Like many idealistic young teachers, my main goal when I started teaching over 20 years ago in a Catholic school in the Boston area was to instill in my students a healthy skepticism about what they were learning and why they were learning it; I surmised the best way to foster critical thinking skills was to teach them to ask the question "Why?" at every decisive juncture of their academic and personal life.
At the time, this extended to the secular and religious training the students were going through, most significantly embodied in the daily recitation of the "Pledge of Allegiance" and the "Lord's Prayer."
After a few classes, more and more students began to notice and asked why I didn't put my hand over my heart and repeat the pledge or make the sign of the cross and recite the prayers.
In the end, we concluded that many of us had no idea what the key words of the pledge meant, including "Liberty," "Justice," and "Republic." The lesson ended with me stating that I hoped students at least understood the words of the "Lord's Prayer" and weren't simply repeating them mindlessly.
The greatest weapon in these authoritarians' arsenal is the fear they strike in those who, given more freedom, might ask why the flags and dogma cannot be questioned.
I've had numerous conversations over the years with both students and teachers who fear that if they were to ask that simple question, the forces of "Soft totalitarianism" would come crashing down on them.
Just as educators have been protected when questioning nationalist indoctrination, we must also support teachers, parents, and students in their questioning of LGBTQ+ indoctrination.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/10/why_we_must_always_ask_why.html
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