Sitting Out the Pledge - In New York’s public schools, patriotism is passé.

City Journal ^ | 4 June 2007 | Marc Epstein

[kabar]

Approximately one in every eight persons resident in America is foreign born. That percentage will continue to increase under present legal immigration laws.

My old elementary school in Jersey City, PS 23, is now called the Mahatma Ghandi school. From the school website:

"Our school is ethnically and racially diverse, with 43 ethnicities and 73% of our population non-native speakers of English. Many are new to the United States. Our largest population is Hispanic (39%). The next largest population are Indian and Pakistani, which comprise 20% of our school. We also have a growing Arabic population (12%), 7% Asian, and 22% of our population constituting numerous other nationalities.

"The majority of our students live in apartments; therefore, we have a high mobility rate as families move to better, or in some cases, less expensive accomodations. Our 2002 school report card shows that our mobility rate continues to hover over the twenty percent mark (21.3%), compared to a state-wide mobility rate of 13.8%."

When I attended the school over 55 years ago, the school was predominantly Italian, Jewish [mainly Poles and Germans], Irish, and about 15% black. The boys had to wear ties to class. We recited the pledge of alliegence every morning. Teachers used corporal punishment. We celebrated a variety of ethnic holidays including Crispus Attucks Day to honor the first man killed by the British during the Boston Massacre. He happened to be black. We had a school assembly honoring him, which included singing Negro spirituals. Many of the students were second generation, children of immigrants. But the only language you heard was English and we were all proud to be Americans.

When you have 73% of the school children as non-native speakers of English, it makes you wonder now anyone can learn in such an environment. If you subtract the 20% Indians and Paks, it appears that the Hispanics are the ones who are the non-native speakers primarily.

[firebrand]

I once thought that patriotism in the schools was something that has faded away with the years, but I was informed that patriotism is always taught in the schools during and after wartime and then tends to fade away.

[Bigg Red]

I have previously read about and also witnessed this sorry state, but still this piece brought tears to my eyes.

[Mmmike]

School tarnishes everything that it touches with its built-in institutional characteristics, especially its one-size-fits-all regimentation. So, many students learn to roll their eyes and grimace at simulated experiences of freedom and patriotism that are staged within the context of school. The antidote can only be living and learning in real freedom with family and community, without the heavy-handed interruptions, arbitrary bossiness, and irrational gimmickry of government school.

[hershey]

Excellent post.

[goldstategop]

Liberals hate America. And our elites are into promoting globalism - not American nationhood. So its no wonder how little our children appreciate their country, its symbols and history. Our politicians have made sure they don't.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[EBH]

He never thought of going back “home” for a visit. America had become his home.

And there in lies the chief difference. The old was left behind to start anew.

[maica]

Are today’s kids too busy setting up meth transactions on their Blackberries to do both?

@@@@@

Today’s public school teachers are the second generation of teachers who believe and teach that America is an oppressor nation that was formed by slaveholders, and which continues to be “unfair” to “people”. No history that refutes these principles is ever taught to the children in their charge, just as it was not taught to them.

[neverdem]

Today’s public school teachers are the second generation of teachers who believe and teach that America is an oppressor nation that was formed by slaveholders, and which continues to be “unfair” to “people”. No history that refutes these principles is ever taught to the children in their charge, just as it was not taught to them.

Who originally made fellow Africans slaves? That's the question that needs to be asked. Everything else is baloney.

[SE Mom]

~ snip ~

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.

~snip~

[maica]

You will never see this answer taught in public schools.

[vpintheak]

I agree, Public Screwels indeed are killing the American Spirit in many (most) places.

[firebrand]

I disagree. I wouldn't be a freeper if I agreed with everything, right?

I think schools are the perfect venue and opportunity to instill values that we all should have uniformly. That includes patriotism. It's one of the few subjects that we should be totally of one mind about, although always with the freedom to have a different opinion, of course, and the freedom to decide exactly what patriotism means.

This is why I don't think the school-choice movement is such a great thing.

Schools are not the place for religion, on the other hand, unless they are religious schools.

[Clemenza]

Funny. When my grandfather was growing up in JC, it was segregated into ethnic ghettoes, and he had to translate for his mother who never really learned English.

He was smart enough to drop out of Ferris High School, which was a dump back then.

BTW: Aren't you forgetting JC's large POLISH CATHOLIC population back then?

The Indians who settle in JC usually move to the suburbs (especially Middlesex County). They don't stick around for 3 generations like some other loser ethnic groups.

[Clemenza]

BTW: Outside of the Ecuadorians in JC Heights, alot of the hispanics in JC are second and third generation Puerto Ricans. This is different from places like Union City and West New York, where the overwhelming majority of Hispanics are first generation (the Cubans being largely gone from said cities) from DR and Colombia. My guess is that those with limited English proficiency in the JC public schools are a mixture of the Ecuadorians and Arabs.

BTW: Isn't it amazing how the waterfront is filled with $1MM+ condos, and the brownstones near Van Vorst now cost beaucoup bucks, while Journal Square and the Heights are now dumps?

[Mmmike]

There's no way for government-type schools to be "programmable machines" for the instilling of patriotism or whatever values you may choose. Thanks to school's own operational norms and imperatives (things like the precise pre-scheduling of classes and subject matter, grading, secularism, ahistoricity, "one-size-fits-all"-ism, and on and on) it drowns out whatever external values you might try to impose on it.

The message it conveys goes something like this: "Perform for us because we tell you to. Be ready to cut short your every train of thought after 45 minutes, according to schedule. Learn not to question mysterious requirements and procedures; put your head down, nose to the grind, and achieve what we tell you to achieve."

The joke is on people who try to teach real values like patriotism on the rigged-up stage that is school, thinking that school is on their side. But they are walking right into a farce. Real patriotism, for instance, can only begin when one is able and permitted to see what there is to appreciate about freedom (not to be confused with license).

It takes a lot of faith to endure 13 years of school and come out believing there is something substantial in those values that school extolled on the surface but never allowed you the room to explore in practice.