From the Pens of Babes (UPDATED)

In the imagined shadow of the Twin Towers that are no longer there, the students of teacher Alex Kunhardt’s social-studies class at Brooklyn’s JHS 51 send their regards to some soldiers whom they thought were stationed in Iraq:

Pfc. Rob Jacobs of New Jersey said he was initially ecstatic to get a package of letters from sixth-graders at JHS 51 in Park Slope last month at his base 10 miles from the North Korea border.

That changed when he opened the envelope and found missives strewn with politically charged rhetoric, vicious accusations and demoralizing predictions that only a handful of soldiers would leave the Iraq war alive.

They sent letters like this to the soldiers standing between the South Koreans and the nut Kim Jong Il?

Mr. (I assume) Kunhardt had no response to the New York Post regarding the letters, but the school’s principal, Xavier Costello, did:

"While we would never censor anything that our children write, we sincerely apologize for forwarding letters that were in any way inappropriate to Pfc. Jacobs. This assignment was not intended to be insensitive, but to be supportive of the men and women in service to our nation."

New Yorkers' tax dollars at work? Maybe. Then again, this might be the work of some of the parents. New York is mostly a Democratic state—in spite of NYC’s mayor and the state’s chief executive—and I doubt that the average eleven-year-old has it in for US Armed Forces personnel. The young “naysayers” were undoubtedly coached.

Fine. It’s a parental right to raise offspring with the values that he/she sees fit.

only a handful of soldiers would leave the Iraq war alive

But when one’s bequeathed values run up against one of the most valued assets of an Armed Force—its morale—then one is to be scorned. Not silenced. Scorned.

Question for both types of teachers of these children: do you want our military men and women dead? Then write your poisoned-penned letters yourselves. That would be the adult thing to do, rather than use your children as human shields.

(Thanks to reader and old friend Iron Mike)

UPDATE: More commentary:

WizBang

Joe Gandelman

Comments

[Jack Army]

You are right on with your remarks regarding this stupid teacher. It is horrible that he is teaching his left-wing agenda to his students, but that seems to be expected these days. But to use the students in this way is despicable.

[Kathleen]

Appalling. Absolutely appalling. It's a perfect example of my biggest complaint about the public school system: rather than teaching children to think for themselves, it's all about spewing back whatever the teacher feeds them. It's shameful.

[Iron Mike]

Again...thank God we homeschool!

[baldilocks]

And I bet that's why your kids are the well-mannered beings that you report. I look forward to meeting them (and seeing you and S. again). :-)

[wayne]

Dear Baldilocks,
This is from a post I wrote earlier today...

What do these 2 things have in common?

http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/40259.htm

1)SOLDIER STUNNED BY LETTER KIDS' RANTS

February 21, 2005 -- An American soldier overseas is fuming over letters he received from Brooklyn middle-school children accusing GIs of destroying mosques and killing civilians in Iraq.

http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?sub=46&list=sub

2)Children are not a commodity!
Counter Military Recruitment Campaign.

What do these things have in common? It is very important that we as patriotic American citizens be aware that there is a concerted effort by groups that are associated with the World Workers Party (the international umbrella for world-wide socialism - otherwise known as the Whore of Babylon or by me as a bunch of Commies, Liars, Idiots, and Traitors) to undermine our war against Al-Qaeda and terrorism. These groups are fighting a concerted and long-term effort to undermine morality and Democracy. The leaders of this group are folks like Michael Moore, George Soros, the mainstream media, the Hollywood left, and the Eurotrash socialists typified by Chirac and the new president of Spain, and the leadership of the People's Republic of China.

Their most ambitious effort to date is an ever more effective effort to manipulate the minds of our young people in schools to educate them against decency, morality, and most especially the idea that our country must be defended against those who would destroy it. Children are being indoctrinated that our military is a bunch of killers. Miltary recruiters are being harrassed as well as those to whom they have been recruiting. Socialist controlled localities are restricting the legal activities of federal agencies in their jurisdictions. The hyping of anything that makes our soldiers and our country look bad (whether the stupid acts of a few overwrought individuals or plain out and out lies by our enemies), the resurrection of the Vietnam era (so called) "antiwar movement" (which was actually intended to be the beginning of a procommunist takeover of the United States) have all begun to show fruit in reducing the number of people who are volunteering for military service.

