Kempsville Elementary

My wife and I sent both of our kids to KES in the past year. Overall we had an OK experience with the school, up until a recent concert in which our daughter participated. The theme of the concert (described as an “informance” rather than a performance by the music teacher) was promoting world peace – who could be against that, right?

One of the songs the kids performed was Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” a song not about peace but about broken sexual relationships. To hear lyrics like “remember when I moved in you… and every breath we drew was hallelujah” from the mouths of elementary-age kids was awkward to say the least.

The culminating song of the concert was John Lennon’s “Imagine,” where our kids asked us to imagine a world with “no countries,” “no possessions” and “no religion.” In other words, imagine a world with no Muslims, no Christians, no Jews, no United States of America—wouldn’t that be wonderful? Nevermind that efforts to create a world with no countries, possessions or religion resulted in over 100 million deaths and unspeakable atrocities in the 20th century alone.

When I reached out to the principal to share my concerns, she responded that it was not the school’s intention to promote Marxism or utopianism. Perhaps, but this song selection shows poor judgment and lack of critical thinking on the part of the music teacher and school leadership.

Please don’t misunderstand me: as a university professor, I believe in examining and evaluating diverse perspectives I do not believe in censorship. This is not "the marketplace of ideas." This is a school using taxpayer money to promote bigoted, foolish and historically disastrous ideas and put them in the mouths of impressionable children. Moreover, if the leadership of this school exhibits such a lack of critical thinking, promoting naïve utopianism without stopping to think about its obvious implications, how can we as parents have any confidence that our children will learn how to think critically?