While talking with one of Adorable Child’s friends yesterday afternoon, she mentioned that her 8th grade History class is talking right now about politics, and they’ve been looking at the current election campaign.
A fairly wide-ranging discussion ensued in my den, and when the name “Barack Obama” came into our conversation, this young teenager said (paraphrasing): “Isn’t he a spy for the terrorists?”
Talk about a show-stopper!
When I asked her where she’d heard that, she said that her teacher mentioned it. Under further questioning, she said she wasn’t sure, but she thinks her teacher said it wasn’t true, and that Obama was only one example. She could not, unfortunately, remember any of the other candidates discussed, nor what was said about them.
Isn’t it odd how she somehow came away with only the smallest part of the lesson? Was this nothing more than ordinary teenage inattention, do you think? I really want to believe it was…
*ahem*
.. but I think a phone call to the school might be in order.
Kids say the darndest things
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I suggest that you might want to take into consideration the amount of TV AC’s friend has been watching, particularly episodes where teachers are taken to task for actually promoting such inaccuracies/bigotry/historical revisionism.
Please don’t get me wrong here. I am not in “automatic defense” stance of a teacher who would say such a thing in front of a classroom of impressionable young people. Quite the contrary … I would tread lightly in my investigation, tho.
As you said, “Kids say the darndest things!”
Just curious… is the teacher’s last name Rove? 😉
I’m thinking this kid needs to wake up and pay attention in History. You might remind her that “Those who fail to learn History are doomed to repeat it.”
~EdT.
Goldenrod — I am absolutely aware that this is an area in which I should tread cautiously. Not sure, yet, how I’ll approach it. Sigh…
EdT — She tells me that she finds politics “boring”. AC says exactly the same thing — and I felt exactly the same way at her age. (Heck, I felt the same way 6 months ago, too!)