That’s bizarre.
BTW one thing I have been curious about: what are kids who are citizens of another country expected to do in US schools?
You should remember that American public schools are controlled by local school boards, which form (an often independent) governmental authority under the state government. Each school board, and, indeed, often each individual school principal or teacher, sets its own policies.
So it’s difficult to answer a question regarding what is expected in U.S. schools, because it very well may be different in each and every school.
My own preference would be that public schools refrain from officially mandating any sort of patriotic or religious ceremony. We did used to recite the pledge every day until I was in third grade (age 9 or so) after which it stopped. I think it might have started up again after George H.W. Bush’s demagogic 1988 presidential campaign.
The law is that a public school may not require a child to participate in an oath-taking or patriotic pledge ceremony. In those rare instances in which a child might have the guts to actually object, there are probably several ways in which schools handle the situation, including sending the child out into the hall for the duration (which would arguably put the lie to the idea that there’s no coercion involved).
With regard to kids who are citizens of another country – My guess is that unless they specifically object, they are expected to go along and pledge along with everyone else.
I agree with richardb. The problem with the Pledge of Allegiance is, even if you are willing to go along and swear your loyalty to the flag and nation, you are forced to “admit” that there is a god in the process. Only believers can be “patriotic”. Nice :rolleyes:.
Minnesota schools are now required to “give students the opportunity” to say the Pledge at least once a week. I think that many Minnesota schools hadn’t said the Pledge for years and years. (I know that we never said it once during my four years of high school in MN.) Students are not required to say the Pledge, but one girl in St. Paul was mentioned in the paper due to the flak she received when she refused to stand for the Pledge.
In Montana, I remember one of my teachers recounting an anecdote about a former student who refused to stand for the Pledge because he/she was Canadian. He said that it was fine to refuse to say the Pledge, but that to refuse to stand was disrespectful. I remember his words whenever I am dragged along to church with my husband’s family :).
Here’s my other big problem with the Pledge–do kindergartners even know what they are saying? Do they know that they can opt out, and why? Most of those kids think they are pledging “to the republic for Richard Stands”. I know that I never knew that I had the right not to say the Pledge until I was much older…probably at about the point where the teachers didn’t bother to say it anymore. I think that the only kids in that school who did not say it were told by their parents not to…namely, the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I didn’t have any JW’s in my class, so I don’t know if they stood during the Pledge or not. I know that they often did not come to school sporting events until the National Anthem was over.
I don’t think I even found out what “allegience” means until I’d said it 1000 times.
We used to say I pledge allegiance to the untied plates of asparagus. Or other such nonsense.
Missouri made it mandatory some time ago. The schools would make a half-hearted attempt to make us say it during pep assemblies and the like, but eventually MO Legislature, bless their drunken hearts (alcohol is still served on the floor-Anheiser-Busch is a huge influence here) decided that it must be recited once a week. During one of those pep assemblies following 911, we were reciting the pledge, and some friends and i didnt necessarily agree with it at the time (the way they presented the reason we were saying it was ridiculous), so we opted to sit. Next thing we knew we were all standing in the hallway. They threatened all sorts of punishment, but as soon as I walked over to the payphone and prentended to dial the ACLU, they let us back in and never bothered us again. So I think that at least a few school have a good clue that theyre wrong.
In the state of NJ, it used to be required for all students to at least stand for it, this was killed by a federal judge in 1978. cite.
It’s recited over the PA system at my school every morning before morning announcements. No one is forced to say it, but just about everyone stands for it. I do neither.
My homeroom teacher is completely understanding and tolerant of this. But in pep rallies, assemblies, or when we have a substitute, it can (and has) gotten a little tense. I’ve been actually written up by a teacher for not standing during an assembly, but the principal stepped in and wiped that off my record. OTOH, it still says in our school handbook that students must stand.
Anecdote: Even though I know the school cannot constitutionally punish me for not rising for it, it’s still intimidating. Partly due to peer pressure (such as when we have a pep rally, and there are about 1600 people standing for the pledge while I stay seated), partly because I’m scared that I will (again) get harrassed by a teacher about it, which I happen to find quite ironic (liberty and justice for all, anyone?). But I have found that the more people try and force me to do it (like last years now-dead bill in PA requiring all students to say in PA public schools), the more determined I am to not give in and just stand up. Methinks that trying to legislate things like these are counter-productive.
In my Penna. junior high school during the Vietnam war (early 1970s), a handful of us left-wing pinko liberals refused to stand for the Pledge. Most of our teachers were likewise left-wing pinko liberals, so we didn’t get much more from the school and a Rasied Eyebrow.
When I was a young’un (way back when) I simply left out the one line about “under god” as I recited the pledge. Didn’t make a big deal out of it, never mentioned it to anybody, and I don’t think anyone ever noticed. If a teacher ever did notice, she never mentioned it. Simple solution, no one’s bothered one way or another.
Kids really don’t understand what they’re saying, you’re right. When I was in elementary school we stood to recite the pledge every day–I don’t think any of us had ever though about it in the first place, but when it becomes such a rote thing…
I felt really weird the first time I truly realized what I’d been saying all those years. Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with it, but it’s a little creepy to have been brainlessly going along with things.
I’ve always thought that constant repetition does not strenghten any meaning it might have but actually weakens it. To me, a pledge (ignoring other possible meanings of the word) is something that is actually meant and becomes part of what you stand for and believe. Which, to me, winds up implying two things. First, that a pledge is not to be entered into lightly, and in such a case as we have here, I believe that we’re talking lightly, if at all, and second, that a pledge does not need repetition because if you really mean it, you mean it.
What does “that” refer to?
Of course, in another forum I’d argue that it’s the principle of the thing: Even if some people can get away with breaking an unjust law, the fact the law is still on the books is an affront to our principles.
Not only that, such laws (and rules) can be enforced selectively to give arbitrary students a hard time. I’m sure we can all dredge up horror stories of asshole administrators and teachers who would single out kids to give a hard time to.
I moved to the States from Britain when I was 13; Florida public (state) schools play the pledge over the school’s PA system as a matter of course, usually at the beginning of the class right before lunch. The first day of school here, I heard the principal’s voice say something about a pledge, and suddenly everyone was standing hand over heart- I was terrified, and had visions of Hitler Youth rallies dancing in my head…
I stood like everyone else, and mouthed the words about three seconds after everyone else.
I tried asking a few classmates what all that had been about, and they just said “it was the pledge” and looked at me like I was… well, foreign. Heh.
I asked the teacher after class, and she was more than happy to explain what it was all about and wrote down the words for me. She also pointed out that I didn’t have to say them.
Citizens of other countries get the same exception American kids do, in other words; however, people will expect you to say it if you’re attending an American school.