The obligatory Veteran’s Day assembly

My third grader sang at the Veteran’s Day assembly at his elementary school, along with all of the other third grade classes. Normally, I tend to avoid school functions like this. Loud, crowded, and obnoxious, school functions are NOT my thing. This was no exception. They sang well, although I think their music teacher is a tad over the top in his gestures, and they did not plan well when it came to where to place my son in the group. Would I have chosen dead center to place my easily overstimulated, sensory-seeking son who cannot stand still to save his life? Ya gotta be kidding me. But dead-center he was. He actually did remarkably well, singing most of the way through most of the songs, and not touching the kids near him too much. By the end, he was bugging out and bounced his way all the way back to his class and back out again with me for speech therapy, but he did fine after that. Considering he’d had to stand in one place for an hour, I think he deserved all kinds of kudos!

To illustrate why I despise these school functions though, I just need to tell you about The Pledge of Allegiance. They recited this, line by line and/or phrase by phrase, with students taking turns reading an explanation of what each means. I was curious how they would handle “One nation, Under God”. I even got out my cell phone and recorded it. Each phrase was followed by a pretty good definition of what it meant, until they got to “Under God“. The girl said, “The original pledge did not contain ‘Under God’. In 1954 Dwight D. Eisenhower was our President. He added the phrase ‘Under God’.” No explanation of WHY he added it, that our nation has a rich Christian history, and that we founded our nation and government on Biblical principles. And isn’t that the sad state of our public school system?

I stood there gritting my teeth, with renewed determination to get my sons out of there and home, as soon as possible.