[Over the last few months, I’ve had the chance to talk about my new book in a number of settings, and as always every such talk has led to distinct and interesting follow-up questions and ideas. So this week I’ve reflected on those continuing conversations, leading up to this special July 4th weekend post on debates over patriotism, history, and education in 2021!]
On education,
history, and patriotism.
A few weeks
back, I had the chance
to chat (mine is Episode 3) with Kelly
Therese on her excellent new Unsung
History podcast. We mostly talked about the episode’s specific focus, the
amazing and inspiring Susie
King Taylor. But toward the end of the conversation, Kelly generously asked
me to talk a bit about Of Thee I Sing,
and I couldn’t help but start with the ongoing June (and very much still July)
2021 debates over whether and how to teach difficult American histories. The
case I made there is similar to the one from this HNN piece of mine:
that in our current debates, teaching history and teaching patriotism are too
often framed as distinct and opposed emphases. The 1776
Commission Report articulated this black-and-white perspective succinctly:
“Universities in the US are often today hotbeds of anti-Americanism…that
generate in students and in the broader culture at the very least disdain and
at worst outright hatred for this country”; and instead the Commission sought
to “restore patriotic education that teaches the truth about America.”
Obviously I
understand where folks like those on the 1776 Commission are coming from in
advancing this dichotomy: they exemplify mythic
patriotism; and as I argue throughout the book, that form of patriotism features
both an exclusionary vision of American history and a complementary narrative
that anyone who disagrees with that vision is unpatriotic. But I’ll admit to
being frustrated that so many critics and opponents of said mythic patriotism
still uphold the dichotomy, just from the other side of the equation: that is,
that for many scholars and educators (at least as they express their
perspective on social media and in other public scholarly forums), teaching our
hardest histories does indeed mean not teaching patriotism. This narrative
equates patriotism with mythic patriotism, not only in its argument that
America’s more difficult (and often excluded) histories are incommensurate with
a patriotic perspective, but also and even more tellingly in its argument that
to teach patriotism would mean to teach unquestioning obedience to the national
mythos (which is a core element to mythic patriotism to be sure).
Just as mythic
patriotism isn’t the only form of American patriotism, however, mythic
patriotic education is far from the only way to link patriotism to historical
education. As Mark Rice articulates so powerfully in this
USIH blog post, it’s quite possible—although certainly not easy, but what
important thing ever is?—to teach critical patriotism. Indeed, I would go
further: teaching critical patriotism as part of American history (and
literature, and studies) classrooms links one of the most important skills we
seek to inculcate in our students (critical thinking) to an engagement with both
the complex and difficult realities of American history and the (to my mind
absolutely vital) sense that we are all part of this community and have a
responsibility to help it move forward and live up to its ideals. Indeed
indeed, I would go further still: teaching American history (and literature,
and studies) as fully and thoughtfully as we can is one of the best ways to
create a more collective and shared sense of critical patriotism, with equal
emphasis on both words in that concept. The more I talk and think about this
book, the more I feel certain that critical patriotism will be essential if we
are to move closer to being a more perfect union—and that means linking, not
separating, history and patriotism in our work as educators.
Next series
starts Monday,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Ideas for other settings or audiences with whom I could share the book?
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