Ms. Sparks' kindergarten class project of advice for Obama includes:

"No wars, or maybe a little one"

While this is bad enough, CityViews, the City of Glendale's official newspaper, decided to publish an article on Ms. Sparks' efforts on page 9 of Spring Issue 2009 (see attached image).

A similar article was also published in Glendale Unified's STAFF-O-GRAM (page 2, November 21, 2008).

If you would like to voice your concerns here are contacts:

Dr. Michael Escalante

Superintendent of GUSD

mescalante@gusd.net

Mr. John Drayman

Mayor of Glendale

jdrayman@ci.glendale.ca.us

To write a letter to the editor:

Vicki Gardner

City Views Managing Editor

vgardner@ci.glendale.ca.us

wow, this is dreadful.

so much for education.

And if this was "democracy" in that kids made the vote without adult supervision... egads even more so and in so many ways.

Brainwashing at its finest. Christofascism entrenched in to the heads of the little kiddies so that they can grow up to be mass murdering Christian terrorists when the fascist State beacons them onward. Lovely.

On the face of it, it looks to me as if the teacher was facilitating a discussion and compiled a list based on the children's input. Maybe the teacher disagreed with the consensus--maybe she herself is against all war (or for all war)--but felt she should impart independent critical thinking.

At any rate, for kindergarteners to be criticizing war at all seems like a big improvement, IMO. Nothing like that happened in my 12 years of public education. I never even knew the Vietnam War was going on!

None of my teachers said a negative word about the war games we played, the violent (but fun) movies we obsessed over, or our violence of video games.

(I did have one teacher in nursery school who absolutely forbade us from playing guns in her presence (not just with toy guns but even pretending our fingers were guns.) Even my own parents, who attended major anti-war marches, ridiculed her.)

I agree that all wars should be unacceptable, and to paraphrase Howard Zinn, our goal should be to abolish war for all time rather than having a series of anti-war movements.

However, this country is also in dire need of critical thinking, and it SEEMS like these kids are being encouraged to think.

I need to know more about this before I can be critical or supportive.

A teacher has a responsibility not only to facilitate discussion but also to teach and to instruct.

It's amazing to me that a teacher facilitating a discussion on war would not introduce students to the realities of war for children around the world.

I agree completely that war should be depicted for what it is (as well as racism)--and I've done that at my weekly peace vigils, despite complaints from parents and even other activists (see attached picture).

I'm glad light is being shed on this issue, but before coming to conclusions about this teacher, I'd want to hear her account of the events as well as that of the students. For all we know, she may have shown them pix like the ones attached, but they came to that conclusion anyway.

Teachers are not the only influence in children's lives. As you may know, military recruiters are targeting children that age--and younger (see: http://la.indymedia.org/news/2005/07/131867.php).

As I've mentioned, I had a nursery school teacher who was very vocal that playing guns was wrong. Unfortunately, the other influences in my life won out, and I continued playing guns with my friends(1).

Based on my experience, teachers who speak out against war are very rare. Nevertheless, I think this teacher should be allowed to speak for herself before I pass judgment.

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(1) However, over 30 years later, I got back in touch with that teacher and thanked her for telling us not to play guns.