It is the intention of the Commies, Liars, Idiots, and Traitors to either reduce our military to ineffectiveness or to force our government to return to the draft where they believe that they can create sufficient public resistance to bring down our government, and set up the one world United Nations (socialist/communist) led government that will allow them to inflict their ideas on the rest of us.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are at war. It is not merely a war with a bunch of religious fanatics who want to bring Islam at the point of a sword to the whole world. Remember the Islamist movement was created in the United States by socialists college professors using the ideas of Marxism and anti-Americanism. The Islamist movement is an Q'uranic-based Marxist movement. The same ideologies that the founders of Al -Qaeda were indoctrinated with are the same attitudes and ideologies that were taught by folks with exact same worldview as Ward Churchill.

Churchill, his forebears and many of his contemporaries are attempting to bring about the beginnings of an alliance of terrorist movements and activities to destabilize our country. Remember that Churchill helped train some of the same domestic terrorists who bombed buildings and killed citizens during the Vietnam protest era. He has actively supported terrorism and Al-Qaeda and is being supported by many members of both national and international "progressive" socialist movements and individuals. Many of our great American "progressive" thinkers have written letters in support of him and terrorist lawyer Lynne Stewart. Many of these folks also have connections to the enviromental terror movements who have been attacking persons and properties around the country. All of these movements are coalescing into a domestic and international army of terror AND OUR VERY SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON OUR AWARENESS OF ITS EXISTANCE AND A POSITIVE DEFENSE AGAINST ITS ACTIVITIES. As much as I am not really thrilled with some parts of the Patriot Act, that may be one of the few things that stands between us and chaos.

Bloggers and Patriots of America UNITE!! Spread the word about who the enemy really is. Or we are going to end up with Michael Moore as Secretary of Education under a Hillary Clinton administration and a Bill Clinton / George Soros United Nations!!

[Julie]

Wayne?

Oh, I know there are a million waynes in the world. ;-)

As for the teacher feeding the kids anti-American "stuff." I homeschool as well, but I seriously think that in this case, no matter what was said in class, the kids were probably going, verbatim, with what they heard at home. I'm not excusing the teacher, I'm just saying.

Okay, now I need to start on that list of "articles I like" on the sidebar. They look interesting.

[USMC_Vet]

Loathesome. You are correct to point to the parents, though it would not be a defiance of logic to think that one of our fine 'educated' 'educators' is attempting to teach the children of peace and harmony.

"I'd like to buy the World a Coke...

...Oh yeah, and the murderous baby killers in the US Military suck...killing is bad, children...shame on them...tell them how hateful they are...now go home and do your assignments.

Have a nice day!"

As Orwell said, "Good people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

Other people sleep peacably too, George.

Thanks for an important post Baldilocks.

[Kadnine]

I was there in Iraq. Letters like these were more a source of amusment than distress. I mean, we had bigger fish to fry. It is my opinion that too much is being made of this story. It's a sad story, a sad commentary, not a source of outrage. (end my two cents)

[Creeping Jenny]

This sounds more like poor planning than leftist plotting on the teacher's part. The article says that most of the letters were kindly, which suggests that the teacher was not instructing students to write demoralizing things. It seems more likely that the letters just never got checked for nastiness before they were sent out. (That's pretty darn stupid, but with the way the public school system is set up, I can easily believe that such stupidity occurs.)

Personally, I have my doubts about the war. A letter to a soldier is not an appropriate place to express those doubts, but that doesn't make the doubts themselves any less illegitimate. It's hard for a sixth-grader to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate ways to express an opinion, and when I was in sixth grade, my peers didn't have the keenest understanding of other minds. So I wouldn't blame those kids' parents for their probable anti-war stance -- I'd blame them for not teaching their kids to be civil.

[Creeping Jenny]

Oh, dear. I meant, "illegitimate" or "any less legitimate"; take your pick. Stupid brain.