Posted on 11/07/2008 1:55:13 PM PST by nickcarraway
A Cumberland County school teacher is defending her comments to a fifth-grade pupil who expressed support for John McCain in her class last spring.
The exchange at Mary McArthur Elementary School was captured by a Swedish television documentary crew, and the video is making the rounds on the Internet including YouTube.
In the video, which reportedly aired in Scandinavia earlier this week, teacher Diatha D. Harris calls the Iraq War “senseless” and tells one student whose father is a soldier that McCain would keep troops there for 100 years.
The classroom discussion begins with Harris asking the class who they support for president. When two students say McCain, she responds with “Oh Lord” and “Oh Jesus.”
She asks them why they are you pulling for McCain or Obama. One student says she supports Obama because “he is making good changes” like “not having a fight between Iraq, and having soldiers killed.”
“So in other words,” Harris says, “Barack is going to end that war in Iraq.”
One girls says she supports McCain. When asked why, she tells her teacher “I think it’s because of my parents are going for him, too.’’
Harris points out that the girl’s father is in the military, then says to the class that Iraq is a “senseless war.”
“And by the way,” Harris tells the girl, “the person that you’re picking for president said that our troops could stay in Iraq for another hundred years if they need to. So that means that your daddy could stay in the military for another hundred years.”
The girl appears to be embarrassed and doesn’t respond.
Harris said three children in the class had parents in the military.
In an interview late Thursday, Harris, 53, said somebody edited the video to make it appear she was an Obama partisan imposing her views on a child. In fact, Harris said, she made gestures after pupils voiced support for Obama.
“It has been doctored,” Harris said. “They didn’t show anything about Obama.”
In another sequence on the video, however, Harris sports an Obama button during a pep rally at the school.
Wanda McPhaul, a spokeswoman for Cumberland schools, said county officials were shocked when they were alerted to the video.
But McPhaul said Superintendent Bill Harrison, who will post his own videotaped statement on the matter on YouTube later today, is prohibited by state law from revealing what might happen to Harris.
Earlier this week, reports about the video on the Internet said Harris was a teacher in Asheville. She used to be a teacher in western North Carolina, but moved to Fayetteville within the past couple years.
Obama has loyal Nazi Brown Shirts
My thoughts exactly.
youtube is going to be a powerful weapon the next few years.
Cultism rule number one : get their children while they are young and brainwash them. I don’t really want to say in this forum what I think should happen to this ‘woman’.
ASAP.
Don’t you Yanks have any laws about public schools being politicized?
Parents need to start bugging their kids (I mean plant a bug on their person) in the coming years. Teachers are completely out of control with this, the classroom is *not* a place for you to impose your ideals on kids..
Anyone have the Youtube link? I’d like to send it to some people.
You tube will make it very difficult for BO to hide his crap. Video of his comment about Nancy Reagan is already circling the globe.
During 1960 - 1965 In my final years of Public School
98% of my teachers were Liberal to far Left.
I clashed with them daily.
Nothing new about the Left Wing Public School teachers.
Always been there only most have not cared to see what is going on.
Most of the people who say they boycott FOX News because a stupid liberal is on inbetween conservatives are the same
who have their kids or grandkids in Public School with Leftwing teachers and leftwing textbooks and either don’t know or don’t care.
My blood pressure peaked when I heard the audio of this poor excuse of a person this morning on Mike Gallagher’s show. That she is allowed to step foot in a school is criminal! I am glad someone posted the thread here.
Gallagher said to hear the audio Google him at mikeonline.com.
The Teacher’s Union run the schools along with school boards in the various cities and towns who are mostly liberal.
Child abuse. There is nothing worse than someone who has the been placed in a position of authority over another who is powerless to refute them, and that person takes advantage to the point of crushing their soul. That was this teacher’s goal, while feigning a desire to teach and help. And of course this is sereptitiously supported by the establishment/STATE.
I’m sure the school superintendents were “Shocked!” Right...
Let’s be honest here. This women isn’t saying something that the establishment considers out of line. We have a long way to go if we want something like this to be considered bad.
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