Chris Graham: Class Reflection

The point I found most interesting from last Thursday's class was Horace Mann's idea that the Common School is a place "where Americans are made". I wonder if we truly appreciate the level of indoctrination that takes place in our public schools? The opening scene of the movie "School: The Story of American Public Education" featured students reciting the pledge of allegiance while standing tall in front of the Stars and Stripes. Students are fed the value of democracy and importance of freedom early on in the public school system. Daily rituals like chanting the pledge of allegiance familiarizes students with the rhetoric we use to describe our government and the way in which social studies textbooks lionize the founding fathers as freedom fighters serves to build national pride. But what about the students who's ancestors did not belong to the same social group as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson? Or more severely, what message are we sending to the descendents of African slaves and Native Americans who were social adversaries to our beloved founding fathers? To be American should not mean to be exclusively like George Washington or any other American hero. I believe that the brand of national pride public schools are teaching students is not representative of what it means to be a contemporary American citizen.