From today’s Deseret News:
The Pledge of Allegiance, flag etiquette classes, the “In God We Trust” motto, and now, the Stars and Stripes and the Declaration of Independence—state legislators want to make schools more outwardly patriotic places.
Sen. Allen Christensen, R-North Ogden, is drafting a bill that would require the display of the American flag and a copy of the Declaration of Independence in every public school classroom in Utah.
“This started off because a friend of mind did a little bit of research on college campuses and he couldn’t find anybody who could tell him what the Constitution was, let alone what was in it — and these were college students,” Christensen said.
“There’s not a lot of patriotism going around out there,” he said, contrasting controversy over the war in Iraq with patriotism of World War II. “We need to pass some of this on to the younger generations, what a truly special and wonderful thing our Constitution is and what a fabulous country we live in. We can’t require they say the Pledge of Allegiance anymore, but anything we can do to teach the younger generations to truly revere the flag and at least know something about the Constitution, I would love that.”
Maybe we could hang math and science books on the walls in hopes that our test scores will once again become competitive internationally. Seriously though, what is the objective here? Reinforcing the images of our political culture or is it an informed populace? It seems if ignorance of the Constitution is the problem then an emphasis on curriculum needs to take place. And that means introducing students to the Constitution itself, the historical context of it’s original ratification as well as amendments AND presenting the different and competing ways of Constitutional interpretation.
Yes, the Constitution is interpreted by different people in different ways. And our kids should know that. Otherwise they’ll grow up to believe that their interpretation is THE interpretation. They’ll grow up believing what many of our current crop of adults believe- that differences in opinion are resultant of a lack of intellect, virtue or both.
I have to laugh at yet another shoddy attempt at comparing WWII to Iraq. Could they be more different? In WWII, Congress actually declared war, a power that has been sadly ceded to the Executive Branch. In WWII, American policy assisted in liberating Europe from a dictator’s occupation, while in Iraq Bush’s policy has taken a dictatorial regime and replaced it with the only form of government that’s worse- anarchy. WWII lasted 3 years, Iraq is coming up on 5 with no end in sight. In WWII the United States rallied an international coalition, in Iraq the Bush policy has alienated the international community from the United States. I could go on all day long, but I’ll stop. Actually there are some similarities. In WWII the government thought it was justified in denying the civil liberties of Japanese Americans and today the government has no problem suspending Habeas Coprus and spying on us.
Anyway, Senator Christensen, I would chalk up the perceived difference in patriotism from WWII to Iraq to the fact that Iraq is a complete unnecessary disaster and our tendency to romanticize WWII. It’s not the result of a lack of patriotic symbols in our public schools.
But… Senator Christensen is right that there is a lack of Constitutional literacy today. That is a problem that should be addressed with truly academic, non-idealogical driven curriculum.
-Tom
