Today I was sitting in my office when the phone began to ring. I immediately recognized the number as my kids' school and groaned. Is someone sick? In trouble? After answering and being greeted by the principal's voice, my mind assumed the latter.
Turns out it was neither. Two weeks ago my son's 5th grade class was given an assignment having to do with the upcoming presidential election. Each student was randomly assigned Obama or Romney and their job was to create a Powerpoint and poster outlining why their candidate is better. The purpose of the assignment was to expose kids to each candidate, their viewpoints, and encourage critical thinking to prepare the kids for when they, too, will vote someday.
We worked with our son on the project and he came up with ideas like "Romney is cool" and "he has made a lot of money." Things you would expect to see come out of the mouth of a 10 year old.
Apparently some parents had other ideas with their kids' projects and a few posters had things like:
- Romney supports traditional marriage: one man, one woman!
- Obama is not a Mormon
and other heated statements having to do with religion, race, abortion, etc.
The principal had decided to end the assignment and take everyone's posters down because he didn't feel these were appropriate to have hanging in the elementary school and I told him I agreed.
I found it pretty sad that some people had used their child's assignment as an opportunity to grandstand their own personal political beliefs.
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