Posted on 11/19/2014 9:33:30 AM PST by Whenifhow
FAIRFIELD, Ohio – According to a citizenship lesson for 8-year-olds, rights are given to Americans by their government.
Parent Andrew Washburn posted a picture on Facebook of a handout titled “Being a Good Citizen” by Phyllis Naegeli.
“So Emma brought home a very interesting handout from school the other day. So informative! I didn’t know that our rights come from the government! Thank you, government!” he sarcastically wrote.
“And thank you, Fairfield (City School District), for teaching my eight year old daughter all about her rights!” he added.
Washburn tells EAGnews his daughter attends Fairfield North Elementary in the Butler County, Ohio district.
Among other things, the worksheet claims:
* Rights are special privileges the government gives you. * Because the government gives us rights, we have the duty to be good citizens. * Someday you will be given the right to vote.
Washburn posted the entire worksheet on the social media site.
Being a Good Citizen“You see, I know how important it is to get to children early in their lives and make sure they understand how it is in the world. Otherwise their impressionable minds might be corrupted by falsehoods like the idea that our rights come from our Creator and that we are born with them,” Washburn posted on Facebook.
After all, the Declaration of Independence makes it clear the rights of Americans are “endowed by their Creator.”
“I personally hold myself to be a patriot, committed to the spirit of 1776 and the American way of life,” the father tells EAGnews.
“As someone steeped in the Enlightenment philosophies of Locke, Paine, and Jefferson, the idea that government is the fount of our rights is a morally repugnant one to me. The whole tone of that handout seemed to be ‘Government gives you your rights and you should be grateful.’ This is what they taught children in the Soviet Union. In fact, the entire handout smacks of a tribute to Comrade Stalin,” he says.
On Facebook, Washburn concluded, “So, again, I just feel so grateful to live in a country whose leaders have generously granted my rights, and even more grateful that they make sure my children know where those rights came from!”
He researched the lesson and found it was met with similar criticism in 2009 and the author supposedly changed it. But at least one school – Fairfield North – is clearly still using the old version.
Washburn tells EAGnews the staff and faculty at his daughter’s school “have all been very helpful” and that the teacher’s use of the outdated worksheet was “a simple accidental oversight.”
The lesson was published by edHelper.com, a site that provides lessons and worksheets on a number of subjects for all ages.
The author, Phyllis Naegeli, has produced other lessons, such as one titled “Our Living Constitution,” which can be found on the Opelousas (Louisiana) Junior High School website.
We home schooled & our daughter went to HS from 1997-2000.
The incompetence and leftist ideology of the school system and the people running it was frightening then. It has gotten progressively (pun intended) worse.
I frequently battled the school and county administrators. I won most of the time. Because as I discovered, although most of them are congenital liars that will *never* take a real decision or take responsibility for anything if they can avoid it, as a rule most of them are just not that intelligent. It was disturbing to see how many stupid people had masters and Phds.
When I had dealings with my rep on the school board I realized that there was no hope. It was like I was the only person not under the influence of LSD.
Is this the same person?:
http://www.crosswalk.com/family/homeschool/anything-god-wants-is-best-1264034.html
That would make an excellent tagline.
This belief is the result of the same disintegrated mode of thought that produces a concrete bound mentality and gives us pluralism, political eclecticism, mixed economy,utilitarianism, Keynsianism, and welfare statism.
I think you'll find that most people believe rights come from the Constitution or the government. Most of their lives they've heard things like, "I have a 1st amendment right to free speech," "We need to protect our 2nd amendment rights to bear arms," or the simple, "constitutional rights," all of which imply the Constitution, and by extension, government, is the source for rights.
That doesn't mean the materials in question weren't deliberately written and used to take advantage of the misconception. None of that was innocent. However, we need to be aware of the importance of being accurate when we speak of these matters including correcting, when necessary, misstatements even from people on our side.
It appears to be.
The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.
I had never seen that Hamilton quote before. Beautiful.
Even better, local school boards should have more say so, the way it was when I went to school.
When I talk to parents there is wide agreement that public education is generally a disaster, but the school their children go to is excellent.
Exactly the same logic that returns 90% of incumbent congressmen to their seat when the public approval of congress is only slightly above ebola civil rights.
35 yrs ago, when my daughter was in kindergarten, I browsed a book in her desk while waiting my turn with the teacher at Parent-teacher night.
I was all bout ‘our gov’t and it’s workers...’workers’ not being elected officials - but WE the People.
I had her in Christian school by the end of the week - where she stayed until 10th grade when they closed.
Parents have NOT been paying attention. They only got this far because people were too busy watching Dancing with the Stars - etc.
Go back twenty years and consider how many high school students would approve of homosexual marriage.
It only took twenty years to rinse Christian thought on the deviant behavior of homosexuals out of your children.
This in my opinion was a turning point, one I though would never happen. Not that homosexual marriage would not happen, but that Christians would accept it with out a whimper.
“the outdated worksheet “
The very phrase “outdated worksheet” exemplifies brain-deadness. The worksheet was not “outdated” just because it was old. The worksheet was FALSE. There was never a “date” when the worksheet was correct.
Obama does put an extra I in everything.
nothing that happens or is said at school should be secret, nothing.
There are “natural” God-given rights - the right of conscience, expression, self defense, right to the fruits of one’s labor etc. and there are “civil rights” -organized society created rights such as the right to vote, right to jury of ones peers, right to cross examine one’s accusers, etc.
In European socialistic states, man surrenders his natural rights in favor of civil rights that give him “better” protection of his health, safety and property. In America, we retain our natural rights and compact only for specific civil rights. In Europe, the common good overrides individual rights. In America, the individual is protected from majority will by his retained rights exclusive of government. (10th Amendment.) Of course, the Bill of Rights is actually a prohibition from government interference with retained rights.
It is unfortunate that many “educators” are liberal nitwits. Home school. Vote down all property tax raises “for the children”. Parents are being “grubered” every day.
The teacher is still ignorant, for not recognizing the wrongness of it immediately.
This is “Fundamental Change”.
Bump
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