Posted on 06/04/2007 1:47:14 PM PDT by neverdem
Every weekday morning, two students ring chimes over the public address system of Jamaica High School in Queens and begin the day’s announcements. But before they report varsity teams’ results, the weather, and assorted items of school interest, they ask that everyone rise and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Shortly after September 11, the New York City Board of Education issued a directive requiring the daily recitation of the Pledge in schools. It needn’t have bothered. As Diane Ravitch pointed out in an op-ed not long after the attacks, a longstanding state law already mandated the practice.
As the current school year began, however, I returned to the classroom full-time after a six-year term as dean of students at Jamaica High, and quickly discovered that I was one of few reciting the Pledge. The other teachers whom I spoke with had similar experiences.
I asked my students why they weren’t saying the Pledge, or why they stood silently while others recited it. None expressed deeply held political or religious motivations. They were simply indifferent. I learned that many of them had said the Pledge in elementary school, but were unfamiliar with patriotic songs: “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” “My Country ’Tis of Thee,” “America the Beautiful,” and a host of others that I had sung with classmates at PS 139 in the 1950s.
This ignorance should not come as a surprise. The most recent New York State test results for eighth graders entering high school indicated that only 27 percent had a basic knowledge of American history. The New York State history curriculum barely touches the actual battles and major political events of the Civil War.
In addition, teachers face the problem of educating a large immigrant population that scarcely resembles the last great wave of immigrants of 100 years ago. Over the years, countless students have come to me and asked to be excused so that they could “go home to their country” because of family illness, or to attend a relative’s funeral. Curiously, they never mention the name of their “country.” Often it’s an excuse for an extended trip back to their land of origin. Their outlook is a far cry from that of my great-grandfather, who brought his eldest daughter to America and saved money for three years before he could afford to bring his wife and two other children, who had remained behind in Europe. He never thought of going back “home” for a visit. America had become his home.
Today, cheap air travel, along with a rising standard of living, has made it easier to maintain close ties with one’s mother country. Satellite dishes dot the rooftops of New York’s immigrant ghettos, making television channels from overseas accessible. Hometown newspapers from Tokyo to Karachi are there for the plucking over the Internet. Americanization is a far more complex project today than it was in 1907.
Ronald Reagan understood the problem as well as anyone. In his farewell address to the nation in 1989, he noted, “Younger parents aren’t sure that an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach modern children. And as for those who create the popular culture, well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style.” He recognized that the America he grew up in was very different from the America of today. “We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions.” Reagan called for an “informed patriotism.” It’s an idea that seems almost quaint today.
In June 1927, on the 150th anniversary of the adoption of the flag as the official symbol of our country, the now-defunct American Flag Association held a “vesper” flag ceremony on the Capitol steps in Washington. The ceremony, timed to coincide with sunset on the “holy Sabbath,” included ministers of various denominations, President Coolidge, justices of the Supreme Court, and members of Congress and the Cabinet. The program “consisted of the massing of the colors, sacred and patriotic music by the Marine Corps Band, and the playing of Stars and Stripes Forever conducted by Sousa himself.” The principal address concerned “The Religion of the Flag.” One can readily imagine what the reaction would be today to a ceremony of this kind.
The events of September 11 have receded into the past. Despite initial momentum for teaching students patriotism in the aftermath of the attacks, over five years later students still seem to lack a basic understanding of what patriotism is. Those foolish enough to believe that American identity can be sustained by the affordability of high-definition televisions and by cheap, unassimilated immigrant labor, will come to recognize that they ignore patriotism at great peril. Let us hope that our awakening, if it comes, is not too late.
Marc Epstein served as dean of students at Jamaica High School for the past six years. He has written extensively on school violence.
Patriotism needs to be taught.
I don't like the concept of the socialist-driven Pledge of Allegiance, but the disturbing part here is the lack of education for them to decide for themselves how wonderful this place is. If they choose to turn from it then, okay, but they should at least be given the opportunity to make an educated choice of indifference.
Idiot! Scurry back over to DUmmyland.
This is really sad
...to our "leaders" in Washington apparently.
This stopped George for a moment. After he recovered, he asked the head of the history department how that could be. The teacher replied that Newton did not approve of teaching about the military and that to cover World War II, they taught about the internment of Japanese-Americans and about the liberation of the Nazi concentartion camps at the end of the war. George asked, in return, if they taught that it was the American Army that liberated most of the camps. According to George, the teacher replied that "they tried to make the Americans out to be the good guys when they could." At this point George asked the teacher for his name, and according to George, the teacher hung-up on him.
http://navlog.org/save_the_tiger.html
The feeling of belonging to a wonderful country has gone. Years of liberalism and immigration have destroyed for many people the idea that “we” are a nation.
I am a high school teacher in North Carolina. I am also a veteran. This year was the first year that NC schools required the Pledge of Alleigance during morning announcements. I was also discouraged with the apathy, most students ignored it. One day I played Red Skelton’s remarks of the pledge that he learned from his teacher, Mr. Laswell. Not all joined in after that, but many began to understand. I also mentioned that my son served in Iraq and that they may also be asked to serve and protect our country in the future. God Bless.
We have become a nation that is unwilling to count its blessings
Maybe they can fit it in if they have any time left over from teaching how to put on a condom/s Good article!
The HELL with that. The pukes that don’t pay attention are the America haters of tommorow. The bastards should lick the boots of every single patriotic member and veteran of the Armed forces of the United States.
???
Idiot? Education?
Do you not realize that the Pledge of Allegiance was written and promoted by a socialist named Francis Bellamy--a liberal clergyman who was booted from his Baptist church pulpit for his socialist sermons? The photo I posted was of children reciting it...and here's an illustration from the magazine he edited, showing children reciting the Pledge...
Later on, the salute was modified to the hand over the heart, because of the bad press the Nazis gave this one.
Perhaps you just love the Big-government, Nanny-state RINO wave sweeping this nation, but some of us still believe the government doesn't own us. Pledging allegiance to a FLAG...hmmmm... That's not where I believe MY allegiance should be.
It's not just "[they] don't pay attention"...
As the article states
This ignorance should not come as a surprise. The most recent New York State test results for eighth graders entering high school indicated that only 27 percent had a basic knowledge of American history. The New York State history curriculum barely touches the actual battles and major political events of the Civil War.In other words, this information has been weeded out of what is presented to our public school students. That is WRONG.
But of course, we can't have time for tolerance-training, administrative duties, etc., unless we boot important information from the curricula.
In the interest of YOUR own education, perhaps you should take the time to research the background of the Pledge. It was indeed intended to promote the “one big country under the federal government” concept, at the expense of state sovereignty. That concept is at the root of nearly all the socialism we suffer under to day.
Personally, I’d rather remedy the Pledge than dump it. Remove the “under God” phrase, which was not part of the original pledge and has become contentious, and replace it with “of 50 sovereign states”
In my school days (Norwalk, CA) all of us recited the Pledge each morning AND learned the full US historical record. Are today's kids too busy setting up meth transactions on their Blackberries to do both?
ping
These kids need to spend a year in Cuba, then come back, they’ll be singing a whole different tune.
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