A Florida father is outraged at a scrawled crayon message he just found in his fourth-grade son’s backpack, as dictated by the teacher during a lesson on the Constitution.
“I am willing to give up some of my constitutional rights in order to be safer or more secure,” the statement read, as reported in The Blaze.
The father, Aaron Harvey, said he was stunned.
“Everybody has their opinions,” Mr. Harvey said in The Blaze report. “I am strongly for proper education, for the freedom of thought so you can form your own opinion and have your own free speech in the future … [but] the education [should be], ’when was the Constitution drafted, when was it ratified, why did this happen,’ ” and not so much political ideology.
The fourth-grader attends Cedar Hills Elementary in Jacksonville, Fla., and the paper was part of a lesson plan taught in January on the Bill of Rights. The father just found the paper in his son’s backpack now, however, and emailed his concerns to the press, The Blaze said.
A spokeswoman for the school system answering questions from The Blaze on Thursday said that Mr. Harvey wasn’t the first parent to complain and that administrators are investigating.
Mr. Harvey, meanwhile, said he only wants his son to receive a “proper, unbiased education,” The Blaze reported.
“I believe in our Constitution, I am a veteran,” he said. “Now whenever I have someone coming in and trying to pollute my child’s mind with biased opinions … there’s no education in that.”
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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