Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Taunton second-grader suspended over drawing of Jesus
A Taunton father is outraged after his 8-year-old son was sent home from school and required to undergo a psychological evaluation after drawing a stick-figure picture of Jesus Christ on the cross.
The father said he got a call earlier this month from Maxham Elementary School informing him that his son, a second-grade student, had created a violent drawing. The image in question depicted a crucified Jesus with Xs covering his eyes to signify that he had died on the cross. The boy wrote his name above the cross...
...The student drew the picture shortly after taking a family trip to see the Christmas display at the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette, a Christian retreat site in Attleboro. He made the drawing in class after his teacher asked the children to sketch something that reminded them of Christmas, the father said...
You cannot make this stuff up. I blame the lawyers. God forbid that this kid later was actually involved in a violent incident and they went back and found this...no, even as I type this and look at the picture, even that can't be it. It's stupidity, pure and simple.
Besides, clearly the real outrage here is that the school was talking about Christmas in the first place (joke).
The war on Christianity continues apace...
What do people learn from this?
It puts a chill on the public expression of Christian faith. People learn to keep their mouths shut if they dont want to be harrassed, ill treated, sent to mental institutions, fired, passed over for promotion, and so on and so forth.
It creates a hostile environment in the public sphere. This is a favorite tactic of the New Left....political correctness...the language police.
Time to start turning the tables on the Left.
They make my BLOOD BOIL. Talking about tolerance and diversity celebration while being intolerant and discriminatory to certain groups.
Although on a fixed income, there are news stories every day that illustrate to my wife and I why we pay the tuition for our 3rd grade grandson to attend a private parochial school. His scores on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills simply reinforce that decision. Reading, 100 percentile, math 100 percentile, science 100 percentile. Every school day begins with a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance.
Guys. Calm the heck down.
Apparently the boy's teacher was concerned that the child identified himself with the figure on the cross (which most certainly was a torture implement) and thus she suggested he be evaluated.
He is a special needs child and the teacher was concerned with the violent nature of the drawing and the child's possible self-identification with it.
This has nothing to do with trying to suppress the practice of Christianity and everything to do with a teacher's concern that a child might be troubled.
PS: paranoia. Look it up.
All this commentary about "suppressing Christianity" is sheer paranoia.
Y'all are nuts.
PPS: anybody care to suggest that the cross WASN'T a torture implement? The Romans tortured and murdered countless tens of thousands of dissidents, slaves, rebels and of course Jews. Torturing them was the point for pete's sake.
Furthermore some paintings and sculptures of the crucifixion are in fact extremely violent and so was Mel Gibson's movie and I think these could quite easily disturb a child. They sure as hell disturb ME.
A child who draws something like this could easily be expressing some form of unhappiness especially if he identifies with the victim.