Education and nationalism

[yulives]

Nationalism in schools is something that I find very disturbing. I remember when I still had history in school, when we were told all sorts of nationalistic crap, mainly about the second world war and the communist era in our country, border disputes with our neighbouring countries today... and we were always told how our nation is or was the victim of either the "godless communists" or the "evil Austrians", or whatever.

Id like to hear other peoples opinions and stories on this subject, about nationalism in schools, and perhaps proposals, about what can be done to change things. I find it really disturbing that such things are forced upon young people, and even children, as young as 6 or 7 years.

[redcannon]

in the states they teach us the power of patriotism and the state, though very suttly over the span of about 10 years, starting in very early childhood. all in school, i hear kids saying communism is just like fascism, at least socially because the people are always so miserable and the government is so horrible and corrupt. it just makes me hang my head and be sad for a while, because it really is all these kids know. I tried explaining the truth to them, but they back up their arguments by getting the history teacher on their side. it's like...fuck...what am i supposed to do?

in either case, nationalism is especially prevalent in powerful cappie countries, to combat communism with their youth.

[BobKKKindle$]

That is basically a specific case of the general function of educational institutions - to create the ideology and social relations that will ensure the continuation of the Capitalist system. The teaching of nationalism is just one of the ways in which educational institutions fulfill this function. And the education system is just one of the institutions and mechanisms that is responsible for adapting the young to the requirements of Capitalism (or, for that matter, all previous modes of production).

[yulives]

"I tried explaining the truth to them, but they back up their arguments by getting the history teacher on their side"

I understand that. To young people, teachers,parents and other authorities are a very big influence on them. If you ask me, history, religion and other controversial subjects simply shouldnt be taught in schools. Its something that every individual should explore for his/her self, without any interferance from any authority.

[Ander]

This is something that seriously worries me about the condition of education systems. I go to an American-style international school and the textbooks are pretty heavily biased. As some one who can see through the lies, it is your duty to ***** and complain as much as possible. Start a scene in class, make the teacher look like an asshole, argue with the inevitable moronic student who tells you that communism is evil, even though he has never read a single word by Marx and doesn't realize "communist state" is a contradiction in terms.

A few weeks ago I caused an uproar in class which spawned a capitalist vs. communist debate and derailed the entire lecture for an hour. My friend and I showed those smug fucks who's right though. Our teacher, a more humane capitalist, even agreed with most of our points.

Ok, I realised that I went kinda off topic, but I think this should stay anyway as it relates to fucked up, indoctrinating education.

[Kropotkin Has a Posse]

They do promote patriotism quite a bit here, also. Mainly they say we're free. Well yes, in a way. Free to be told that because of the "training wage" we'll only be earning $6.50 an hour. Free to watch the upper classes accumulate property. Free to see rich suits run the nation with little input from us.

[Lenin II]

It causes feelings of superiority among the people, who had no choice in deciding where they were born. No wars would have been fought if it were not for narcissisms of minor differences resulting from divisions (class, ethnic, etc.) created by the state and the government. These can be illustrated through examples of ethnic national tensions and conflicts, oppression, marginalization and other problems displayed throughout the world.

Currently, the United States is the only Western nation in which the majority of school children take a pledge of allegiance daily. Pledges of allegiance are features of totalitarian states.

[Trystan]

I went to a Welsh speaking school in my early childhood. Most schools in Wales don't have Welsh as the official language, just like most people in Wales don't speak Welsh. Most of the people who do speak Welsh tend to be nationalist in politics. So most of the teachers in the schools are no different, they don't allow you to speak English, and usually if you do you actually punished for it. This is still the case today, I know, because my sister goes to a Welsh speaking school. She was telling me about how one teacher caught someone speaking English, who proceeded to lecture them about how 500 years ago people "fought for this country so you could speak the language". Now if something like that were to happen to Welsh-speaking children in an English speakng school, there would be uproar (rightly). Quite frankly, the amount of jingoist crap that gets taught really is disturbing. Schools try to take away a young person's individuality anyway, this just makes it worse. And although they woon't admit it, I really think examples like the one above are really used to indoctrinate kids into hating the English.

This is worse than just nationalism - it's fascism.

[yulives]

Very interesting response from everybody. Trystan made a good point, imo, its vorse than nationalism, its really fascism. Juts like how they teach us in our schools, about how Austrians and Italians have been stealing our land for centuries and crap. I mean, get over it! That stuff happend before I, or any of my teachers were even born! And especialy disturbing was the reaction of some of my classmates, who just nodded their heads and believed every word of the crap in the textbook, or from the teacher. Its just fascism. It would really be interesting to see what Italians and Austrians learn in their schools. Probably the exact opposite of what we are told.

And I agree with Jello as well. Since we have a right to say what we think, we might as well use it. If someone stands up to the teacher he/she at least creates debate, so that the others arent completely indoctrinated.

[Sonnie]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2007 01:23 pm
Nationalism in schools is something that I find very disturbing. I remember when I still had history in school, when we were told all sorts of nationalistic crap, mainly about the second world war and the communist era in our country, border disputes with our neighbouring countries today... and we were always told how our nation is or was the victim of either the "godless communists" or the "evil Austrians", or whatever.

Id like to hear other peoples opinions and stories on this subject, about nationalism in schools, and perhaps proposals, about what can be done to change things. I find it really disturbing that such things are forced upon young people, and even children, as young as 6 or 7 years.
I have sort of a kick-ass history teacher, so perhaps he is better at teaching such subjects, but my class was taught pretty relevent stuff. When learning about Nationalism, we were taught both the negative and positive effects. About the unity and economic expansion of it, but also of the consequencial genocides, Nazi Germany, and a little mention of American Imperialism.
We're now learning about the Industrial Revolution, and it's pretty interesting. Not only does he introduce Marx and his ideas, but also Russian Anarchism without being biased, he represents all sides of political and social issues.