The brilliant blog 9958

A few years ago, a high school principal I know faced a problem she never expected to put on the agenda: pickup trucks with beach-size American flags whipping across the student parking lot every morning. Some kids cheered. Others felt intimidated after a week of lunchroom arguments about immigration and protests during the anthem. The principal met with student leaders, asked drivers to scale down the flagpoles for safety and tone, then took heat from parents who accused h

Around 8:05 a.m., the hallway outside a middle school cafeteria sounds like a soft orchestra of chairs sliding and zippers closing. The intercom crackles, students rise, some place hands on hearts, a few stand with arms at their sides, a handful keep their seats. The Pledge of Allegiance still happens in many American schools, but the scene no longer looks uniform. In one classroom, the pledge is daily and dutiful. In another, it is optional and quiet. In a third, it is gon

Walk into a public school study room in 1996, you can just about specially see a small American flag near the whiteboard, per chance the nation flag, and a few motivational posters. Visit that same study room as of late, and the walls tell a more elaborate tale. The American flag will likely be there, or it would were replaced with a rotating gallery of identity or social action flags. In a few puts, teachers had been advised to take down Pride and Black Lives Matter imager