Quick question: were you guys required every day to say the pledge and sing the national anthem during morning announcements after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991?

elementary school: honestly, i don't think we even had flags in our classrooms. we did have a flag day shindig, though, and said the pledge and sang patriotic songs and junk. we were, at some point, taught the pledge and the songs and whatnot, but never had to recite them on a daily basis.

you didn't ask, but:
junior high: pledge at assemblies, flags in classrooms.
high school: they played the national anthem over the loudspeaker every tuesday at 9:12 am; flags in the gyms.

I can't remember. I know we had to do it, but I'm not sure when we stopped. I think it might have been in '91 or somewhere around that time. That's a very interesting question.

This never occurred to me. I graduated from high school in 1991, so I just figured all kids still do it today.

That was a long time ago...don't remember. I was a sophmore in HS.... seems like I never said the pledge in HS, so you may be on to something

The only detention I ever got in high school was for refusing to stand and say the pledge. Fascist bullshit.

wow.

we said the pledge every morning

Me and the wife volunteer at junior high spring football games...keeping stats and taking tickets. My aunt and uncle run the league. Last year we were in the booth with them when the national anthem played. My wife doesn't get up durring the anthem...ever. Then next day my aunt called me and wanted an explanation as to why my wife refuses to stand durring the anthem. I didn't know what to tell her without forever damaging their relationship. I told her that my wifes back was bothering her. My aunt is super patriotic...durring the 4th of July her house looks like an Americana booth at a flea market....she would be highly offended if I was to tell her that my wife compares standing for the anthem to raising your arm at an angle for Hitler...she doesn't want to be one of the sheep

I went to catholic school my whole life but we always said the pledge at the start of the day. By my sophomore year of high school I stopped doing it, got a lot of shit after 9/11 (i was a junior that year) being the only one not giving the pledge.

I remember that. When I was in sixth grade our fat English teacher would peer around and look at all of us carefully and quickly while we were saying the pledge, to make sure we were looking at the flag and paying rapt attention. The flag was where she could see it and the classroom at the same time, changing perspectives only with a flick of the eyes.

She was the sneakiest grossly-obese person I've ever met by far and away. The only detention I ever got was when she snuck up behind me and my friend Matt drawing a penis on an unsavory picture in a sixth grade newspaper, Scholastic News or some dumb shit. I was the one with the pencil in my hand, so I got the fall for all of it. I was offered either to have my parents told or to have five days of after-school detention for half an hour. Since my mom got home an hour after I walked back from school, I took that detention bit, since I just got Dragon Warrior III and didn't feel like an epic groundation from it. I still have nightmares about the principal's perfume and how horrible the allergy attacks were from the overwhelming blast of it every day for that week, and how she made me write sentences. I guess that's why whats-her-face in harry potter 5 made me cringe so badly.

that bitch pissed me off too

I vaguely remember saying it in elementary. They brought it back in high school. I stood up but I would not recite it.

this concept seems just fucking crazy to me.

Wow, what a bunch of rebels...fight the system man, dont let no government tell me what to do.

Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

Whatever happened to having a little bit of patriotism. It's fine if you dont like those in power, but this is your country we're talking about. If for nothing else, stand up and do it for your fellow citizen or better yet, do it for yourself. You live here. If you want things to change, take initiative. However, disrespecting ones own country hardly constitutes initiative. What are you accomplishing? Nothing. You are only making yourself look like a complete and utter fool.

Porchball, you wife sounds like a clown. No offense, but comparing standing up for the National Anthem with hailing Hitler is fucking idiotic. That's one of the dumbest things I've heard in a quite some time. Additionally, if she feels so damn strongly about it, then she (and you) shouldn't conceal her beliefs from the public. If she's convicted enough to sit it out, then she should be convicted enough to tell others why she is doing it. If she gets shit for it, well good for the people giving her shit because she goddamn deserves it. Everyone preaches about how complacency is ruining America...well there is nothing more complacent than demonstrating your dislike for your country and then lying to relatives about the reasons behind it. Again...no initiative, just blind, dumb, and stupid.

There are so many people here trying not to conform, that the anti-conformity is becoming conformity in itself. So go ahead and preach your freedom of expression bullshit, but just remember where that freedom came from.

You mean you guys didn't make blood oaths to the pope every morning?

calm down. people can do whatever they want. Personally, I acknowledge the National Anthem when being played, but it is mostly for tradition's sake and doesn't mean that I'm not thankful to live in this country.

I don't recite the pledge because I do not swear an oath of loyalty to any government, flag, or other symbol. I stand out of respect.

I remember doing the pledge in 1st, 2nd, 3rd grades, but the 4th, 5th and 6th grades of elementary. I don't remember if we did it.

Jr. High the only thing we did was the National Anthem and that was mostly for assemblies.

High School don't remember doing a thing, the only thing I remember in high school that we did as a group was doing the School Song at the ends of the assemblies.