"I was trusting, too. I never doubted what I was told: Heaven and earth are great, but greater still is the kindness of the Communist Party; father and mother are dear, but dearer still is Chairman Mao." "We are young pioneers, successors to communism. Our red scarves flutter on our chests." - Ji Li Jiang, Red Scarf Girl; A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution
Chairs scratch against the floor as the announcements come to an end, rifling through the moment of silence experienced just moments before. I stop whatever I'm doing and stand with the teacher for whom I TA and our class of 22 adorable 2nd graders, our right hands placed firmly over our hearts as our voices ring out in unison.
"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
The Pledge of Allegiance. Nothing more, nothing less.
And it bothers me every single time.
Some of you might wonder why in the world I should choose to juxtapose quotes from Chinese communist ideology to the Pledge of Allegiance of democratic America, but here I wish to make a point. At the foundation of every society's communal beliefs is education. Whatever we imbibe during the most formative years of our lives is most likely that which has already been demonstrated to us by other members of our society as true, whether it really is true or not. Usually, these beliefs contain societal expectations as to how we are to act in accordance with what we are taught (review the words of the Pledge of Allegiance). Now, the first quote is taken from a memoir of a young woman (Ji Li Jiang) and her experiences during China's Cultural Revolution. At the time, communism and the prevalence of the Communist Party had gained huge amounts of support in China. Mao Zedong was in the middle of reforming China and gaining the support of the people for his heinous exploits by providing them with an influx of information that stated the greatness of the Communist Party. The young were especially affected by his brainwashing, as demonstrated by the formation of the Red Guard, a group of communist youth so bent on reforming China according to Mao's beliefs that the dictator himself saw their acts as too extreme and put an end to their efforts.
Brainwashing. What a convenient term when it doesn't apply to us, right?
Or does it? Review the Pledge of Allegiance again.
Like all other nations, America provides it's citizens with one resounding, yet unspoken, motto: Our nation is the best. Our way of life is the best. You should put your faith in our system of government because it is the best. And, by default, all other ways of doing things are inferior. So, since we are the best, we deserve your undivided allegiance and adoration. As a citizen of this country, you are expected to be loyal under all circumstances and even die if need be to save your country from the inferior influences of other nations.
Now, I am certain that none of my students can even understand the meaning of the words they recite every morning. And that's what bothers me the most. Before they can even process the words they are speaking, we tell them that their allegiance lies with America and imply that they are wrong if they dare to think differently. This is not only evident in the pledge; look at the way we teach history. So often when our students learn history, we fail to teach them all sides of the story. Many things our nation does are cast in a rosy hue, while those things done against us are criminal acts deserving punishment. The bombing of Pearl Harbor? Unacceptable. Our bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Well, it was a necessary evil (Note: I have not fully decided myself what I believe about the necessity of this bombing. I hesitate to conclude on this topic because I am not aware of the information that led to the decision to bomb the country, but I firmly suspect that the commonly taught idea that the ending of the war justified the sheer loss of human life and just about everything else that was decimated and had no correlation to the war other than it happened to be in Japan at the wrong time. I also suspect a bit of racism was involved, but since I find my knowledge lacking, I am only using it to raise the point that we conclude it was a necessary evil only because we lack knowledge about it and have been preconditioned to trust our government).
As a result of all of this, many young people form their beliefs on what they have been taught without giving them much thought. This is what psychological theorists call foreclosure (although it usually used in terms of identity), and it is generally discouraged because it means that the person is letting whatever he or she believes be defined by someone other than himself or herself. The danger of foreclosure when it comes to things like this is that it makes it easier for politicians that will actually harm the nation and perhaps other nations as well to rise to power because the people are not thinking critically but instead acting according to what they have already been conditioned to do. Some of these cases are not too extreme, but take North Korea for example. Their whole ideology revolves around their leader's divine nature. They have been taught that their nation is the greatest and that they can do nothing wrong. They have foreclosed, allowing several notorious dictators rule their country for the past half century and commit heinous acts because they digested information saying that the leaders were a blessing to them and that other countries are far inferior to them.
Some would argue with me that this is not the case. After all, don't we encourage freedom of speech and free thought? Of course we do. I am not criticizing that area of America - in fact, I applaud it. What I am trying to say is that we should be fully aware of what we are teaching our children (and ourselves) and the consequences it could have. After all, if we are continually being taught to be true to whatever our society commonly accepts as right or even beneficial and do not stop to think about what we are being fed, then we are more easily susceptible to harming ourselves by accepting something before studying all sides of it.
Sometimes I think I'm going to be the world's worst teacher because of this, because so much of what it means to be a teacher is teaching children what society views as valuable. However, I have resolved that I am not going to teach my students to form an unquestioned allegiance to a government or a set of ideas no matter how commonly they are accepted but rather encourage them to seek out facts and arguments from every side of a situation that they encounter in order to develop people that truly exercise the freedom of thought, speech, and opinion. Does this mean I will teach them to have faith in nothing about their native country? Of course not! Just as every country has bad points, every country has good in it as well. I hope that they will leave my classroom passionate for truth even if it flies in the face of popular belief, whether it be in religion, politics, morale, etc.
Feel free to comment with your own thoughts about this or any other related topic, and please remember that I am not trying to bash America, glorify/bash China, or anything else that I think I commonly come across as doing without intending to do so. I really think that all countries have their strengths and their faults, and am using America as an example because it was what strikes home for most of my audience and using all other countries only to put things into perspective.
