Geography teacher Eric Hamlin, was placed on leave by the principal Carmody Middle School in Colorado for refusing to take down several flags from other countries in his classroom:
Eric Hamlin said the flags were part of a world geography lesson plan at Carmody Middle School and refused to take them down. The school's principal escorted Hamlin out of class Wednesday morning after he refused to remove the flags of China and Mexico.
The school district placed him on administrative leave for insubordination, citing a Colorado law that makes it illegal to display foreign flags permanently in schools.
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/9726287/detail.html?subid=22100484&qs=1;bp=t - via Think Progress
i don't understand why people are outraged by this. it was a public school, right? no free speech.
and i'm suspicious that the two foreign flags he displayed were china and mexico. that seems like it *may* be politically motivated as china is america's main political, economic and military competitor, and mexico because of various issues like illegal immigration. let's just say i'm not surprised a public school teacher wasn't displaying the flags of canada, great britain, and israel instead...
What a stupid law. It's not as if he's making the students salute those flags. I hope that something changes for the better in the state of Colorado because of this.
Okay, people, Law 101 here. The purpose of laws is to ensure a reasonably happy, well-organized society. When laws are made without public consensus, and benefit or please only the person who made them, that is despotism and therefore in violation of the US Constitution. All laws should be based on common sense. If a seemingly arbitrary law must be made, let it be only to prevent accidents that might occur if no rule existed at all (such as, which side of the road to drive on). Nobody's rights are trampled by making them drive on one side and not the other.
Displaying the flags of other countries in a classroom is not a violation of constitutional law. They are decorations, they are of educational value, they are appropriate to the subject being taught. Therefore, whoever proposed that silly law against foreign flags overstepped his or her bounds, and whoever went along with it without questioning its validity was negligent. It should never have become a state law, any more than the anti-Gypsy codes ond sundown towns should have.
Societies run best with minimal laws based on necessity. When little laws governing every aspect of behavior are implemented, it becomes all too easy for good people to get into serious trouble over nothing, and you wind up with horrible dictatorships like Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan under the Taliban, Pol Pot's Campuchea, Idi Amin's Uganda, what Somalia's turned into... the list goes on. Allow one person's xenophobia of foreign flags to become law, and you may as well let a misogynist run the place and force women to completely cover themselves and not walk in front of men, men to cut their hair a certain way, and anyone who wears glasses and wristwatches to be shot. Because that's where things go when society is micromanaged like that.
It doesn't appear that he was hanging all the flags of the world. To compare it to astronomy, say the teacher only put up globes of Mars and Venus - why exclude the other planets? What if the teacher refused to acknowledge Pluto as a planet? Wait...bad example.
Could there be a political agenda behind his choice of flags? Why China? Why not Canada? Why not Lebanon, Afghanistan, Brazil, or Italy?
There are posters with all the flags of the world - why did he not display one of these, and maybe make some game like "find the flag" day?
Admittedly, it's a stupid thing for the school to worry about, but why would he as a teacher want to lose his job over it? I question his motivation.
The man teaches geography, for crying out loud. Maybe they were studying China and Mexico. When I was in school, we learned to recognize the flags from many different countries - it was part of our "education" to learn about other countries - whether they were countries that were politically aligned with the US or not. Imagine that.
Just exactly what type of subversive stuff does anyone suspect this man of teaching? Can anyone specifically name a reason that these flags represent some form of evil? The last I heard we aren't at war with either China or Mexico.
Oh wait ... got it! China is a Communist country and Mexico is responsible for all those immigrants! Oh, horrors.
If you read the article, the flags had nothing to do with the curriculum, either current or upcoming. And I don't believe they mentioned anything evil or subversive about the flags. They just said that the flags weren't relevant to the curriculum.
In the USA, a lot of classrooms have US flags - I don't know if they all do. Hanging other flags in the class perpetually is considered a no-no. The teacher didn't seem to have a purpose in hanging the other flags, but this is apparently an affront to the US flag.
Just like when you hang your flag and the flag of another country, the etiquette is to hang your flag above the other country's flag. Rules, rules.
If he could have shown a reason for hanging those two flags, then he may have been OK. As I said before, why just those countries? Why not Canada, which is a lot closer than China. Why not the rest of the world?
What if he had the flag of Palestine or Israel, with no relation to the course material being taught? Would you perhaps wonder if the teacher were able to be impartial? Would you start to wonder about their political leanings?
The schoolroom should be un-political as much as possible. To simply label the school authorities as gestapo wannabes in this case without even reading the article is a little reactionary.
This teacher needs to understand he is either with us or with the terrorists. Why does he hate America? He emboldens our enemies and weakens the resolve of our allies. If he can't support the troops, he should not be teaching our children. It's a simple equation; if we hang the wrong flag up, we get hit again. Oh yes, and we should also hang up the Twelve Commandments in class, so God will protect our children.
