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Patriotism in the schools
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The schools have been asked to do too much. The job of a school, especially a public school, is to impart knowledge and critical thinking skills. Instilling morals, values, or civic virtue should not be within the province of the schools, but rather that of the family. At most, the faculty and administration of a school should provide reinforcement (if necessary) of those basic aspects of civilized behavior necessary for the more central mission of learning; respect for the instructor, polite behavior to one’s peers and the faculty and administration, respect for the facility.
However, even more disturbing to me is the idea of the schools as an avenue for the instilling of patriotism. The business of the school is instruction in arts and sciences, and beyond a fact-based education in civics, there is no call for the school to try to encourage a specific love of or devotion to country. As with morals abd values, such notions should come from the family, not the school. In fact, the school should be a safe place for critical questioning of notions of patriotism. Schools should be environments where students are taught to analyze and assess, weighing evidence and facts, and coming to well-reasoned conclusions. Attempting to teach students love of country is not only outside that mission, but even counterproductive. In fact, presenting love of country alongside arts and sciences as one of the basic ideas of a school could be better termed brainwashing.
It should not be necessary to instill patriotism in the schools. How much better it would be if students with good analytical and critical thinking skills could look at the way our nation is governed and justice is upheld, and decide for themselves that the nation was worthy of a patriotic attitude!
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