Well, that’s what I thought too, but in those schools everyone is (supposed to be) a Catholic, and if not you (well, your parents) can choose a different school, whereas if I understand correctly children are asked to say the Pledge in all American schools, so (short of emigrating) you (and your parents) have no choice.
(Then again, some otherwise non-confessional schools in Italy keep a crucifix in each classroom—I think it used to be mandated by law, but it no longer is and a few years ago a Muslim sued his son’s school for that and managed to have it removed. But keeping around a sculpture that pupils might not even notice—I honestly can’t even remember which of certain classrooms in my high school had one and which hadn’t—is a lot less scary than have everyone pledge allegiance every morning, IMO.)
I actually never was asked to say the Pledge in any US school I went to, and I’ve never even seen it said. I’m pretty sure this is limited to some parts of the country and is no longer as universal as it may have been once. If someone did go to one such school, they and their parents would have the option of simply not saying the Pledge, transferring to a different school (I doubt private or religious schools say it), or homeschooling/unschooling.
As another datapoint, the pledge was announced over the loudspeaker but students weren’t required to recite it at the first high school I went to (though we were required to stand respectfully and most everybody still did the salute even if they didn’t recite), and theoretically required for any student that didn’t have a religious exemption note at the second high school I went to.
I have a funny story about the second situation, too. I’d been one of the ones who didn’t say the pledge, before I moved, and decided that I wasn’t going to change that unless they made me. The result of this was that the other students in my homeroom class stopped saying it, too—first the ones nearest me, then the ones next to them, and so on across the room. I happened to have a desk in one corner of the room, and by the end of the year a handful of the students in the other corner of the room were the only ones still saying the pledge, and they generally shouted it, raucously or sarcastically depending on their mood. (Makes a pretty interesting complement to the Asch conformity test, come to think of it.)
Are there countries generally regarded as non-totalitarian, other than the US, where people do anything like that?
It is highly likely (that there is at least one). It is a kind of insane practice but it isn’t quite that out of character for human social groups that I’d expect it to be a quirk unique to the USA.
Do all totalitarian states bother making all the children go to school and recite pledges?
Oh wait… Now that I think about it, Ireland’s Irish language policy is probably the biggest thing-like-that in the world. (Yeah, it’s saddening that people don’t know their great-grandparents’ language, but if the Irish government actually cared about preserving Irish, and not just about seeming to care about preserving Irish to an inattentive observer, they could achieve that in waaaaaaay more cost-effective ways.)
AFAIK things are slowly changing for the better, but this is my impression of how they were until recently. (People who have spent more time in Ireland than I have (EDIT: eight months) are welcome to correct me.)
1. Forcing every single school child in Ireland to study it four hours a week fourteen years (even in areas where Irish hasn’t been spoken for centuries, and in a way reminiscent of the study of dead languages and that it is nearly useless for actually having conversations with native speakers, or for remembering anything after a few years out of school) is just a huge waste of time and money, IMO. Making it optional would make much more sense, and make sure that only people actually interested will learn it.
1b. They also spend lots of money for translations of official acts hardly anyone will read. Changing the rule from “the public administration must write all documents in both languages” to (say) “the public administration can write all documents in either language, but must prepare a translation in the other language if requested with a thirty days’ notice” would save lots of money that could be spent otherwise.
2. They don’t even seriously try to assess what the situation in the Gaeltacht is actually like, which IMO is a fundamental prerequisite to fixing it. For example, the 2011 census asked the question “Can you speak Irish?” with possible answers “Yes” and “No”—cf “How well can you speak English?” with answers “Very well”, “Well”, “Not well” and “Not at all” (I’m told that this one was only added in the last census, but why didn’t they do the same with Irish?); and the question “How often do you speak Irish?” has answers “Daily, within the educational system”, “Daily, outside the educational system”, “Weekly”, “More rarely” (IIRC) and “Never”—and the first two were only split in the last census, after people realized that having an answer “Daily” would inflate the numbers because all school children would pick that. (Why didn’t they just ask “How often do you speak Irish, not counting language classes and the like?”?) And I’m not aware of any large-scale survey asking people in the Gaeltacht which language they prefer to use in which circumstances, as there have been for Welsh. (Are they scared of the answers?)
2b. They hardly do anything to make sure that children of living native speakers are comfortable with continuing speaking Irish, i.e. that they are able to cope with Irish in everyday life whenever possible and are forced to recur to English only when actually necessary. For example, they don’t even require Irish on food labels and the like. Living as a monolingual Irish speaker in present-day Ireland would be pretty much impossible, even in the Gaeltacht.
Are there countries generally regarded as non-totalitarian, other than the US, where people do anything like that?
