What is the point of teaching your students to be good American citizens if you yourself cannot accept and be open to the beliefs of others? Why should you teach them about accepting others and their beliefs if you yourself do not practice them? Do not speak badly of me again for you yourself are a hypocrite.
The flag is a representation of America, a country based off of religious freedoms, and you pledge to it because you believe in America and what it stands for. I am an American I do enjoy the freedoms of America and would not trade the world for them. Why do I not pledge, because I do not believe in pledging an allegiance to a flag even if it is symbolically a representation of what America is and stands for. I do not believe in placing importance on an icon, that is my belief and it is a part of my over all belief system. If my not pledging were an offense to you and the other faculty members you should have confronted or asked me about it as soon as you observed it; I would have explained to you why I do not, but it was your choice to not ask but assume why I did not pledge and then criticize me for it. I am sorry that everyone took such an offense to my beliefs I do understand why you would feel the way you did because to you it seemed disrespectful, but to me it would be incredibly disrespectful to have expected me to pledge.
I am not bothered by any of the other remarks on the evaluation paper; I accepted them for what they are an aid. I will use the evaluation to improve myself on the whole. I do understand how I did not talk to the students and interact that much with them. This is because in this world today everything is misinterpreted and I feared that interacting with the students and becoming friendly would have looked strange to others. I know that it is an important part of teaching the interaction between student and teacher and that there should be open dialoged between the two, but I did not know how to be with the students while observing. An example of this occurred when one of the students hugged me because it was our 2nd from last day. I did not know how to respond to this so I just stood their because I did not want the situation to be misinterpreted.
Thank you for allowing me into your school and onto your team and providing me with the opportunity to see what it is like in a modern middle school setting. Even though I took offense to the comments about pledging the experience was of great importance to me.
Thank you,
The flag is a representation of America, a country based off of religious freedoms, and you pledge to it because you believe in America and what it stands for. I am an American I do enjoy the freedoms of America and would not trade the world for them. Why do I not pledge, because I do not believe in pledging an allegiance to a flag even if it is symbolically a representation of what America is and stands for. I do not believe in placing importance on an icon, that is my belief and it is a part of my over all belief system. If my not pledging were an offense to you and the other faculty members you should have confronted or asked me about it as soon as you observed it; I would have explained to you why I do not, but it was your choice to not ask but assume why I did not pledge and then criticize me for it. I am sorry that everyone took such an offense to my beliefs I do understand why you would feel the way you did because to you it seemed disrespectful, but to me it would be incredibly disrespectful to have expected me to pledge.
I am not bothered by any of the other remarks on the evaluation paper; I accepted them for what they are an aid. I will use the evaluation to improve myself on the whole. I do understand how I did not talk to the students and interact that much with them. This is because in this world today everything is misinterpreted and I feared that interacting with the students and becoming friendly would have looked strange to others. I know that it is an important part of teaching the interaction between student and teacher and that there should be open dialoged between the two, but I did not know how to be with the students while observing. An example of this occurred when one of the students hugged me because it was our 2nd from last day. I did not know how to respond to this so I just stood their because I did not want the situation to be misinterpreted.
Thank you for allowing me into your school and onto your team and providing me with the opportunity to see what it is like in a modern middle school setting. Even though I took offense to the comments about pledging the experience was of great importance to me.
Thank you,