by Nate Kissingford
At 8:42 am on a cloudy Monday in February, I stood in the 3rd grade classroom while the class turned to face the American flag on the classroom wall. As 2nd grade recited the Pledge of Allegiance over the loudspeaker to the whole school, the 3rd graders had a variety of reactions. Many put their hands over their hearts and immediately began to recite, some cheerily, some dispassionately. Others, their eyes flitting to their peers, or to me in the corner with my camera, joined in later, more softly, their hands reaching their chests more tentatively than the first group. By the end of the Pledge, all had joined in.
Ouray School has brought back the Pledge after nearly a decade as part of a new ritual of morning announcements on the first day of each week. Grade levels take turns gathering around the intercom system, and reciting the pledge, the week's announcements, and a joke.
While the idea of announcements was brought up by a group of students in the high school, the inclusion of the pledge is the brainchild of maintenance and operations head Steven Nickerson. “It never even crossed my mind until I was cleaning in my office and I found a new flag because ours was getting tethered, and I asked Lokey, ‘Is there a reason the new flag’s just kinda thrown on the shelf?’ and he goes ‘no man, put it up’ and I said ‘now that I think about it, why don’t we do the pledge?’”
“It’s part of our country,” Nickerson continued, “and there’s nothing wrong with having values and teaching young children to have pride in something more than yourself or your parents, but to have pride in your country, because our country is struggling through a lot these days and we’re stripping away a lot of our old values for new values that have been untested and unproven. We’ve had some great values.”
For Nickerson, the Pledge instills values which are necessary for national strength. “The pledge is a very short pledge and it’s something that if you can teach your kids your values for your country like any country, you see migrants coming from Mexico and they get here and raise their flag and they have pride in the country they come from even though it has issues, we have our issues too, we’ve just been successful along the way, but I just think its good to have pride because if you don’t have pride, you won’t stand up for your country in the future as needed.”
Nickerson also thinks the pledge can help with confidence. “I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s and we did the pledge and I remember, in elementary, the kids would fight over who got to say it, they always wanted to contribute, I think it brings leadership to our children and in the fact that they will step out of their comfort zone, and to know that, ‘hey, I’m actually talking and it’s coming out over the whole school’”
Some faculty, like elementary teacher Jen Feeser, agree that the pledge is important, but not all staff agree with the decision. “I heard about it at a teacher leadership meeting and I was fairly vociferous in my opposition to having the pledge said as a general rule throughout the school,” said high school science teacher Beth Lakin. “I think the pledge is a really complicated historical artifact at this point, and I feel like at least high schoolers have the ability to understand some of the history and look at where did this come from and the initial pledge being written in the rise to nationalism leading up to World War I and the adding of “under God” in the 50s.”
“As a kid,” she continued, “I said the pledge but it didn’t mean anything to me; by the time I was in junior high I dropped the “under God” part. I wasn’t an atheist, but I understood that other people were, and it felt like a really weird thing to base your patriotism on. We started to do the pledge when I worked in Norwood and by that point we were in the era of Colin Kaepernick and kneeling and using symbolism as a basis for your patriotism had lost all of its shine for me at that point.”
She does however, have a solution to the problems she sees in the pledge. “I would much rather us recite the Preamble to the Constitution instead of the pledge,” she said. “It is about the ideals. Why would we pledge allegiance to a symbol? Symbols shift in their meaning.”
She brought up an example from a country song whose lyrics suggest that “if you believe in a flag more than the principles, you’re doing this wrong. High schoolers can start to grapple with that,” she said, “but what does it mean to have 2nd graders saying the Pledge? So, I guess in short, I hope that our students are really respectful of everyone’s choices and that they are willing to engage in some of the critical discussions. I think it’s really complicated and I wish we had taken more time with the decision and solicited student opinion.”
Senior Pallen McArdle would have argued against its reinstatement. “I don’t say the Pledge and I know a lot of other people in the school don’t say the Pledge. Ouray School tends to pride itself on taking in the needs of the students and staff and adjusting to accommodate that, and the Pledge isn’t doing that.”
School librarian Ms. Cappi, the school expert on the Pledge, has been “going through fourth grade and middle school to teach them what the Pledge means in preparation so people understood what we were doing.” The short version? According to Ms. Cappi, “It was first published in the Youth’s Companion in 1892. It was a challenge from President Benjamin Harris that we celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus discovering America. Since then, it has been changed four times, most recently adding ‘under God’ in the 50s.”
World language teacher Mr. Boukis has a unique perspective on the situation. “I consider myself a binational,” he said, so “I can’t say I pledge allegiance to one nation over another. If there was some kind of situation where the United States and Greece were at odds, it would just be like my father and mother being at odds. I definitely do pledge my allegiance to the flag of this country, I love this country for so many reasons, but I do feel a schism when I’m saying the Pledge of Allegiance because there’s not a Greek flag here for me to pledge allegiance to, it’s not even something that’s done there.”
School counselor Ted Fellin sees all sides. “I personally don’t have a problem with doing the Pledge of Allegiance,” he said. “I once swore to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic, so I have that side of me, but I can also understand why some people would have a hard time with it and that is the marvelous thing about living in the United States of America: if you don’t like it or it doesn’t fit your values at the time you can say ‘you know, I don’t agree with that.’” For instance, he said, “I know patriotic people who don’t agree with standing for the Pledge of Allegiance because they are from an oppressed group.”
One person who prefers not to stand is freshman Hadley Choate. “I get how it is kind of a good thing because some people want to pledge allegiance,” she said, “but this morning I was in class and I was sitting for it because of my personal beliefs and some kid kept telling me and other kids, ‘you’ve gotta to stand up, you have to stand up’ and I feel like that’s an issue.” She believes the Pledge should be introduced with something more like, “If you choose, stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.”