By Michael Graham
July 1, 2010
In Yiddish, Sean Harrington is a kochleffel- a pot stirrer. He’s the kid who won’t sit down and shut up.
Three years ago, Sean showed up as a freshman at Arlington High and noticed that many classrooms were missing their American flags. He also picked up on the fact that, unlike most local schools, Arlington High didn’t begin the day with the Pledge of Allegiance.
Unfortunately for Arlington officials, he had the chutzpah to do something.
He complained. He questioned school officials. When I spoke to him yesterday, he said he was particularly annoyed when committee members couldn’t tell him why the pledge had been abandoned in the first place. “It’s their job to know.”
So he started gathering signatures on a petition to bring back the pledge.
Normally, students who annoy their classmates “speaking truth to power” are admired by edu-crats. That’s because typically these students are mush-headed liberals. Petitions denouncing Israel or for lauding GLBT diversity - these Arlington’s School Committee can handle.
But a kid who gathers signatures from folks like John Kerry and Charlie Daniels to support patriotism? Sean had Arlington school officials completely flummoxed.
In the end, however, Arlington’s elected School Committee deadlocked, and his proposal to begin each day with a voluntary recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance went down. Sean may have brought in 700 signatures, but Arlington liberals just needed three votes on the committee to keep it out.
We have truly lost the war when children are prevented from reciting the Pledge of Allegiance because teachers won't participate.
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