This morning, when dropping my son off for school, a few students were putting the American Flag up for the day. Their handling of it was horrible. The flag was "bunched up" and not properly folded. It hit the ground several times while they were fumbling with it. And several other "violations" of how I was raised to handle our flag as well.
The students in question are mostlikely in the 11 or 12 range roughly. At 1st, I was offended by the handling of the flag. Moreso, I was offended that a teacher was within eyeshot of the incident, and didn't bother correcting them at all. After a while, as my day got caught up in other business and whatnot, The flag incident faded from my memory. That was, until, I saw the same students mishandling the Flag at school's end when I picked my boy up.
Let me point out that I am not angry at these students necessarily. I believe it is the school's responsibility to properly teach this ceremony to the students charged with putting up and taking down the flag. If the students were trained and simply ignore it, I still am not nec. angry at them. I would be dissapointed that these kids obviously aren't being taught the respect our flag deserves but again, that is something that is a product of their environment. I don't think they came out of the womb as flag disrespectors.
But is this what it's like at every school? Am I making a big deal out of something that happens on most school campuses every day?
I don't think so. After all, the school is a public one, meaning it is a government institution. In my view, they aren't only responsible for, but should be prioritizing it and ensuring that not only those students, but every student knows how to handle their nation's flag. .
And the age of the students should not come into play. After all, kids at this age commonly learn such skills in civic organizations like the boy scouts and girl scouts. Kids at this age in catholic schools learn how to properly handle things in the church and give those things their due respect.
So, my question is, should I make a beef with the school about this? Or should I write it off as just another failure of our public schools who have failed here to instill any sense of patriotism in the schools funded by the taxpayers of our great nation? Or is this "mishandling" overlooked for any reason and "doesn't count" or whatever?