FREEDOM! Over the course of the first two months of this new year, I was reminded in so many ways of our blessings of freedom - on the faces of our brave young troops defending our freedom and security, in the emotional, first-hand account of growing up in Saddam Hussein's regime by our January guest speaker Mr. Haider Ajina, in the smiles of Iraqis as they voted in their first real election in half a century, in the school children's celebrations of Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays with construction paper hats and cotton ball beards, and in the fact that anyone can still say anything in America without fear of being jailed or literally losing their head. As an educator, the abuse of this last one hits close to home. The pseudo Native American
professor from Colorado has the protected freedom to spew his insidious venom wherever people are dumb enough to buy it. One of my heroes, Ronald Reagan, described this particular freedom thirty-two years ago on February 13, 1973, when he said, "Freedom should be the right to be stupid if you want to be."
We must never take for granted the most basic of blessings we have inherited as Americans, FREEDOM! It is not free. It was and is being earned for us by three centuries of young Americans willing to put themselves in harm's way for us. Please, please, don't ever take this blessing for granted. Stand up when our leaders are degraded for having the strength of character to do what is right, instead of doing what is popular. Politely, but firmly correct the misguided when they publicly or privately state something that you know is not true. Teach your children our true history. Do not blindly rely on our public school system to do it. As a teacher, I know this one inside out. I must look long and hard to find accurate material to use with my students, and most often I create my own. Sadly, because of time restraints and perhaps just not knowing any better, most teachers, I believe, rely on the politically (in) correct version that has infiltrated most of our public school textbooks and the minds of many in authority. When your child comes home with some outrageous statement about our country or leaders, find out the source (textbook, misguided teacher, etc.) and address it. If you don't, who will? All great worthwhile movements started with one, then a few, and finally many doing the right thing. In the children's story, the Little Red Hen (do you think it was any accident that she was Red?) and her little (Republican?) chicks worked hard for the food (substitute
"freedom") while the lazy Dog, Pig, and Cat (feel free to substitute any Blues that come to mind, except Zel Miller, or any Greens), wanted the food (substitute "freedom"), but were just too lazy to work for it! ... Be a Little Red Hen! She's overworked and could use your help! There are enough (substitute "too many") Blue and Green Dogs, Pigs, and Cats!
And be ever mindful - "The only force powerful enough to stop the rise of tyranny and terror, and replace hatred with hope, is the force of human freedom."
....President George W. Bush, State of the Union Speech, February 3, 2005
Sheryl Fearrien
