A daily Pledge of Allegiance should not be required

Beginning in preschool or kindergarten, students across the nation learn to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Even if they are not old enough to understand the full meaning of what they are saying, they are expected to display their pride in America.

The local elementary schools and Redwood Middle School conduct the Pledge of Allegiance daily. But after entering SHS, students find that the flag is often absent from classrooms, and they are no longer required to say the pledge.

While students in nearby high schools such as Lynbrook continue to recite the pledge every day, the school stopped doing so decades ago — and that does not need to change.

The Pledge of Allegiance fulfills the California Education Code’s requirement for “daily appropriate patriotic exercises” in public primary and secondary schools; however, it is crucial to consider whether this “patriotic exercise” actually promotes pride in America.

As the San Francisco Chronicle asks: “Does the repetition of a memorized statement encourage more love of country?” For some, it may, but for others, the pledge is more of  an automatic recitation, ingrained in memory but void of meaning caused by years of reciting the same sentence over and over.

And still others point out contradictions between what the pledge says and what America truly is: Students who believe that America does not uphold “liberty and justice for all” have refused to stand and recite the pledge, an act that has generated controversy.

According to the New York Times, two high school students in Texas separately sued their respective schools last year in October, arguing that the punishment and continuous shaming they received for sitting during the pledge was a violation of their constitutional rights. In 1943, W. Va. Board of Education v. Barnette also asserted that public schools cannot require students to say the pledge.

One lawsuit reported that a student was removed from school and told not to return unless she would stand during the pledge. According to the lawsuit, a secretary said, “This is not the N.F.L.,” referring to N.F.L. players, most notably Colin Kaepernick, kneeling during the national anthem in protest of police brutality and racial injustice.

These students who refused to stand may have been a minority, but in other schools, most students no longer recite the pledge.

Writing for HS Insider of Los Angeles Times, high school student Mirabelle Chernick described how she was one of two students in her class who stood during the pledge as of October last year. If people disagree with what America appears to be now, Chernick expressed, then they should stand for what they believe America should be. For Chernick, standing and reciting is a symbol of hope for a more united America that strives to live up to its ideals.

It may be argued that the pledge helps increase patriotism in a time when the nation seems divided, and it is true that promoting a sense of unity is important.

In the end, however, the pledge can act against its original intentions if students feel that they must participate in an act of forced patriotism. If students only move their lips and emit sound without thinking about what the words mean, believing that the pledge is just another part of the daily announcements, then the act contributes little to their sense of pride.

As a result, the pledge seems to be more of a repetitive declaration of patriotism with varying levels of truth and meaning for different people.

What can instead encourage students to become more aware as Americans — possibly proud, critical or hopefully both proud and critical — is knowledge. What students have learned about the nation in school over the years bears far more power than a memorized sentence in promoting change: knowing America’s past and present helps reinforce what Americans hope to see occur in the future.

In class, students develop a greater understanding of U.S. history and current events, recognizing how America has upheld or failed to uphold the ideals on which it was founded. And in junior year, for example, one of the main ideas English classes focus on is what it means to be an American and how that definition has changed over time.

Bringing back the pledge to the school would ultimately have a negligible impact on students’ patriotism. The pledge aims to foster pride and unity, but if it holds little meaning for students who may have recited it day after day in school for the past nine years, “liberty and justice for all” may sound like empty words.

Learning about America’s mistakes and triumphs shapes students’ knowledge and appreciation of their country more than a daily pledge ever could.