Response to Focus Paper

I just finished reading a Second Year Teacher's review of some of the history involving the Pledge of Allegiance in the United States' School System. There were some interesting cases and facts brought up in the paper, e.g., something that I found curious was the original composition and the fact that it had no mention of God or any Religion, and that the United States were nowhere referred to by name. Another thing that surprised me was learning one of the first cases brought to court involving this issue had to do with the parents of students taking offense at their children being required to pledge allegiance to something other than God. It seems to me that lately the controversy being raised around the Pledge of Allegiance in schools confronts the somewhat exact opposite problem, i.e., parents are frustrated with their children being asked to acknowledge a God or Religion that they do not believe in. It was amusing to think about the origins of the conflict being so seemingly opposed to the position we are presented with today.What I found particularly interesting in the paper, though, was the notion of a clear and present danger resulting from a student's refusal to recite the Pledge. I suppose the notion makes sense when considering a sort of militaristic point of view - if you don't have all of your soldiers following given orders and believing in the same cause, your army is at a disadvantage. However, I do not think that the children in schools should be compared in such a way to the soldiers in an army. I agree that we are raising and educating our children to not only to be morally decent and intellectually sound human beings, but to also be "good" citizens of the United States (I would love to say that I think the two types of education go hand-in-hand, though sometimes I am doubtful). I wonder then, if part of a child's education is learning how to function in the country they are growing up in, what is our duty - not only as teachers, but as parents, lawgivers, etc. - to "train" the child to "believe" in his/her country?Perhaps I am way too liberal about this, or - perhaps - I'm not liberal enough; but, it seems to me that if we are honest with a child, if we tell a child the truth - insofar as we are able - about the country they are living in and the history - good and bad - of that country, and we also teach the child to think for him/herself, we will be doing absolutely everything in our power to ensure that the child will both love the country they grow up in, and that the country they are growing up in is a place worth loving. I may need to explain myself a bit more.If a country takes pride in the education of its individuals, I believe that it is fulfilling one of the top priorities and duties assigned to it. Through education, I believe that people make wiser, more thouhtful choices which result in better actions. Thus, when we teach our children well, we are not only teaching them about where they come from, but we are giving them a better option for where they can go - and if a healthy and thorough education is something that we can continue providing, then this "better" place will no longer be a hope for the future, but will become a benefit of today.It might be the case, though, that once this "better" place is reached, there will be so much love and dedication to it by the citizens, that pledges, and anthems, and alll sorts of similar "praises" will become a part of the culture that is passed down to many generations throughout many public and private institutions. However, there is a large difference between reciting a pledge because it is something you believe in and are compelled to do out of love and compassion for your country, and reciting a pledge because it is recquired by an authoritative figure and refusal will result in an expulsion or punishment. One is an action done out of love, and one is an action done out of fear.Of course, are children old enough to know what they love? This may seem like a terribly unfair question, but I thought it was an interesting point that the focus paper raised saying, " The first stipulation raised by the supreme court was that the children were old enough to maturely and intelligently hold their own religious beliefs and...despite theirstatus as minors, they were deemed to have reached an age when they were no longer under the intellectual influence or compulsion of their parents." Very interesting, but is it true? Are children old enough to think for themselves about religion and moral issues? If a child cannot grasp the theory of relativity, can he/she grasp something as complex as death? I certainly am not saying that Relativity and Death are equivalent, or that they even involve the same type of mental capabilities; however, why are we sometimes inclined to say that we know our beliefs long before many other types of knowledge? In mean, they're BELIEFS - those things that we cannot know for sure - yet, we're sure of them right away?I may have strayed from the original topic, and I apologize for that. As an attempt to summarize the messy response above, let me close with a question: Is the public education of our children reponsible for making them moral human beings, and if so, how should the system go about doing so?