Elementary school cancels mock election after kids chant ‘Trump’

[stone space]

A New York elementary school has canceled its traditional mock presidential election after kids chanted “Trump” and repeated “negative rhetoric about minorities,” according to the school principal.

Children at Jericho Elementary School in Centereach will be voting for their favorite school lunch instead of their favorite presidential candidate after their mock campaign season got too heated.

“Some people were getting angry because some people like Trump and some people like Clinton,” fifth-grader Miranda Waters told a local ABC News affiliate. “Some people think Clinton’s not good. Some think Trump’s not good. So there’s a lot of arguments going on, and I don’t like that.”


School officials decided to cancel the mock election to prevent minority students “from feeling uncomfortable,” according to Glen Rogers, the school’s principal.

“Teachers have said they’ve heard some kids in the cafeteria chanting ‘Trump! Trump! Trump!’ or saying they don’t want Muslims here,” Mr. Rogers told ABC News.

“I mean, kids often repeat what they hear on the TV or the news, but it doesn’t mean it’s OK,” he said. “We have a diverse community here. We want all our students to feel valued.”


http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/nov/3/elementary-school-cancels-mock-election-after-kids/

[emulatorloo]

4. Right. Is that your spin or the Moonie Times spin?

"Why do we want all our students to feel valued when they're not? Nobody asked for a "diverse" community, so why should they accept it or value it. If that makes minority students feel "uncomfortable", too bad."

That's pretty harsh, def sounds like Rev Moon style anti-Dem propaganda

[emulatorloo]

6. US has always been a melting pot. Consequently diversity is a given

Statue of Liberty symbolic of that, she's be around a long time.

[stone space]

9. 2 posts, huh? It shows.

[emulatorloo]

10. As Alt-right as they come.

'This country created for white people, Races shouldn't mix, a Jew wrote that poem!'

[emulatorloo]

3. Good for school officials! How is Moonie Times spinning this?

Curious that the Moonie Times would print this article.

Since I refuse to give that propaganda site any clicks, how are they spinning this?

[stone space]

8. That's the complete article. It's short.

I remember when schools could hold a mock election without bullying.

[emulatorloo]

11. Thanks! Me too, hope some day civility will make a comeback

[nil desperandum]

12. I remember

when we held a mock election when one of the candidates was George Wallace....no one was bullied and as I recall Tricky Dick won the mock election rather handily, and unlike the actual election no one voted for George Wallace in my small northwest CT elementary school...

[AtheistCrusader]

21. Same as the Daily Mail.

[AtheistCrusader]

13. Why the fuck are you posting this in Religion?

[stone space]

14. Children are being harrassed and bullied.

“Teachers have said they’ve heard some kids in the cafeteria chanting ‘Trump! Trump! Trump!’ or saying they don’t want Muslims here,” Mr. Rogers told ABC News.

This is a fundamental issue of morality.

[AtheistCrusader]

15. By that measure, all of GD and LBN would be in here too. Stop please.

[stone space]

17. Do you have something against muslim children?

By that measure, all of GD and LBN would be in here too. Stop please.

If they were wearing colanders on their heads would you be concerned about their being bullied?

Would you consider it a topic worthy of discussion then, or would you try to suppress discussion of that, too?

[AtheistCrusader]

18. Discuss religious and theological issues. All relevant topics are permitted.

All trump supporters will, within the span of a few minutes, attack anyone in the room for minority status of any type; immigration, income, race, religion.

Do you cross-post to all of them, or is this maybe more properly the purview of a wider audience, like GD?
This isn't 'about' religious or theological issues, aside from one target/victim group in the list happened to be a religion.

[stone space]

19. The bullying of muslim children is a direct affront to atheism and to atheist values.

Such bullying conflicts with a core value of atheism.

That makes it a religious and theological issue.

[AtheistCrusader]

23. Well, here's a not-shitty link anyway.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/elementary-school-cancels-mock-presidential-election-kids-repeat/story?id=43215399

[ZombieHorde]

20. Hi.

I'm having a hard time figuring out the religious angle in this post. The story is interesting, in my opinion, but I'm not sure it's in the right place.

[stone space]

22. Here's an SPLC report from back in April. It's only gotten worse since then.

Our report found that the campaign is producing an alarming level of fear and anxiety among children of color and inflaming racial and ethnic tensions in the classroom. Many students worry about being deported.


snip---------------

But the data we collected is the richest source of information that we know of about the effect of the presidential campaign on education in our country. And there is nothing counterintuitive about the results. They show a disturbing nationwide problem, one that is particularly acute in schools with high concentrations of minority children.

