I Pledge Allegiance - Teacher in a Strange Land - Education Week Teacher

I Pledge Allegiance - Teacher in a Strange Land - Education Week Teacher:

I Pledge Allegiance

by Nancy Flanagan

Back in the 1980s, when my public school district was still considered rural, a conservative, anti-tax school board was elected and set about re-fashioning the core work of the system, stripping away "frills" and returning to their own nostalgic, just-the-basics vision of education. First order of business: a mandate that an American flag be displayed in every room, and all buildings collectively recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of every day. Effective immediately.

Since you can't say the Pledge of Allegiance to the wall, principals scrambled to buy flags and the whine of drills punching holes in concrete block drowned out lessons over the next few days. Teachers did what teachers do: figured out how to incorporate a daily PA-led pledge into their own start-up routine while quietly dissecting the