I usually keep my views on politics and religion to myself, however this was one point that I had to bring to everyone’s attention. I’m sure that many of us may have caught bits and pieces of the final debate and there was various things that may have caught your attention but this is one thing that stuck out to me. Last Wednesday, I was watching the final debate and I found my mouth hitting the floor once again when McCain spoke of his political views. To say that I was beyond appalled when McCain boasted that one of the things that would come with his campaign would be his allowing those that served in the military automatic grounds to teach in the classrooms, is definitely an understatement. Tell me, what does the war have to do with the classroom? I am sorry but this really bothered me because of what is being required of us to become certified teachers whereas those that serve in the military are automatically certified just because he feels that they did their duty and they “fought for our country”. So, I ask – what about the tuition, fees, tests and countless unit plans, lesson plans and “teacher preparation assignments” that we have had to complete on our journey to being able to teach in the future? And further I ask Mr. McCain to tell me just what will these ex-troops teach in the classroom anyhow? I don’t think I agree with his views that loading/unloading your firearm, cleaning your rifle and marching in formation are all one needs to succeed in life. So what is he trying to do — increase the numbers of people that join the armed services — I mean if you look at it they will definitely be farther ahead than us. They will get paid to be in the army, receive a pension and then walk right out of the services into a classroom — the only thing that have to worry about is “not being killed”!!! Sounds fair to me, right??? What do you think?? I guess that while the rest of us future teachers struggle to become more qualified and eventually certified just to earn our places in a classroom of our own, if McCain gets in office, we will have no one but him to thank that while no child is being left behind , no troops are being left behind either. Oh, I forgot I guess that we will have to “give a shout out” to Palin as well.