A MiddleWeb Blog
Many years ago – I’m tempted to say almost twenty – I was standing in the front office of my middle school when the Pledge of Allegiance rolled onto the PA, as it did each day. The secretaries and myself all faced the flag, put our hands over our hearts, and recited.
One of the Phys. Ed teachers was in the office too: a young Black woman I had always admired for her energy and dedication. As we finished, I heard her say, not loudly but distinctly: “One nation/under God/Indivisible/With liberty and justice for some.”
I had never heard anything like that before and was a little shocked. If you read Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli on the regular in your seventh grade curriculum, you know that characters who mess around with the Pledge are roundly punished by their peers. A few minutes later in the hall, privately, I had to ask what her motivation was.
She responded, calmly and candidly, that in her teaching she always kept in mind the legacy of Black people in the United States, both as K-12 students and as adults. She felt it was important to acknowledge the disparities between our country’s sense of justice for White people, and for people of color, in a tangible way. Modifying the Pledge was her way of doing so.
I have never forgotten that.
I haven’t forgotten it as the perennial war on legislating or not legislating the Pledge has raged. I brought it to mind again when Colin Kaepernick knelt on the field. I am thinking again of it now, as masked agents threaten our immigrant families; as my state is forced to join a collective to guarantee our students their right to physical health; as our proud tradition of national free speech – a tradition taught and supported in our schools – is trampled upon.
You might be surprised, then, to come into any classroom or hallway I am in on a given workday and find me reciting the Pledge as it was written. I focus on each word with awareness and attention. I actively lead students in reciting it with passion.
This isn’t because I disagree with my Black colleague’s form of protest. I don’t. Rather, it’s because she helped me understand that for me, the Pledge is not a real-time reflection of the status of our country. It is rather a state of being towards which we strive.
One of the most vital things we do as teachers is to help young people understand the difficult work that needs to be done in order to have a nation that is truly indivisible, one that metes out liberty and justice to all its inhabitants. Our schools, as microcosms of our society, are arguably the first and most important place this work begins.
This isn’t because I disagree with my Black colleague’s form of protest. Rather, it’s because she helped me understand that for me, the Pledge is not a real-time reflection of the status of our country. It is, rather, a condition towards which we strive. We strive in our classrooms to help young people understand the difficult work that needs to be done in order to have a nation that is truly indivisible, one that metes out liberty and justice to all its inhabitants.
For me, the Pledge is not a statement of accuracy. It is a statement of aspiration. Most of all, it is a pledge: a commitment. A promise that school professionals physically make and renew each day.
And so I’m going to end this column with a challenge for school professionals. When you recite the Pledge these days, ask yourself: to what are you pledging yourself? Do your day-to-day actions or non-actions actually contribute to that pledge?
Towards what kind of nation do we, as schools, actually strive? Is it a nation where liberty and justice are meted out to some?
Or all?
Image credit: Dennis MacDonald / Shutterstock.com
