Posted on 9/17/2006, 10:10:09 PM by rellimpank
Is the Constitution really being taught in our schools?
Thanks to a 2004 law authored by U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., every American school and college that receives federal money must teach about the Constitution on Sept. 17 (the date the document was adopted, in 1787), or the closest school day available.
Needless to say, the edict has brought some whimpering.
Dan Fuller, director of federal programs for the National School Boards Association, told The Associated Press last year that such dictates interrupt regular lessons on other subjects. (Global warming, perhaps? Recycling? Multiculturalism?) "We don't need the federal micromanagement," he said. "Congress has been acting more like a school board. ... Local schools cover the Constitution, and they've been doing it for a long time."
It would be nice to think
(Excerpt) Read more at reviewjournal.com ...
Suddenly liberals are bothered by government mandates???? Like government mandates to ban school prayer, christian groups or the Boy Scouts???? Gosh, must be tough to wake up and realize you are giant, seething, oozing hypocrite!
A very good idea.
Hard to take without massive doses of Ritalin.
But you'll take federal money...
"such dictates interrupt regular lessons on other subjects. (Global warming, perhaps? Recycling? Multiculturalism?)"
Don't forget sodomy 101 and 111.
> --"Sheets" Byrd did good--
Yes, surprising.
I can't believe all the boohooing about one day in the entire school year. It's only the basis for the most successful democracy on the planet. Sheesh.
Bump! It's your day!
Thanks to a 2004 law authored by U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., every American school and college that receives federal money must teach about the Constitution on Sept. 17 (the date the document was adopted, in 1787), or the closest school day available.
NB: It doesn't say, "Teach The Constitution" it says "Teach About The Constitution.
Now. The question remains (for me at least) WHAT will they Teach "About" The Constitution?
More of the liberal "The Constitution is a Living Document"?
Or Maybe.....
THe Old Constitution is not adequate for todays world?
It seems to me to be open to a lot of "interpretation" left up to the individual teacher.
Myself. I would prefer a law that says "Teach The Constitution".
But that's just my opinion.
Lots of schools teach about the Constitution now.
Like how it describes a "democracy" and that our democracy is "broken" and must be fixed.
Beware what a federally mandated constitution course may be like! What tenth amendment? What second? It's a living document anyway...
I'd prefer to keep the federal government out of education altogther. Keep their (our) money and their noses out of it.
As would I. But it seems to me that "our congress critters" ain't about to go for the Presidents vouchers plan.
When I was in school (back in the caveman days). We had "Civics class". We learned The Constitution.
And I mean we learned it. We had to recite it in class when called upon to prove we learned it.
We did it back then and it seems to me we can still do it now.
The United States IS NOT A DEMOCRACY!!! Sheesh! It is a Constitutional Republic. There is a difference.
When asked outside of the first Constitutional Convention whether they had decided on a republic or monarchy, Benjamin Franklin made it perfectly clear:
"A republic if you can keep it"
"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."
-- John Adams (1814)
"democracies" or mob-rule governments, "have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."
--James Madison
The Founding Fathers were very specific in that they were not creating a "Democracy". They setup the Constitution so that the representatives were democratically elected, but they were very specific that it was a Constitutionally based Republic.
Maybe a bit more reading of the document in question and the Federalist papers is in order here. And not just on Sept. 17th, either.
I get so tired of people telling me I live in a democracy. I don't. I don't want to live in one.
We're coming dangerously close to becoming a democracy, but this Nation was never designed nor was it intended to be a democracy.
L
Indeed it is. I was in school (public school) back in the 1940's-1950's.
Heck Fire. I well remember when the words "Under God" were added to the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. The year was 1954. I was in my early teens at the time.
Be that as it may, we had "Civics Class". We also had good teachers back then.
The public school system hadn't been corrupted by the NEA. I'm not sure there even was the NEA back then.
Most of the teachers in the higher grades back then were "older people" and most had been in business or a professional or tradesman of some kind. In other words they had some experience in "real life" before they became "teachers".
I have fond memories of them as decent, good, responsible people and they tried to pass those qualities on to their students.
Sometimes it is very difficult for me to believe much less accept the changes of the past 50-60 years.
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