When did you learn, The Pledge of Allegiance....?

[DFW]

43. Two other pledges:

The pledge not to believe Fox lies:

I pledge no credence to the bag
Of lies Fox tells to America
And to the injustice, for which it stands,
One station, shunned by God, indefensible,
With Hannity, disgusting for all.

As for that other one that kids in the States recite in public schools: When my elder daughter took her semester "abroad," she chose to go to the USA, to our local public high school in Dallas. She had never been to school in English before, or been in an American school. To make sure she didn't have too big a culture shock, I went with her and stayed for the first four days. After a few days, I asked her if she was adjusting. She said yeah, but it was REALLY different from what she was used to in Germany. I said that was to be expected, but was there anything in particular?

She said, yes, the ritual chanting they did every morning was really strange. RITUAL CHANTING? In a PUBLIC school? She said, yes, like Buddhists she had seen on TV. I couldn't believe it. I asked her to describe it. She said they all stood up and started chanting in unison like zombies. I asked what they were chanting. She said it started out with "I spread the peaches," and she couldn't make out the rest, as they all mumbled it incoherently. Now I was really confused. They all stood up and started chanting "I spread the peaches???" Is that all they did? She said pretty much. Oh, yeah, and they all put their right hands on their chests while they did it.

Oh. NOW I got it. I asked if they might be saying, "I pledge allegiance?" She said, "I don't know. What does THAT mean?" Her conversational English was good, but you just don't use the words "pledge" or "allegiance" in normal everyday conversation. So she just heard words that she did know. Ergo: I spread the peaches.

You have to understand that ever since the Nazis were defeated, Germans have disdained extremist displays of patriotism, remembering what it got them last time. Anything like that would be the LAST thing to expect in a German school. So, my daughter hadn't the slightest clue what was going on. After I explained it to her, she still wondered. "Doesn't everyone already know what country they're in, or where they're from?"

Forcing kids to say the pledge every day in school may seem like a given to us, but for someone who grew up elsewhere, it seems like something else entirely. The fact that the other kids mumbled the pledge in such boredom that an outsider couldn't even make out most of the words is evidence enough how little importance they attach to it.