"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power." - Thomas Jefferson 1820

"There is a growing technology of testing that permits us now to do in nanoseconds things that we shouldn't be doing at all." - Dr. Gerald Bracey author of Rotten Apples in Education

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Thursday, September 29, 2011

Is Saying "God Bless You" After Someone Sneezes Allowable in School? Why Would a Teacher Ban the Saying? A Former KGB Agent Might have an Answer.

What do many Americans say when people sneeze? "God Bless You". It's one of those traditions handed down from generation to generation.

A California teacher doesn't like the practice and deducted points from student scores if they said "God Bless You" or "Bless You" when a classmate sneezed:

When Taylor McGinley sneezed in her health class at Will C. Wood High School a few weeks ago a student replied with "God, bless you," but it's what teacher Steven Cuckovich said after the sneeze that now has students questioning the teacher's agenda.

"(Cuckovich) said, 'Do you think that girl is evil, do you think the evil spirits are coming out of her?' And the guy that said "bless you" was like 'No, I was just doing what I was supposed to do when somebody sneezes, not trying to be rude,'" Taylor said, referring to the incident.

McGinley said Cuckovich never mentioned or referred to the expression again, but in Erica Fagan's class Cuckovich is deducting points from students' grades if someone said "bless you."

Here in the Midwest we might smile, shake our heads and think, "oh those crazy people in California and their crazy ways...thank goodness it's not here!" Well, not so fast. That sort of behavior IS here in Illinois. A reader tipped us off about this same "rule" from a teacher at Fulton Junior middle school in O'Fallon, Illinois. The IL teacher stated the same reason for not being allowed to say "Bless You" because it took too much time away from class and was disruptive.

Now you might be thinking these are just two misguided teachers and they should be laughed at and ignored. Perhaps we ignore such edicts squelching freedom of speech at our own (and our childrens') peril.

Watch this youtube video from a former KGB agent who defected from the USSR as he tells about subversive techniques to wrest individual liberty away from the populace and establish a totalitarian state.



Taking God out of politically correct speech is one of the subversive techniques. This is worth the 9:48 minutes to understand how we are a "target country" and our freedoms are constantly being whittled away and why.

Cuckovich says:

the policy has nothing to do with religion, but says the phrase is just a outdated practice and disrupts class time.

"When you sneezed in the old days, they thought you were dispelling evil spirits out of your body," Cuckovich said. "So they were saying, 'god bless you' for getting rid of evil spirits. But today, I said what you're doing doesn't really make any sense anymore."

Hmm. It doesn't make any sense to him so he bans the saying. A reader in our previous post wrote:

Quit calling these places schools. They are Comformatories.

The reader may be right. Why are schools becoming "comformatories"? Should we look at the punishment for saying " God bless you" or the even more insidious "bless you" more seriously? Should we pay closer attention to a former KGB agent when he tells us how liberties are snuffed out? This video was from 1983 but eerily parallels to what we have experienced in our country the last several years.

God bless us, indeed.



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