The point is, he wasn't teaching anything about those other cultures, and he refused to take down the flags when asked by his principal - you don't piss off your boss, whether they're right or wrong.
My only thought was that he should have been representing ALL the flags of the world, and not just 3 - Mexico, China, and the UN, on a PERMANENT basis. That's what got him in trouble.
Simply hanging a flag in a classroom is hardly teaching about other cultures.
And get over your own politics - we're surrounded by all types of politics, rules, and regulations that are just plain silly every day at work or wherever.
It doesn't say anything about terrorists or supporting US troops anywhere in the article. Americans have long been obsessed with their flags and flag rules since 1776.
In the Connecticut section of todays New York Times, census bureau facts were printed about the countries whose number of immigrants were highest to New York, New Jersey and Conn. from 2000 to 2005.
Mexico and China, India and Ecuador increased the most. Maybe students should see the flags of their old countries hung in classrooms and feel proud.
Doesn't anyone hang art or magazine pictures or what have you where they still learn? It's just a thing to look at..totally objective..like supermodels and Ferraris.
Besides, those particular countries have great track records vis-a-vis terror, plots, or what have you.
I don't believe it is correct that flag ettiquette has one flying your nation's flag above the flag of another nation. As nations are supposed to be equal, flags of different nations are supposed to be flown at the same height. I'm pretty sure that this also applies to Old Glory, even though most Americans believe their nation is in fact superior to all other and hence lesser nations. Indeed, I've seen it violated all over the US and can only credit the lack of flagnaticism amongst Canadians and Mexicans for the continued practice.
This CO law seems retarded to me, but then most laws seem retarded to me. Unfortunately, politicians by and large believe that by passing laws they show how effective and hard-working they are. What really gets the voters stirred is to stand up to those darn furriners and their fellow-travelers in our society and show them that real Americans are xenophobic and dumb as a post.
I've known some fine principals in my life; I've also known some sorry little martinets who used their position to bully teachers, students, anyone. I wonder which category the principal in this case fell into.
I hope you're kidding, joe, but something tells me you're not. Personally, as a libertarian I feel that public schools are an abomination, a doctrination camp for mediocrity and conformity. However, as a child of poor people I doubt that I would have been able to afford a better education than that which I got in the school system. Nonetheless, our schools should have free speech, and it is horrible to me that they do not.
Personally, I wish we could deport "suspicious" a--es like yourself, but I don't think anyone would take you. Damn China for making things cheaply! Damn Mexico for having a crappy economy!
Don't say "It's a stupid law", because it's not a law- there's no law to stop a teacher from teaching geography.
I get the impression that he had flags of other countries displayed in the classroom, but the China and Mexico flags for some reason pissed off the wrong dipsh-t in the administration. The lesson for the kids is "Don't hang flags, hang people!"
Amazing. Here is one, anyone ever play Trivial Pursuit? Guess what, they have questions about flags from other countries. You know why I usually get these correct--I liked to study flags and had teachers who did as well when I was a kid. You know why others do not--in the States anyway--they have not got a clue that there are other countries out there. Like CNN putting Germany where Switzerland is supposed to be. OK, trivial example. How about this, ever been to the UN building? They have every flag of the member nations. Ever been in the military? Many different nations display their flags on their uniforms--good way to tell the good guys from the bad guys I guess. What if you do not know which is which? Oh well. Ever been to Six Flags Over Texas? Those aren't all American Flags. How on earth does Colorado explain that the flags of two nations have been diplayed over Colorado? How many different countries have displayed flags over various parts of the USA at different periods in history? Someone in Colorado needs a nap.
I'm British but I recently moved to the US and go to high school. Thankfully there's no pledge of allegiance, but I am amazed by the crazy amount of flags. There's one in every single classroom in the school except one class where the flag holder built into every single whiteboard was blocked by a TV mount. The history textbooks are stupidly biased towards the US and the teachers and school know it, but they have to use the textbooks under state law. Most of the students are very critical of Europe and voice their criticisms openly to me, but when I draw their attention to similar, sometime worse, problems in the US like, well, being forced to practically devote yourself to the American government, they try and find any way to deny it. Most Americans I've met seem to think that a two-party system of idiotic politicians is oh-so-democratic and better than every other country's government because it is. I believe the Nazis had something similar to the Pledge of Allegiance, they even used the same salute.
it was a public school, right? no free speech.
and i'm suspicious that the two foreign flags he displayed were china and mexico. that seems like it *may* be politically motivated as china is america's main political, economic and military competitor, and mexico because of various issues like illegal immigration. let's just say i'm not surprised a public school teacher wasn't displaying the flags of canada, great britain, and israel instead...
