Flag Action - Or Not

 
The day after the 4th of July, I am still seeing a lot of flag action as I scroll through my Facebook feed.  I like the one of the red and white stripes superimposed over amber waves of grain, and also the historical painting of the founding fathers standing next to the flag, looking dapper in their tights and tri-corn hats as they sign their lives away on the Declaration of Independence.

A day after and flags still keep coming -- draped behind a bald eagle, swaddled around a newborn baby, flapping out of a rear window of a pickup truck. The quotes "Freedom Isn't Free!" and "Home of the Free, Because of the Brave!" are often paired with the pictures.

Some people get a little over excited about it all and that's when the fun begins with the comments. There's one picture of a guy lighting the tip of a flag on fire that elicited cries of desecration: "Burn the guy!" and "He should be shot!"

While I like a good parade and feel deep gratitude for being born a U.S. Citizen, I do not get too worked up over the flag itself and all the rigmarole that goes along with it.  The flag, after all, is a piece of cloth on a stick -- often made in China -- that symbolizes, for many people, the power, freedom, and unity of our country.

One of the posts featured what looked like a child of the 1950's standing in a classroom with his hand on his heart, his eyes earnestly looking up at Old Glory.  There were words that suggested that all of what's wrong with America today will be solved if those darn schoolteachers would just go back to making children say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning. I've seen this one before and this one always gets me. Where are the classrooms that are not saying the Pledge? I have taught in four school districts in Maine and in each of them, we have always started the day with the whole school saying the Pledge of Allegiance. Over the years, I have had three students who did not say the Pledge due to religious reasons and a couple more who chose not to say it just because they felt like being rebels. The rebels never really did find their cause and eventually went back to reciting it along with their classmates. In either case, I did not make a big deal out of.  My only rule is to be respectful of those who do choose to stand and say it. 

This idea that the younger generation is somehow deficient in patriotism and slacking off on being good citizens seems to have taken hold among the older generation. A couple years ago, Newsweek Magazine did a survey that turned into a mockery of young Americans. The survey had two questions: 1. Who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? and 2. Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? I don't remember the specifics of how the survey was conducted, but apparently most of those surveyed were avid viewers of Nickelodeon Television and consistently got question #2 correct. Question #1, not so much. (Leave a message on my blog if you seriously don't know the answer to either question.)

Beyond being amused, I was not all that concerned with the results of the survey. If the older generation is measuring whether or not a young person is a good citizen based on being able to regurgitate a  fact or recite a pledge, they will be sorely disappointed. My seventh graders hold access to all of human knowledge in their pockets (on iPhones) and very little in the way of rote memorization. They are far more global-thinking than previous generations, care more deeply about the health of the earth, and seem to know intrinsically the meaning of "all men are created equal." In fact, they sometimes ask me why we don't say "all men and women" or "all humans are created equal" instead.

It is comforting to keep some of the old traditions and, for many people, the flag symbolizes all the good of being American. It's also important to recognize that we certainly have some good young Americans coming up through the grades.  I cannot wait to see what new glory they will bring.