If “anything like that” includes reciting prayers, practically all catholic private schools in Europe will count.
Well, that’s what I thought too, but in those schools everyone is (supposed to be) a Catholic, and if not you (well, your parents) can choose a different school, whereas if I understand correctly children are asked to say the Pledge in all American schools, so (short of emigrating) you (and your parents) have no choice.
(Then again, some otherwise non-confessional schools in Italy keep a crucifix in each classroom—I think it used to be mandated by law, but it no longer is and a few years ago a Muslim sued his son’s school for that and managed to have it removed. But keeping around a sculpture that pupils might not even notice—I honestly can’t even remember which of certain classrooms in my high school had one and which hadn’t—is a lot less scary than have everyone pledge allegiance every morning, IMO.)
I actually never was asked to say the Pledge in any US school I went to, and I’ve never even seen it said. I’m pretty sure this is limited to some parts of the country and is no longer as universal as it may have been once. If someone did go to one such school, they and their parents would have the option of simply not saying the Pledge, transferring to a different school (I doubt private or religious schools say it), or homeschooling/unschooling.
As another datapoint, the pledge was announced over the loudspeaker but students weren’t required to recite it at the first high school I went to (though we were required to stand respectfully and most everybody still did the salute even if they didn’t recite), and theoretically required for any student that didn’t have a religious exemption note at the second high school I went to.
I have a funny story about the second situation, too. I’d been one of the ones who didn’t say the pledge, before I moved, and decided that I wasn’t going to change that unless they made me. The result of this was that the other students in my homeroom class stopped saying it, too—first the ones nearest me, then the ones next to them, and so on across the room. I happened to have a desk in one corner of the room, and by the end of the year a handful of the students in the other corner of the room were the only ones still saying the pledge, and they generally shouted it, raucously or sarcastically depending on their mood. (Makes a pretty interesting complement to the Asch conformity test, come to think of it.)
Yes, FWIW catholic schools in the US do that too.
It is highly likely (that there is at least one). It is a kind of insane practice but it isn’t quite that out of character for human social groups that I’d expect it to be a quirk unique to the USA.
Do all totalitarian states bother making all the children go to school and recite pledges?
Oh wait… Now that I think about it, Ireland’s Irish language policy is probably the biggest thing-like-that in the world. (Yeah, it’s saddening that people don’t know their great-grandparents’ language, but if the Irish government actually cared about preserving Irish, and not just about seeming to care about preserving Irish to an inattentive observer, they could achieve that in waaaaaaay more cost-effective ways.)
What would be better methods of preserving Irish?
AFAIK things are slowly changing for the better, but this is my impression of how they were until recently. (People who have spent more time in Ireland than I have (EDIT: eight months) are welcome to correct me.)
1. Forcing every single school child in Ireland to study it four hours a week fourteen years (even in areas where Irish hasn’t been spoken for centuries, and in a way reminiscent of the study of dead languages and that it is nearly useless for actually having conversations with native speakers, or for remembering anything after a few years out of school) is just a huge waste of time and money, IMO. Making it optional would make much more sense, and make sure that only people actually interested will learn it.
1b. They also spend lots of money for translations of official acts hardly anyone will read. Changing the rule from “the public administration must write all documents in both languages” to (say) “the public administration can write all documents in either language, but must prepare a translation in the other language if requested with a thirty days’ notice” would save lots of money that could be spent otherwise.
2. They don’t even seriously try to assess what the situation in the Gaeltacht is actually like, which IMO is a fundamental prerequisite to fixing it. For example, the 2011 census asked the question “Can you speak Irish?” with possible answers “Yes” and “No”—cf “How well can you speak English?” with answers “Very well”, “Well”, “Not well” and “Not at all” (I’m told that this one was only added in the last census, but why didn’t they do the same with Irish?); and the question “How often do you speak Irish?” has answers “Daily, within the educational system”, “Daily, outside the educational system”, “Weekly”, “More rarely” (IIRC) and “Never”—and the first two were only split in the last census, after people realized that having an answer “Daily” would inflate the numbers because all school children would pick that. (Why didn’t they just ask “How often do you speak Irish, not counting language classes and the like?”?) And I’m not aware of any large-scale survey asking people in the Gaeltacht which language they prefer to use in which circumstances, as there have been for Welsh. (Are they scared of the answers?)
2b. They hardly do anything to make sure that children of living native speakers are comfortable with continuing speaking Irish, i.e. that they are able to cope with Irish in everyday life whenever possible and are forced to recur to English only when actually necessary. For example, they don’t even require Irish on food labels and the like. Living as a monolingual Irish speaker in present-day Ireland would be pretty much impossible, even in the Gaeltacht.