by James Glaser
June 22, 2004

The kids that go to our local school will say the Pledge of Allegiance over 2,000 times during their school career and this time could be spent learning something more important about our country.

I am not saying there is anything wrong with the Pledge, I am saying that spending every day at school for twelve years doing the same thing, tends to take any meaning out of this daily experience.

There are so many things about our nation that could be taught in this short time frame. What if four days a week something other than the Pledge was taught? How about going over the Constitution or the Bill of Rights?

There are 27 amendments to the Constitution and it would be nice if every American child knew about them, before he or she finished high school. If in their 12 years of schooling, they heard about how the First Amendment gives them the right to religious freedom about twelve times or how the Fourth, gives people the right to be secure in their person, papers, and effects and prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, they would remember them for life.

After twelve years of learning a little bit about our Declaration of Independence, our children would have a pretty good understanding of why we became a nation that wanted to protect the rights of all citizens.

This wouldn't take any more time than it takes to recite the Pledge of Allegiance each morning. Every day the kids would be hearing something different about their country and after doing this while going to school, they would have a better understanding of what our nation stands for, a far greater understanding than they would get from saying the pledge those 2,000 times.

These little tid bits of American history and this knowledge of our rights could be expanded on in the class room. The repetition of twelve times during a 12 year school career would not be often enough to make it boring.

Ask any kid that has said the Pledge about 1.500 times, what the Pledge means and almost all of them will say, "Huh?" Ask them about "involuntary servitude" and you will get the same answer, but if that 13th Amendment was taught to them twelve times, they would know it and slavery are unlawful, "within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

We want our children to love this country. That is why we push them to recite the Pledge, but if we really want them to love America, we ought to teach them why we love it. Those few minutes devoted to saying the Pledge of Allegiance every day, could be better used for just that purpose.