01-23-2017, 12:36 AM
(01-22-2017, 07:25 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I attended a family dinner yesterday. We had three short people with us, aged from not quite terrible two through third grade. Among the adults were the father, a member of the school board, the mother, very active among the parent teacher organizations, and my sister the retired first grade teacher. I learned about one more wrinkle in the Trump affair.
Nobody was allowed to heavily criticize Trump in front of the kids.
This is Massachusetts. Nobody in the house voted for or favors Trump in any way.
However, there was a resolve not to teach the young ones to feel unsafe, to feel their world was going to fall apart, to be afraid of their own government.
Have others seen anything similar, either now with Trump, or with Obama in recent years?
I suspect a learning experience.
My then second grader came home during the primary campaign saying "I hate Trump". I asked why and she didn't have a reason. Obviously she had been exposed to pressure at school, probably mostly from the other kids, but possibly with collusion from the teachers. We knew her teacher was a strong progressive. There was apparently at least one Trump supporter on the faculty.
So I explained about the election. Apparently other parents reacted differently, by complaining to the school; I'm sure the Trump supporters felt their kids were being politically indoctrinated and perhaps the Democrats were offended that there were any Trump supporters in the district. Eventually the district established a policy of not permitting political discussions among students in class in order to limit disruption, and requested parents to tell their kids not to discuss the election in school at all.
If the parents' district is anything like our district, no doubt they had similar experiences, and of course the job of the PTA and school board would have been to tamp down any arguments. I'd expect the couple you describe would have become allergic to political discussions that might get kids spun up.
I discuss politics pretty freely with my now third grader. Of course, I'm not under the misimpression that Trump is going to make anything fall apart.
Well, other than maybe some self delusions on the part of the left. Lots of people on the left are still in denial about Trump's win, and that might help to explain what you saw as well.