Should the "Pledge of Allegiance" be recited in public schools?

I believe they should recite it. When you really think about it, you hit the nail on the head Corey when you mentioned the zombie-like inflection. Most children are just repeating what they have been told to memorize.It's the Pledge of Allegiance.

How many 1st-5th graders, for example, are actually pledging their allegiance to the country? I'd go out on a limb and say none (or very close). However there's something to be said for repetition.

It ingrains those words into your brain whether you realize it or not at the time. Maybe you were even more poignant with your statement of "...maybe, subconsciously, it made me proud to be an American." I'm a huge patriot.

I love this country for all of it's wonders and flaws. I wouldn't trade it for anything. I think it's a bonding experience to recite that pledge every morning.

If they didn't, when would anyone say it? When would they learn it? Would it ever come to mean anything even down the line?

Here's the most important question - as Americans - what would be wrong with reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in American schools? Can't hurt right? Sure can help though.

I'm for it.

I dislike the current form. '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' ...and way prefer the original 'I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all' I consider the original to be better worded, more concise. The needless flag clarification is weird to me and the religious 'under god' is utterly abhorrent to many, myself included.

Many children get a 'pass out' on religious grounds, many are not even US citizens and only mumble the words to avoid standing out. Either ditch the ritual or re-write it :) please.

Yes, I do. A recent incident where the U.S. Flag was removed from a post office, and the Mexican flag erected, and another where the U.S.Flag was flown upside down under the Mexican flag at a California school really angered a lot of people. If you want to live in the U.S. , send your kids to our public schools, work in our businesses, and take our welfare, you had darn well better be pledging allegiance to our flag.

If you have allegiance to any other country first, you need to go live there. We need to teach our children respect for their country, and this is one guaranteed way to do it. I doubt I would be half as patriotic as I am today if I hadn't had to recite that pledge every morning for all those years.

How many traditions do we have to kill in this country, just because a few people don't like it?

I don't think it should be said in school. It's a daily time-waster down here in Texas, along with some kind of pledge to the TX flag. Anything that is so repetitious loses value because it becomes invisible.

Perhaps I could live with once a week or once a month. Meanwhile, I sit or stand silently if others participate in pledges. I also don't believe prayer belongs in school or in public meetings (city and state government council meetings, for example).

Again, I sit or stand quietly and don't say a word. I'm sure that if I were ever to find myself in a position running meetings such as these, or running a public K-12 school, I would run headlong into arguments with those individuals who feel that somehow these rote and (I think) inappropriate expressions of national zealotry and private religious beliefs belong in a public place. Despite arguments to the contrary, ours is a secular state.

Prayer, and in particular, christian prayer, is an infringement upon the secular process. Just try to do a muslim or jewish prayer before such a meeting, and I believe you'll have a riot amongst the christians who feel singularly entitled to practice their religion in this context. Religious beliefs are important to individuals, too important to let one religion dictate to all others or intercede with the gods of others in public fora.

I also think an inordinate amount of attention to pledges is unhealthy.

Absolutely yes! This is a country with a vast number of permanently settled immigrants. We need to reinforce the common denominator of being fellow countrymen.

We need to actively practice taking pride in this great nation. Especially because it is a nation "by the people, for the people and of the people," which really means we are taking pride in, pledging to, our collective selves. It all starts with family and school.

Not really, no. As was pointed out the pledge was written by Francis Bellamy as part of a nationwide sales campaign for his flag business. He even named the original gesture after himself even though it was basically the same roman-inspired gesture pretty much every nation used at some point.

The "Bellamy Salute" was your arm stretched out in front of you in a straight line, raised up about 45 degrees, and palm down and went with the original Pledge: "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and (to) the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all" Of course around world war two this all became a little awkward, as did the name "adolf" and the traditional military goose-step. Thats when we changed to the hand-over-heart salute for civilians. Shortly after World War 2, during the height of the Red Scare, a decade or two of hard lobbying by the "Knights of Columbus" and other extremely religious groups came to fruition when the newly presbyterian baptized President Eisenhower was basically worked over by a local church on lincolns birthday and finally the legislation to alter the pledge to it's current form was passed.Now... do you really think that triumph of religious extremism and intolerance from one of our darkest eras as a nation is something we should be forcing on our children every day?

Is it really a pledge of allegiance if we need to force them to say it? If we punish them when they don't? I know I'm an american, and I know what I'm loyal to.It is not the god of McCarthy and Eisenhower.

