Thursday, October 4, 2007

Red Skelton's 'Pledge' Case in the Classroom

A Dover-New Philadelphia paper Times Reporter carried an online article about a teacher Sharon Ricklic, who received an award fror being Ohio's 2007 Preserve America History Teacher of the Year.

The story mentions:

Ricklic uses a variety of methods to teach her students about American history. While students study the Pledge of Allegiance, she plays a compact disc by comedian Red Skelton in which he gives a recitation explaining the meaning of the pledge.


Unfortunately, I fear that what she plays is probably This piece, which is a propaganda piece in defene of 'under God' in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Since the Pledge, with the text 'under God' is a denigrating piece of propaganda whose purpose is to declare that those who are not "under God" ought to be considered as anti-american as those who would promote rebellion, tyranny, and injustice, it has no place in the public schools.

It certainly does not make Ms. Ricklic deserving of such an award.

I do not know all of the details of this presentation, of course. It is a historical fact that Red Skelton did make this presentation. At the same time, it is a historical fact that the words were added to the pledge to denigrate those who did not believe in God in the eyes of school children everywhere. So, one can wonder whether Ms. Ricklic's students are getting an accurate account of history, or whether Ricklic is arguing in favor of the denigration of any atheist students she might have.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You're absolutely correct - you don't know the whole story!