Centrisity

A Picture of the President

Listening to 'The Good Neighbor' on my way home from work, there was a report about a Middle School teacher who walked of her job because she was ordered to take down her picture of President Bush. It was just a teaser, and my commute wasn't long enough for me to here the whole story, so I looked it up.

Pillai-Diaz, 33, a volunteer with the Bush campaign and an English teacher, has had a publicity picture of the First Couple hanging in her classroom since the start of the school year, she said.

The photo became an issue last week.

Now, if it just became an issue last week, even I have a problem with making her take it down. If people had sincere objection, it should have been raised much earlier then this.

I see no reason why a teacher can't have a photo of the sitting president, on a wall with the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Even my Dad had a photo of the current President in his den, regardless of political affiliation. I am not sure if he still does, but he did when I was younger. I was raised to respect the office, regardless of the party affiliation, and it seems that is all this teacher was doing.

A good compromise would have been to display a photo of Kerry, as the Democratic nominee. But this wasn't a history class, or Civics class, it was freaking English. And if this instructor simply had a static board, where she displayed our nations documents, along side a photo of the first couple, it should be honored.

The question I have, is did she have Clintons's picture up when he was President, and would she switch it to Kerry on Inauguration day. THAT would be the definitive resolution of this matter. But since she walked out, we may never know.

Flash