PS We start each day with the entire school saying the Pledge of Allegiance. If they don’t want to participate, they must at least stand.

In education their are needs of the learner and needs of society. Needs of Society include the need to build patriotism and pride for the country in which the student lives. They do this around the world. There are of course, the crazies who don’t like it, but too bad, it’s a California standard and I’m gonna play my piano and teach my patriotic songs to the class!

As for Western civilization, using a scale of absolute metaphysical perfection, its performance has been dismal. But it has stacked up rather well using the measure of historical realism.

Interesting thread. Perhaps this is why I was annoyed in the Bury My Heart thread — I thought, “oh, not for the 13012th time!”

What I learned in history in the public schools was simple. The Indians got screwed, the blacks got screwed, and then the Jews got screwed in WWII. In college I learned how the powers at be don’t want me to know this happened because of imperialism.

Perhaps the older people think this needs to be taught to correct prejudices. But I’m pushing 30, and like many my age and younger, I have yet to watch a single John Wayne flick. That should give boomers perspective. All I’ve ever learned was that Western civilization — the civilization that produced Mozart, Newton, Euler, and Rembrandt — is inherently racist, elitist, sexist, and hegemonic.

Anything I know to the contrary is due to my own effort. Many are not as curious as I am, and think the West is always something to be indicted, not admired.

Sadly, this I believe has been the idea all along - since the late seventies anyway when the school systems of this country were finally being run by refugees from the 1960’s.

I’m sure they honestly believe that inculcating patriotism is a dangerous thing. But disconnecting generations of kids from the past in this way will serve only to make it impossible to unite the country in any meaningful way in a time of crisis. We saw this on 9/11. Kids were confused. They weren’t sure how to feel. The rest of us felt real anger at the attack but the kids were more worried about whether it could happen to them.

Patriotism may indeed by the last refuge of scoundrels. But it should also be the first thing our children learn about in school.

My apologies for the length of my digression! It was during this performance that I noticed what, to me, was a curious thing. The Army vocalists sang a number of songs near the beginning of the Tattoo, in a variety of genres from around 1970 to present day, most of with which the audience sang along. Interestingly enough, the audience of several thousand was mostly comprised of middle and high school students (who were apparently on school trips, as their school names were announced during the performance), most of whom knew the lyrics to everything, even the “oldies” from the seventies (being in my forties, it’s the music I grew up with, and so should rightfully be called classic rock, but…), as was evidenced by their joining together with most of the crowd in singing enthusiastically. Later in the Tattoo, after the Drill Team and soldiers dressed in every uniform of the Army from the Revolution to the present day had performed their parts, the vocalists came back to sing a medley of songs including the songs associated with each branch of the military and other patriotic songs from My Country, ‘Tis of Thee to The Star Spangled Banner. That’s when I noticed that the vast majority of the kids in the audience weren’t singing along. It wasn’t that they were acting disrespectfully – as each service theme was sung, service members and their families in the audience stood for recognition and the students were respectful – rather, they seemed lost, as if they had never been exposed to the songs before. I must say that the exception to this was, thankfully, the national anthem. It was thought-provoking, to say the least.

So, now I wonder, is it pervasive throughout the younger generation? These school groups came from all over the nation, Alaska to Texas to Delaware. Is it that, as you suggested, schools focus on teaching anything but American patriotic music? Do schools avoid these songs because they “glorify militaristic values” and might just mention God? When did parents stop sharing these traditional songs with their children? Have they lost their relevancy as our ability to listen to virtually any form of music at any time has increased (not that I am anti-technology in any way… my iPod and laptop go with me most places!)? What does our failure to pass along these traditions that bind us together as a society presage for our nation?