Pledge is now gone.....?

[Scratchtown]

nvm

[Scratchtown]

Maybe not? Looks to be fake....now.

[zoogs]

http://www.factcheck.org/2016/09/obama-did-not-ban-the-pledge/

 

Also, I think the pledge is a little creepy. I don't mind it -- but I'm not a big fan. Growing up you don't question its existence as a thing that public schools do. Now, feeling a part of this self-governing republic that gets a say in how we do things, I wouldn't mind to see it left behind, or at least amended, as a relic of the past.

 

But it wouldn't happen.

[Landlord]

It's a relic of pro-America anti....whoever else propaganda. Definitely weird.

[I AM FOOT FOOT]

What's wrong with being pro America?

[Landlord]

What's wrong with being pro America?

 

 

Nothing. Didn't mean for that to sound like an inherent criticism. Do you not think the pledge is weird? Does it not remind you of the types of things you see in totalitarian states? It doesn't seem like much more than compulsory speech/indoctrination, which seems fairly antithetical to the principles of America.

[knapplc]

Let me guess. This was a Facebook meme or the kind of email FW:FW:FW:FW: chain people pass around these days. Hillary or Obama or "The Liberals" banned the pledge of allegiance from classrooms because they're un-American or hate freedom or something like that.

[zoogs]

An oath of allegiance wouldn't feel out of place at all in a swearing in ceremony, or in the military. In a 3rd grade classroom, though?

 

Indoctrination is indoctrination, whether it's for an unequivocally good cause or not. Its author said, "The true reason for allegiance to the flag is the Republic for which it stands" and he hoped to "create an ambition to carry on with the ideals" of the country's founding.

 

In practice it seems less a recognition of those principles and the need to carry them on, than it is a tactic to install loyalty in people, particularly while they're young. "My flag" was amended to "the flag of the United States of America" in response to the numbers of foreign children in school, that they should have no doubt where their allegiances ought to lie. I can see why nations have traditions like this, and also how it's useful, but it isn't a tradition beyond questioning.

 

It has long faced challenges, too. Jehovah's Witnesses considered swearing fealty other than to God against their beliefs. At one point the Supreme Court ruled that the pledge could be compulsory. It was reversed in 1943, with a Justice writing "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion...or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein."

 

I am not a Jehovah's Witness, but I am an atheist, and I know that we are both a part of this country. You can imagine how I feel about the successful attempt in the early 1950s to insert "under God" into a pledge still recited today in every public school in America. This is a relic of the Cold War, not of America's founding fathers.

 

 

Here's a photo of first graders of Japanese ancestry pledging allegiance in April of 1942, to the flag of the Republic that had began in February the internment of ultimately over 100,000 Japanese-Americans.

 

I do have a lot of pride in America and also in its founding principles, in case that isn't clear. I hesitate to conflate those things with this practice, however well-intended its individual groundings. It's hard for one patriotic American (socialist)'s best intentions to translate when it becomes nationally codified tradition, to be co-opted and modified through the ages.

 

 

"Governments do not mandate patriotism. Governments earn patriotism. You know who mandated patriotism? Germany in the 1930s."

-Former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura, speaking about vetoing a (2002; surprise!) bill that required public school students to say the Pledge at least once a week.

[Scratchtown]

Let me guess. This was a Facebook meme or the kind of email FW:FW:FW:FW: chain people pass around these days. Hillary or Obama or "The Liberals" banned the pledge of allegiance from classrooms because they're un-American or hate freedom or something like that.

Yea it was. I didn't catch the difference in the address bar when it said abcnews.com.co

 

That's why I quickly deleted the link.

[Scratchtown]

I do have to say that the Pledge of Allegiance is particularly annoying in my classroom as it stops my kids from continuing to workout in my 1st period weights class.

 

Right as the kids are starting to get into their routine for the day and their mindset. Music stops, gotta stop and recite the pledge.

 

I don't hate it, but its inconvenient.

[Bigred_inSD]

I've had to cover city council meetings and they recite the pledge. I always skip the under God part and recite it the way it was originally written

[knapplc]

I do have to say that the Pledge of Allegiance is particularly annoying in my classroom as it stops my kids from continuing to workout in my 1st period weights class.

 

Right as the kids are starting to get into their routine for the day and their mindset. Music stops, gotta stop and recite the pledge.

 

I don't hate it, but its inconvenient.

That would be annoying. You're trying to teach a class but HOLD UP, we have to recite the pledge here. That's gotta be a two/five minute disturbance.

 

I think saying the Pledge is weird out of context. But no harm seems to have come to me, my generation, or the generations before or after us for saying it every day.

 

After a while it just becomes this rote thing you say. After the first month or so, do kids even think about what it means? It becomes just words, right?

[funhusker]

 

I do have to say that the Pledge of Allegiance is particularly annoying in my classroom as it stops my kids from continuing to workout in my 1st period weights class.

 

Right as the kids are starting to get into their routine for the day and their mindset. Music stops, gotta stop and recite the pledge.

 

I don't hate it, but its inconvenient.

That would be annoying. You're trying to teach a class but HOLD UP, we have to recite the pledge here. That's gotta be a two/five minute disturbance.

 

I think saying the Pledge is weird out of context. But no harm seems to have come to me, my generation, or the generations before or after us for saying it every day.

 

After a while it just becomes this rote thing you say. After the first month or so, do kids even think about what it means? It becomes just words, right?

 

Some do, some don't. We say it everyday at the beginning of homeroom or the very end of first period to minimize distractions. I've never had a student refuse to say it, but most of them stand and mumble along with hand over their hearts while still looking at the books/homework on their desks.

 

I have had some pretty neat experiences though. I was working with a student in the back storage room that didn't have a flag. The Pledge came on over the intercom and my only thought was we can go back to the classroom and miss the whole thing or stand here awkwardly waiting for it to end. The student pulled out his billfold that had a US flag patch on it and we recited the pledge to his wallet. We both laughed because it was ridiculous, but it was cool to see him "take the effort" to say it and mean it.