Okay, people, Law 101 here. The purpose of laws is to ensure a reasonably happy, well-organized society. When laws are made without public consensus, and benefit or please only the person who made them, that is despotism and therefore in violation of the US Constitution. All laws should be based on common sense. If a seemingly arbitrary law must be made, let it be only to prevent accidents that might occur if no rule existed at all (such as, which side of the road to drive on). Nobody's rights are trampled by making them drive on one side and not the other.
Displaying the flags of other countries in a classroom is not a violation of constitutional law. They are decorations, they are of educational value, they are appropriate to the subject being taught. Therefore, whoever proposed that silly law against foreign flags overstepped his or her bounds, and whoever went along with it without questioning its validity was negligent. It should never have become a state law, any more than the anti-Gypsy codes ond sundown towns should have.
Societies run best with minimal laws based on necessity. When little laws governing every aspect of behavior are implemented, it becomes all too easy for good people to get into serious trouble over nothing, and you wind up with horrible dictatorships like Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan under the Taliban, Pol Pot's Campuchea, Idi Amin's Uganda, what Somalia's turned into... the list goes on. Allow one person's xenophobia of foreign flags to become law, and you may as well let a misogynist run the place and force women to completely cover themselves and not walk in front of men, men to cut their hair a certain way, and anyone who wears glasses and wristwatches to be shot. Because that's where things go when society is micromanaged like that.
I'll get off my soapbox now...
Could there be a political agenda behind his choice of flags? Why China? Why not Canada? Why not Lebanon, Afghanistan, Brazil, or Italy?
There are posters with all the flags of the world - why did he not display one of these, and maybe make some game like "find the flag" day?
Admittedly, it's a stupid thing for the school to worry about, but why would he as a teacher want to lose his job over it? I question his motivation.
Just exactly what type of subversive stuff does anyone suspect this man of teaching? Can anyone specifically name a reason that these flags represent some form of evil? The last I heard we aren't at war with either China or Mexico.
Oh wait ... got it! China is a Communist country and Mexico is responsible for all those immigrants! Oh, horrors.
There are gestapo wannabes everywhere, I guess.
In the USA, a lot of classrooms have US flags - I don't know if they all do. Hanging other flags in the class perpetually is considered a no-no. The teacher didn't seem to have a purpose in hanging the other flags, but this is apparently an affront to the US flag.
Just like when you hang your flag and the flag of another country, the etiquette is to hang your flag above the other country's flag. Rules, rules.
If he could have shown a reason for hanging those two flags, then he may have been OK. As I said before, why just those countries? Why not Canada, which is a lot closer than China. Why not the rest of the world?
What if he had the flag of Palestine or Israel, with no relation to the course material being taught? Would you perhaps wonder if the teacher were able to be impartial? Would you start to wonder about their political leanings?
The schoolroom should be un-political as much as possible. To simply label the school authorities as gestapo wannabes in this case without even reading the article is a little reactionary.
My only thought was that he should have been representing ALL the flags of the world, and not just 3 - Mexico, China, and the UN, on a PERMANENT basis. That's what got him in trouble.
Simply hanging a flag in a classroom is hardly teaching about other cultures.
And get over your own politics - we're surrounded by all types of politics, rules, and regulations that are just plain silly every day at work or wherever.
It doesn't say anything about terrorists or supporting US troops anywhere in the article. Americans have long been obsessed with their flags and flag rules since 1776.
Mexico and China, India and Ecuador increased the most. Maybe students should see the flags of their old countries hung in classrooms and feel proud.
Doesn't anyone hang art or magazine pictures or what have you where they still learn? It's just a thing to look at..totally objective..like supermodels and Ferraris.
Besides, those particular countries have great track records vis-a-vis terror, plots, or what have you.
This CO law seems retarded to me, but then most laws seem retarded to me. Unfortunately, politicians by and large believe that by passing laws they show how effective and hard-working they are. What really gets the voters stirred is to stand up to those darn furriners and their fellow-travelers in our society and show them that real Americans are xenophobic and dumb as a post.
I've known some fine principals in my life; I've also known some sorry little martinets who used their position to bully teachers, students, anyone. I wonder which category the principal in this case fell into.
it was a public school, right? no free speech.
I hope you're kidding, joe, but something tells me you're not. Personally, as a libertarian I feel that public schools are an abomination, a doctrination camp for mediocrity and conformity. However, as a child of poor people I doubt that I would have been able to afford a better education than that which I got in the school system. Nonetheless, our schools should have free speech, and it is horrible to me that they do not.
Personally, I wish we could deport "suspicious" a--es like yourself, but I don't think anyone would take you. Damn China for making things cheaply! Damn Mexico for having a crappy economy!
I get the impression that he had flags of other countries displayed in the classroom, but the China and Mexico flags for some reason pissed off the wrong dipsh-t in the administration. The lesson for the kids is "Don't hang flags, hang people!"