Should Social Studies be Patriotic?

Abstract

Nebraska was not alone. Within a few months, more than two dozen state legislatures introduced new bills or resurrected old ones aimed at either encouraging or mandating patriotic exercises for all students in schools. Seventeen states enacted new pledge laws or amended policies in the 2002-03 legislative sessions alone.2 Since then more than a dozen additional states have signed on as well. Thirty-five states now require the pledge to be recited daily during the school day. Across the country, state legislatures and even the federal Department of Education have aimed policies at recapturing what many citizens see as a lost sense of pride in America. What it means to be patriotic, however, is a matter of considerable debate. Some believe that patriotism requires near-absolute loyalty to government leaders and policies. Others see patriotism as commitment not to the government, but rather to ideals: democratic ideals such as equality, compassion, and justice. Still others advocate a healthy skepticism toward governmental actions in general, but prefer to close the ranks during times of war or national crisis. Indeed, there are as many ways to express our commitment to country as there are ways to show our commitment to loved ones or friends. Nowhere are the debates around the various visions of patriotism more pointed, more protracted, and more consequential than in our schools. In Madison, Wisconsin, the parent community erupted in fierce debate over a new law requiring schools to post American flags in each classroom and to lead students in either pledging allegiance or listening to the national anthem each day. In Detroit, Michigan, a student was repeatedly suspended, first for wearing a T-shirt with an upside-down American flag and then for wearing a sweatshirt with an antiwar quotation by Albert Einstein, before the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a civil liberties suit resulting in the student’s reinstatement. And in Virginia, House Bill 1912, which would have required schools to notify parents any time a student declined to recite or stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, passed the House of Delegates with a 93–4 vote before being defeated in the State Senate. As far back as 1890, George Balch, author of Methods of Teaching Patriotism in Public Schools, observed that public schools could serve as a “mighty engine for the inculcation of patriotism.”3 But 119 years later, patriotism remains highly contested territory, especially when it comes to the daily activities of schoolchildren. And while the winds of national pride have blown through the classrooms and corridors of the nation’s schools, In November of 2001, less than two months after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, Nebraska’s state board of education approved a patriotism bill specifying content for the high school social studies curriculum in accordance with the state’s 1949 statute—the Nebraska Americanism law. Social studies, the bill read, should include “instruction in . . . the superiority of the U.S. form of government, the dangers of communism and similar ideologies, the duties of citizenship, and appropriate patriotic exercises.” The board further specified that middle school instruction “should instill a love of country” and that the social studies curriculum should include “exploits and deeds of American heroes, singing patriotic songs, memorizing the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ and ‘America,’ and reverence for the flag.”1 Social Education 73(7), pp 316–320 ©2009 National Council for the Social Studies