Letter: York High School American Flag Exercise Had 'Educational Value'

This is a letter to the editor submitted by Lisa O'Halloran.

York is tasked with trying to educate our students to be civically minded, discerning members of society that understand peaceful discourse. Whether you think the lesson was "good" or "bad" it clearly had significant educational value and should be applauded by all patriots who believe in our constitution and American Freedoms.

To the people complaining about York, I hope you stop and look at reality.

I am assuming you are all aware of the fact that York is one of the only high schools around who offers a military history class. York has a huge spectacular Veterans Day celebration. With everyone's love for supporting veterans have you all been to that Veterans Day celebration? I have and I've never seen anything as patriotic as that. Did you know that York has a military history club as well. Did you know that at a recent STEM day York had an army helicopter land on the front lawn and pass out dog tags? Name another high school that does that! Have you ever seen all of the flags placed around the high school in November? As a military mom it makes me tear up.

One of the reasons that my oldest son got into the United States Naval Academy was because of all the effort that the York High School guidance counseling department did to help him with his extremely rigorous application as well as the wonderful letters of recommendation written by three of York's high school teachers; without them my son wouldn't be an officer in the Submarine Warfare Community. My Army son was helped into his Army ROTC scholarship by his Social Studies and English teachers. Did you know the York PE teachers help the students get ready to pass the Candidate Fitness Assessment, the fitness test needed to get into a military service academy? They often give up their lunch period to help with this.

As the head of a military family I am extremely impressed with how York embraces civics education. I commend York for taking responsibility for civics education that exposes students to the values, skills and knowledge necessary for full participatory citizenship. If we want a full-throated democracy our students need to learn to think critically. It looks like this lesson did exactly that. Civics has to be more than leaning facts about our government. Civics is messy business because our country was "founded" on messy business. York should not shy away from issues that may involve political and ideological controversy. We need authentic engagement for our York students which means experiencing the nitty-gritty of democracy and learning to address it constructively.

This activity was about Civics. It wasn't an idle tossing of a flag. It caused the students (and parents) to validate their patriotism. This was a gift for our community, whatever side you come out on each and every poster on this thread is loudly and proudly claiming their patriotism, even though it all looks different.

Photo via Patch Archive.