Leo Casey must be beside himself. Just a few miles from his office at the United Federation of Teachers on lower Park Avenue, The New York Times was publishing an article about surges of patriotism in American classrooms (Kevin Sack, "School Colors Become Red, White and Blue," 9/28/01).
Kids are pledging allegiance in Pennsylvania, singing "God Bless the U.S.A." in Arkansas, wearing red, white and blue to school (for a "Patriotism Day" assembly) in Maryland. And much more. There's even a move afoot to orchestrate a nationwide flag pledge at 2 p.m. (EDT) on October 12.
Why would Casey be distressed? Because he believes that sort of thing smacks of chauvinism and of inattention to multicultural concerns.
Why he thinks this, I cannot say. Many of the most ardent American patriots I know are immigrants who brought their cultures and languages with them. (Including my wife, now almost three decades on these shores, during which time this Indian-born physician wore the uniform of the U.S. Army for half a dozen years. I wonder if it was ever on Mr. Casey's back?)
Why bother with an obscure teachers union desk jockey like Leo Casey in the first place? Because some teachers might take him seriously. And because, after my September 21 Gadfly column on teaching patriotism, Casey issued a nasty broadside. He tried to link me with Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, who had proffered the disgraceful view that America got what was coming to it on September 11 because of our godlessness and immorality. In fact, I was as dismayed by that repellent notion as by Susan Sontag's hint that the U.S. earned the terrorist attack because of its sanctimony and bellicosity.
Casey alleged callousness because I said schools should teach not just tolerance, diversity and understanding, but also patriotism and heroism; and that they should make clear to kids that the world contains evil people who wish us ill. The essence of patriotism is the defense of a political order in which such values as tolerance can be assured. There's precious little tolerance or pluralism in the nations now harboring terrorists. Indeed, that's much of the reason they cannot abide our way of life and seek to eradicate it.
Why does this little dust-up matter when the nation has large concerns on its mind? Because in much the same vein that President Bush has admonished other countries to decide which side they are on, so too is this a moment when educators must face a basic decision about the message they seek to impart to children. It either includes patriotism or it doesn't.
Some would steer a middle course by suggesting to children that diversity and tolerance are the same thing as patriotism. "Is it not patriotic to emphasize the positive value of America's diversity?" e-mailed Penn State faculty member Dan Bloomingdale in response to my column on the subject.
Of course it is. Diversity is part of the lesson needing to be taught. But that's like teaching that cakes contain eggs. Most cakes do—but if you end the recipe there you'll wind up with baked eggs. If you want a cake, you also need to reach for flour and butter, etc. So, too, with teaching patriotism, American style. Respect for diversity is a necessary ingredient. But so is love of freedom—and the fact that it has enemies who loathe it. So is the fragility of a free and diverse society, and the central obligation of that society to defend itself against aggressors. So, too, is respect for heroes, including those who froze at Valley Forge, who stormed the beaches of Normandy, and who perished while trying to rescue terrorist victims in lower Manhattan.
This more martial strand of patriotism makes some educators nervous. So does the sense of pride in America that accompanies it. They'd rather emphasize our failings and our differences. That's the case with Messrs. Casey and Bloomingdale. The elderly education scholar John Goodlad recently acknowledged the value of children being proud of their country but wondered "whether we will see the need to move beyond that into an understanding of democracy as a work in progress." Bloomingdale's version is that we have an obligation to "point out that America is, at times, 'bossy'."
Whence cometh this compulsion to highlight the nation's warts while ignoring its virtues? It's rooted in the mindset that arose, especially in our intellectual elites, during the Vietnam War. It's become a compulsion to pull down America rather than celebrate and defend it. Celebration and defense make these folks squeamish. You can almost feel them cringe during heartfelt renditions of "God Bless America," even the Pledge of Allegiance. They worry that the defense budget is too large.
Fortunately, they don't have much of a following. Patriotism is bustin' out all over in our schools, even on some college campuses. A lot of educators are fostering it. So, of course, is the broader public. Surveys show the overwhelming majority of Americans prepared to go to war to smite those who attacked us.
This is one of the many times when I miss the late Albert Shanker, long-time head of the American Federation of Teachers—and Leo Casey's boss. Diane Ravitch recalls what Shanker said in Prague two years before his death: "He warned the participants in a civic education dialogue from across Western and Eastern Europe to avoid multiculturalism and diversity, which fans the flames of ethnocentrism, and instead to pursue democracy. I found Al very persuasive, as always, then and now." So do I. He never flinched from asserting that the job of the public schools is to teach the common culture, the history of democracy and the centrality of freedom and its defense against aggressors. In the aftermath of September 11, as American educators decide which side of this pedagogical divide they and their schools will take, I choose Al Shanker's side—and that of the Arkansas superintendent who told his students last week that "It's OK to love your country and love your flag."
"School Colors Become Red, White and Blue," by Kevin Sack, The New York Times, September 28, 2001, http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/28/education/28PATR.html?searchpv=past7days
"Liberal Skeptics Now Know the Deep Emotions of Patriotism," by George Packer, The New York Times, September 30, 2001, http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/30/magazine/30WWLN.html?searchpv=past7days
