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By JEFFERSON WEAVER
I’m more than a little upset about a newly rewritten law affecting North Carolina’s schools.
That law, G.S. 115C-47 (29a), requires the Pledge of Allegiance to be recited at the start of each school day.
I’m not angry with the legislature for passing it (my frustrations with the solons are the topics of many other columns for many other days).
I’m angry we had to have this law to begin with.
I learned the pledge in kindergarten, if not before. I can remember our teacher appointing the best-behaved member of the class to lead us each day. All too often, it wasn’t me, although by the middle of the year we all knew the words.
Mrs. Odom in first grade went to great lengths to make sure we understood what it meant. On up through graduation, a school day or academic function never started without the pledge.
In second grade, Mrs. Daniels began teaching us the National Anthem. I still think of “Miss Lib” every time someone asks me to open a festival or a memorial service with the Star Spangled Banner.
I also want to call down anyone I see who doesn’t remove his hat or cap at that song or the pledge, another habit Miss Lib instilled in us boys.
Miss Lib loved teaching, and she loved her country. Her enthusiasm was one reason our class could sing the National Anthem, and one of my classmates was chosen to lead the pledge at a PTA meeting that year.
Are the pledge and the National Anthem too complicated for little kids? I don’t think so, and I sincerely doubt children today are any less intelligent than they were at my age.
We shouldn’t have had to pass a law to have the pledge in our classrooms. The parents should have wanted it there enough to be sure every boy or girl knew the words, and for a teacher not to back them up on that is, in my book, unconscionable.
I am not aware of any effort to actively remove the pledge from classes. I think it drifted more from ambivalence than activism, but whatever the reason, we cannot over-emphasize America and the American flag in the classroom.
Thankfully, the few students I’ve seen quoted in newspapers here and there have more sense than the folks who let the pledge drift away in the first case. The kids generally seem to think it’s important, thus slightly reassuring me that we may have some hope yet.
But how, pray tell, did our society decay to the point a state law had to put the American flag back in the classroom?
Were it not for the flag, and all it represents, our children would have no choice but grow up to be automatons deprived of free thought, free expression, and the right to disagree. That many of them have already chosen numbness over nationalism is a testimony to lazy parents and computers.
It bothers me that teachers and school systems across the state report not knowing where to get flags, or how to display them, or how to lead the pledge of allegiance. Between the Woodmen of the World, Scout troops, and any of the veterans’ organizations, it seems to me someone could think of somebody who might donate an American flag to a classroom.
For that matter, those big box department stores should jump at the chance to, pardon the pun, wrap themselves in the flag by donating some to their local schools.
By the way, don’t try to beat me in the head with the civil rights stick. The pledge is an oath to the country that gives you the right to disagree, so those who hate our country the most really should be the loudest when the pledge is recited.
While I was disturbed that this is a statewide problem, I was proud to find out that at least among the teachers of my acquaintance, it’s not really a local problem.
Of course, most of the teachers I know grew up like I did, with parents who believed in teaching their children about more than the basics of right and wrong. They taught us about why it is important to have the freedom to go to church, read a book, cast a ballot, own a gun, speak your piece, and go as you please.
I have to wonder what kind of childhood produced teachers and principals who don’t know where to find an American flag or how to display it.
And I really have to wonder what the world is coming to when our state has to pass a law forcing children to say the words I still love to say today –
“I pledge allegiance, to the flag of the United States of America,
And to the republic for which it stands,
One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
Were Miss Lib to go back into a school today and find it essentially flag-less, she would not be amused.
But I guarantee you that within 15 minutes of her arrival, there would be a flag in the corner, a hand over every heart, and the pledge on the blackboard.
Then she’d get around to working on the students.
Jefferson Weaver is a staff writer at The News Reporter. He may be reached via telephone at 642-4104, ext. 227, or via e-mail at jeffweaver@newsreporter.biz.
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