Ridiculous? More ridiculous than thinking that one lesson plan asking a kid what they think about what the President said about staying in school is a threat to your child's moral upbringing?

How old is Maddie? 8th grade (I guess that because of algebra)? I have no problem at that age level either.

I wouldn't have a problem if, in 3rd as my youngest is, a teacher said "Muslims worship a God called Allah and study a book called the Quran". OK - that's factual. I think it might be different if the teacher said "Allah is great. In fact, he is the true God and all infidels should be killed" - that might be different.

GC, again, once my kids are old enough and mature enough to consider, debate, and reasonably approach ideas vs. fact, I'm cool with it. My 8 and 10 years olds haven't reached that point yet. My 8 year old might be there before my 10 year old.

If you make the decision to exclude your 8 year old from the accompanying lesson plan, and she (she, right?) asks, "Dad, why am I not doing the same homework as everyone else in my class?" would yuo answer honsetly with, "Because the assignment might include opinions that we don't agree with and don't think you should be learning about right now." If so, what do you think that teaches her about hearing opposing opinions?

After reading a few pages here it sure seems like everyone is ganging up on scaeagles. I just wanted to say that I really enjoy the discussion going on and I hope that scaeagles doesn't get his feelings hurt (or however you want to phrase that) by being singled out a bit.

It's a rare message board where everyone can actually discuss differing viewpoints and not have flaming and/or trolling going on.

/I <3 you guys. :)

Funny story from a friend of mine: his sister married a Jewish feller and converted and they had a kid. They were religious but not super religious, but when it came time to send their daugher to high school, they sent her to an Orthodox Jewish school. (I don't know if she had been going to Jewish day schools all along.) The main goal was to shelter her from some of the more challenging aspects of public high school. But . . .

the kid drank the Kool-Aid. "We're not religious enough. Dad, you should grow your beard, etc." The kid got herself emancipated at 16, so she could live with a truly religious family.

I'm sure Leo's fine. I'm just trying to stoke the flames of his inner liberal fireplace.
:D

I do understand that you don't want them to be exposed to any views that aren't yours until they are older. It seems that you think that children shouldn't be exposed to different views until they are old enough to have the critical thinking skills to understand people believe differently then you do.

Problem (or not) is, by the time they reach that age your views will be so ingrained in them that they will think the other views are wrong and they won't have the tools to be able to understand that people do have different views because they won't be exposed to anyone with different views.



And now I feel like we've gone beyond discussing politics in general to criticizing your parenting skills. That, I don't think is cool.

I will apologize for the directness of this to your personal, off-board life. I say what I say about anyone who doesn't expose their kids to different views (general ewe, in a way). The topic is good, the subject direction is a poor choice.

We have discussions like that all the time about entertainment choices. I hope I wouldn't ever have to have one about a school project, but I wouldn't rule it out.

It is a she. My kids are Heather (15), Jake (10), and Megan (8 on the 17th).

My answer would be "Because it was an assignment on some stuff I was concerned about and the parents were excluded from the process. We can look at the stuff and talk about it together, though.". That is honest.

What that would teach her is opposing opinions are fine and I'm interested in what she's doing (already do homework with her nightly, so that's not really an issue), and some things are important enough that I want to do it with her 100%.

I'm used to it. Happens all the time around here. :)

FYI, Betty, I enjoy it around here and it is very infrequent that I feel belittled, and to get ones feelings hurt one must first have feelings. :) I usually am challenged to defend my positions, which I enjoy, and there are a whole bunch of things I've actually changed my mind on from discussions here, and other things I am more convinced of than ever that I'm right.