Here are the highlights:

•More than two-thirds of the teachers reported that students—mainly immigrants, children of immigrants and Muslims—have expressed concerns or fears about what might happen to them or their families after the election.
•More than half have seen an increase in uncivil political discourse.
•More than one-third have observed an increase in anti-Muslim or anti-immigrant sentiment.
•More than 40 percent are hesitant to teach about the election.

The comments are particularly revealing.

The survey did not identify any candidates. But out of 5,000 total comments, more than 1,000 mentioned Donald Trump. In contrast, a total of fewer than 200 contained the names Ted Cruz, Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton. During the campaign, Trump has spoken of deporting millions of Latino immigrants, building a wall between the United States and Mexico, banning Muslim immigrants and even killing the families of Islamist terrorists. He has also called Mexican immigrants “rapists” and drug dealers.

“My students are terrified of Donald Trump,” says one teacher from a middle school with a large population of African-American Muslims. “They think that if he’s elected, all black people will get sent back to Africa.”

In state after state, teachers report similar fears among minority children.

In Virginia, an elementary school teacher says students are “crying in the classroom and having meltdowns at home.” In Oregon, a K-3 teacher says her black students are “concerned for their safety because of what they see on TV at Trump rallies.” In North Carolina, a high school teacher says she has “Latino students who carry their birth certificates and Social Security cards to school because they are afraid they will be deported.”

Some of the stories are heartbreaking. In Tennessee, a kindergarten teacher says a Latino child—told by classmates that he will be deported and trapped behind a wall—asks every day, “Is the wall here yet?”

Many children, however, are not afraid at all. Rather, some are using the word Trump as a taunt or as a chant as they gang up on others. Muslim children are being called terrorist or ISIS or bomber.

“Students are hearing more hate language than I have ever heard at our school before,” says a high school teacher in Helena, Montana. Another teacher reports that a fifth-grader told a Muslim student “that he was supporting Donald Trump because he was going to kill all of the Muslims if he became president!”

snip------------------

https://www.splcenter.org/20160413/trump-effect-impact-presidential-campaign-our-nations-schools

[guillaumeb]

24. Recommended. Part of this story is the issue of Muslims being singled out by some of the children.

It is possible and likely that this apparent Islamophobia did not originate at the school, but is a reflection of what the children are hearing at home and in the community.

So how cannot hate directed against a particular religion not be a proper topic for the Religion Group?

This is more than simple political speech, it also contains hate speech. I have read numerous posts here properly taking issue with a school denying atheists a meting place for a club. Surely tolerance extends to Muslims also.

[AtheistCrusader]

25. Here's the thing.

If you cross-posted this article to every last interest group on DU on Trump's 'hate list', how many would there be? 15? 20 cross-posts? When something hits more than 10 target groups, probably just put it in GD.

In this case, I would consider 'religion' collateral damage, or a footnote to the main story. I'd also be willing to bet, not only the kids, but the parents that are likely inciting this behavior, would shrug and not care or be confused if they knew a white guy in their community was Muslim.

I agree, it's hate speech, but it's largely racist/ethnic based.

[rug]

28. It must have nothing to do with religion.

[AtheistCrusader]

31. Fair retort.

However, I would argue it's tangential or secondary in this case.

[guillaumeb]

29. Ethnic based possibly, if one assumes a similar ethnicity common to all 1.6 billion

Muslims in the world. I do not make that assumption, and my opinion is that the hatred is directed at Muslims.

[AtheistCrusader]

30. But you aren't the asshole bigot.

Bigots tend to NOT be aware of that. You're aware, as I would expect you to be.

That level of awareness is actually a baseline precursor to NOT being a bigot, to NOT fear the 'other' however other groups can be compartmentalized and labeled for mistreatment.

[Goblinmonger]

26. There is ZERO from the OP as to why this applies

It's just a copy and paste of an article saying that Trump followers are shitheads. We all know that. Yeah, sure, there is the word "Muslim" in the article, but no indication of why we should uniquely discuss there here.

As posted, it seems more fit for GD:2016.

[trixie]

27. We used to re-elect a dead president

during presidential elections. No sense in getting kids involved in debates that could alienate friends and classmates. We would put out information, books and other items on dead presidents and then hold an election. They learned history and it always surprised us who won. We had to take out George Washington and Abe Lincoln for the lessen to be effective. In 2012 Teddy Roosevelt won and most voters said he was the first president to preserve natural resources. These kids are aged 4 - 11.