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Schools show spirit with colors red, white, blue©New York Times
© St. Petersburg Times, JONESBORO, Ga. -- Until two weeks ago, the theme for Friday's homecoming celebration at Jonesboro High was "Old School," and each class had been asked to construct a float representing a different decade. Poodle skirts and tie-dyed T-shirts would be de rigueur. After the events of Sept. 11, the student council changed the theme to "Pride and Patriotism," and students cleaned local stores out of red, white and blue crepe paper. At Batesville Middle School in Batesville, Ark., on Monday, fifth- and sixth-graders waved tiny American flags and sang the country song God Bless the U.S.A. as a Veterans of Foreign Wars honor guard raised a new American flag outside the school. "The last two weeks are something we will never forget," the superintendent, Ted Hall, told the children, "and I want to tell you students that it's okay to love your country and love your flag. Sometimes it takes something like this to make us appreciate that." As a surge of patriotism has washed over the country in the wake of the terrorist attacks, nowhere has the revival been more omnipresent than in schools. Hallways and classrooms have been decorated with bunting and posters of Uncle Sam. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been raised for relief efforts through penny drives and bake sales. Blood drives have been held on campuses. Flags are showing up on clothing, book bags and lockers. Lessons in geography, history and art have been amended to emphasize that freedom and democracy cannot be taken for granted. At James L. Day Middle School in Temecula, Calif., students were assigned to write an essay about what it means to be an American. In Columbia, Md., students at Wilde Lake High School were told to wear red, white and blue to last week's Patriotism Day assembly. Schools that had mothballed the Pledge of Allegiance, like Batavia (Pa.) High School, have dusted it off, and those that had left its use up to teachers have made it mandatory. Celebration USA, a civic group based in Orange County, Calif., hopes to synchronize a nationwide school recitation of the pledge at 2 p.m. eastern time Oct. 12. Teachers and principals report that once slouching students now stand at rapt attention and virtually shout a pledge they used to mumble. "You can actually hear people say the pledge now," said Cedric E. Brown, the student council president at Jonesboro High, about 20 miles south of Atlanta. In Alabama, the state Legislature passed a nonbinding resolution last week urging school boards to incorporate patriotic education into their daily curriculums. The Shelby County Board of Education in Memphis, Tenn., voted last week to require schools to display a plaque bearing the national motto, In God We Trust, as well as the Pledge of Allegiance. "We believe that this is a time that the symbols of freedom, the symbols of patriotism, really ought to be held up as a beacon," said David A. Pickler, the board chairman. "The public education system is in effect a division of the government, and we feel this reflects the values of the community." Educators say the intensity of patriotic purpose in the schools is comparable to that seen during World War II and at the height of the Cold War. While the public schools have long been charged with indoctrinating the children of a diverse society with common values, traditions and symbols, that role has diminished gradually over the years as a consequence of academic prerogatives and cultural change, educators say. "It was almost getting to the point where it was a sin to mention how great America is, that it was a shame to feel proud of our country," said Lillianette Cook, the music teacher at Sagamore Hills Elementary in suburban Atlanta. For the first time in years, Cook has devoted each of her music classes since Sept. 11 to five patriotic standards: The Star-Spangled Banner, America (My Country 'Tis of Thee), America the Beautiful, God Bless America and This is My Country. She arranged for her fourth- and fifth-grade choir to record each of the songs, and a tape of one song is now played each morning over the school loudspeaker. Armed with a sheet of lyrics, students stand in their classrooms and sing along. "It's about teaching our children to cherish our freedom and to stand proudly for our country," Cook said. Students and parents seem to have responded with almost universal enthusiasm to the resurgence of patriotism, said dozens of school administrators interviewed last week. None said they had heard any complaints. But some educators and civil libertarians do see risks. One is that the emphasis on patriotism could engender intolerance, particularly when the country is girding for war and when many schools are struggling to cope with student diversity. "I think it's great that the youngsters feel this sense of pride," said John I. Goodlad, president of the Institute for Educational Inquiry, a public policy group in Seattle. "What I worry about is whether we will see the need to move beyond that into an understanding of democracy as a work in progress."
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