The flag represents our country and is a part of all Americans. Many people have fought and died to protect our right to say what we want ( and not say what we don't want to). The Pledge to that flag is a part of our history.

If a child (or parents of a child) feel that the pledge some how violates their rights as an American, by all means do not participate, but don't take that right away from the people who are proud of the country they live in. If you don't believe "God" should be a part of it, slip whatever you want in there. It's not like we live in place where they will cut out your tongue for saying something different.

I believe it should. It reminds us everyday of the freedom we have and should enforce pride. If we didn't say it everyday, many wouldn't know the pledge of allegiance, and how sad is that for a country.

There are enough citizens who don't know the pledge as it is . It is a part of our history, it is part of our country. I remember when my family visited from Hungary and when they heard that we recite the pledge they were shocked."Like, wow, that is why Americans are so proud!

" And they meant that in a good way.

No. Absolutely not. This is a bad idea left over from WWI when no one thought twice about propaganda.It is bad for the kids to be forced to conform in an unthinking fashion.

It is disrespectful to the country to make a fetish of its flag. The Cold War addition of religion made the bad idea worse because it conflicts with both secular people and many religions. There is absolutely no positive or beneficial effect from this, it at best makes some of the parents feel good (but others bad).

I remember two vivid things as young kid reciting the pledge as early as age 7. 1. "under God" made non sense to me and even made me a little uncomfortable.My family being the only buddhist vietnamese refugees in my small Indiana town.

2. Who was this Richard Stands fellow and who is woman named Liberty with him? Why did I keep to have to mentioning his name each day?

I eventually figured out I was supposed to be saying "for which it stands.

As a public school teacher, I am kind of torn on this issue. On one hand, I think it's great for my students to be patriotic and show respect to our country. The question I struggle with, however, is: does reciting the pledge truly accomplish this?

I don't think it does. At my school, the entire student body (about 700 children) say the pledge at the same time each day. These kids range in age from 5 to 15.

While doing this everyday, I wonder what the students are thinking when they say these words. I would be willing to bet that they aren't thinking about what they are saying at all. Furthermore, I doubt that most of the students in my school, even the oldest, can comprehend all of the vocabulary of the pledge.

I want to take a poll to see how many know what the word "allegiance" means. This would be a great lesson to teach...decoding the pledge of allegiance, even though I teach science. :) I also have issue with the religious addendum to the pledge, but that is a whole 'nother issue.

I guess I don't understand why anyone would choose to live in a country and then not want to pledge allegiance to it. I'm assuming if you don't want your kids to pledge allegiance to it, you wouldn't want to pledge allegiance to it yourself. A couple of years ago, there was a girl in my daughter's Girl Scouts troop who was Australian.

Her dad was sent here on business, and they'd lived here several years, but retained citizenship. Her mom was fine with her being in the troop, but uncomfortable with her taking a pledge of allegiance to another country. She was allowed to sit out the pledge, and she was definitely welcomed into the troop, but after a couple of years they ended up leaving the troop (and then the country).

I completely understood that, and would feel the same way if I lived in another country. I think it may be a little different here in North America, where the U.S. And Canada are friendly and share quite a bit of history via the colonial background and heritage. It's very different in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa where chances are there are countries nearby that are at an uneasy truce at best and outright war at worst.In these cases, perhaps people are more aware that by pledging allegiance to your flag and the country it symbolizes, you're pledging your help to your neighbors.

You're vowing not to let the enemy in at the gate in the middle of the night. In the U.S. , where we haven't had a war with a foreign power on our continental soil in nearly 200 years, it's a little less real and immediate, perhaps.It seems about the only people I've seen who get upset about kids being taught patriotism are those who seem to have problems with anything traditional. There seems to be a certain fad for rejecting things just because they're traditional, with just as little thought as those who accept them just because they're traditional.

Sure, kids can't understand the full implications of this at the age of 5 or even 10. But like many things, the foundation needs to be laid while they're young. They can explore the fuller implications when they're able.

Yes, I believe it should. This is America and if you allegiance is not with the United States of America then you really don't need to be here. We didn't have all this un-American stuff when we were all in agreement we were "One nation under God".

Yes, I believe that the "Pledge of Allegiance" to the flag should be recited in evey class room. We did when we were going up. I believe it says all "One Nation under God".

If we want everyone to believe in our country it should be said. flickr.com/photos/inkyfingerz/518468319.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.