done the legwork to defend myself against it. So there's my daily introspection.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Patriot_Act

Well... I'm a republican, although I don't recall taking a stand in favor of the patriot act, at least not after I learned what was in it.

I did vote for the simian who signed it into legislation. I did not however, vote for the intellectual who signed its extension into law.

Re- reading my first sentence reminds me how often I have debated a point from the perspective of ignorance. I am certainly guilty of that. I hope I have become more objective and informed. I was not a bad person, even as I voted for Bush, simply busy, and tuned in to a worldview which I allowed to be foisted upon me without having done the legwork to defend myself against it. So there's my daily introspection.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Patriot_Act

The history of the USA PATRIOT Act involved many parties who opposed and supported the legislation, which was proposed, enacted and signed into law 45 days after the September 11 terrorist attacks of New York City in 2001. The USA PATRIOT Act, though approved by large majorities in the U.S. Senate and House of Representative,

Within a few weeks of the September 11 attacks, a number of bills attempting to make changes to anti-terrorism laws were introduced into Congress. The first bill proposed was the Combating Terrorism Act of 2001, which was introduced by Republican Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ) with Democratic Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on September 13.[

The Intelligence to Prevent Terrorism Act was introduced to the Senate on September 28 by Senators Bob Graham (D-FL) and Jay Rockefeller (D-WV).[

The first version of the Patriot Act was introduced into the House on October 2, 2001 as the Provide Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (PATRIOT) Act of 2001, and was later passed by the House as the Uniting and Strengthening America (USA) Act (H.R. 2975) on October 12.[17] This was based on the afore-mentioned Anti-Terrorism Act, but had been changed after negotiations and work between Attorney General Ashcroft, Senators Leahy, Paul Sarbanes (D-MD), Bob Graham, Trent Lott (R-MS) and Orrin Hatch. It was introduced into the Senate as the USA Act of 2001 (S. 1510) by Tom Daschle (D-SD)[