In some countries like Canada and America, when the announcements go on it always starts off with a recording of the national anthem where everyone must stand and stay still until it finishes. This happens every day. For Americans, they say the pledge of allegiance after that I believe.
Even immigrant teachers take this very seriously, and would frequently warn or reprimand students for moving, fidgeting or otherwise disrupting this process.
Did you do things like this in your country?
EDIT: Americans don’t listen to the national anthem like Canadians do, but I believe the pledge of allegiance is still widely practice though not mandatory.
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Ofc. it does, but in a more indirect way.
One thing is ofc. curriculum, which teaches certain subjects, such as history, in a way that at least isn’t particularly critical rendition of the history of Denmark. While it isn’t as bad as what I’ve seen foreigners present Denmark as—an almost mythological place of peace and progress—Danish history curriculums tend to gloss over a lot of… not so pretty stuff, particularly in colonial history, but also domestic political history.
Then there are the singalongs. Most public schools had, or have, weekly school meetings where everyone would sing one or two songs, often a popular song, and then a classical song from the High School Movement; the latter often being nationalist in message.
_e:_ Such songs could be [H.C. Andersen’s _I Danmark er jeg født_(In Denmark I was born)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-E23ZEbDNg), which was/is a popular alternative anthem, about the greatness of Denmark. It could also be [_Danmark, nu blunder_(Denmark, now Dawns the lighter nights](https://youtu.be/IWDQrcLFjhc), [_Den danske sang er en ung blond pige_(The Danish Song is a Young Blonde Girl)](https://youtu.be/mNUA_sUBZIs?t=96), or a song from the Liberation: [_En lærke letted_(A Lark Took Off)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQhK5IQUBdc). Also psalms from the psalm-book, or semi-psalms, with a clear Christian message could be sung.
Then there is the involvement of the National Church in education. Both in the form of the privileges the National Church, the Evangelical-Lutheran Church, enjoys in terms of the church itself often being allotted time in the week for preparing children for rituals, but also in the form that schools will often arrange church visits and services, and have priests from the local parish come do talks and speeches around holidays. Despite the reputation of Denmark being a particularly secular country, the opposite is actually the case: even many atheists stress the importance of Christianity in Danish national identity, there is 0 separation of church and state, and the church enjoys plenty of privileges.
Overall I would say that there is plenty of nationalism woven into Danish schools, but in a less overt way than what you’re describing.
Primary school kids participate in King’s Day activities and when I was in primary school we sang the national anthem on King’s Day and raised the flag iirc (although it was still Queen’s Day then) but that’s about it.
The joke is always that there’s only two occasions where Dutch people show any patriotism: on King’s Day and during international football tournaments (European Cup and World Cup). Public displays of nationalism make us a bit uncomfortable.
What are “the announcements”? We sung hymns in assembly, some of which are a bit patriotic. Never sang the national anthem at school that I can recall. Remembrance Day services can be a bit nationalistic, I think they used to read *Flanders Fields*.
I once watched *Chariots of Fire* before a cross country running competition which made me feel pretty patriotic.
No, and to be honest, I think that would be ridiculed if it was the case – Belgians are not fond of such patriotic displays (except for football matches and other sports), plus there are complex regional identities at play. The most patriotic thing I have seen in our schools was a picture of the royal couple hanging in the entrance hall, but that’s it.
We don’t have anything like that. I can’t remember a day at school when we sang the national anthem. Funfact, there was a flag on our school grounds, that of our city Frankfurt, but I have never seen a school with a German flag.
in France, it’s not uncommon to learn the first verse and the chorus of our national anthem, and to sing it for some events (cannot remember which though, save for November 11th). Odd thing considered how violent that anthem is, but that’s France for you. Our relationship with the Revolution is, euh, *complicated.*
Apart from that, not so much, or it’s way too subtle to be seen as compulsory patriotism. Children don’t exactly know what is patriotic, especially at a young age where knowledge of other countries can be pretty limited for a lot of children (not all, of course).
No, nothing like this. I think at school we only sang the national anthem on the last day of school each year, and even then I don’t think that’s a common thing in most schools.
Sometimes particularly jingoistic right-wing politicians suggest we should do something like that, but they rightfully get widely ridiculed ([great example right here](https://youtu.be/WwsQ_5Wm4oo)). More recently there was giant backlash when, in response to rising nationalism in Scotland and Ireland due to Brexit, a special interest group tried to lobby for a special holiday known as [One Britain One Nation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Britain_One_Nation?wprov=sfla1) day, in which primary school children would be made to sing a song called [Strong Britain, Great Nation](https://youtu.be/eRIP0vBtcBg). It just feels like such an un-British way of showing patriotism.
Patriotism is generally regarded as suspicious in Italy bc of, yknow, fascism and the like. Playing the anthem/pledge of allegiance every morning would be 100% regarded as right wing nationalism. We do, however, often have a picture of the President hanging on the wall of the classroom, and even more often a crucifix (I know, I know, the stereotypes).
We sing the anthem/do patriotic stuff at school only on some specific nation-related holidays and anniversaries (festa della repubblica, festa della liberazione).
When I attended a catholic school we stood every morning to an Our Father or Hail Mary. It doesn’t happen in normal schools though.
No, in Europe things like that would cause a shitstorm. People know the anthem and sing it at sports events or during large protests (my country’s case: Romania). To sing it in school for children as a mandatory activity would be seen as something the Iron Guard (our Nazis) would do.
We used however to have mandatory prayer during religion class – this is on its way out though. Hardly any religion teacher does that anymore.
No, that’d sound laughable and cringy. We didn’t even have any annoucements, I’m not sure the things worked during the primary school (they weren’t even in every class) and it definitelly didn’t work during highschool, twice someone tried to use them and the chchchchrrrr wasn’t really understood. If needed, the class teacher popped in, announced it and left. We had no mass assemblies, perhaps once I remember in highschool and it was “who wants to hear about this thing regarding the status of our school, let’s go out, they talk about it”. After all, there was no indoor place for the whole school to fit in. Only some sport/fun ocasions for the whole school but there was nothing formal, no anthems, just “Hello, welcome, let’s start this thing, have fun!”
The only occasion with an anthem was graduating highschool and then university but that was the student anthem.
We learn the national anthem (and the rest of stanzas that aren’t included in it) because it was written by our biggest poem. That’s about it. At least in my school we didn’t sing it but recited it. And it’s far from being a patriotic song. The only national holiday we celebrated was France Prešeren day – our biggest poet. We never celebrated anything else. We don’t have assemblies or anything similar.
We sing a lot of folk songs and modern versions, especially those by Slak and we celebrate our athletes. And we have a Slovenian traditional breakfast day.
I think this is so strange. I honestly thought it was just an American high school movie thing. The fact that this actually happens makes me cringe a bit.
I live in Scotland and unfortunately we still have segregated catholic schools and normal schools. In catholic schools there’s a prayer every morning and personally I think that is absolutely barbaric in 2022.
Not a daily thing like that no. In Wales there was a St David’s day celebration every year, an Eisteddfod and we wore traditional dress. I haven’t seen a St George’s day event in my kids’ school in England but I seem to remember them decorating flags for VE day and (maybe?) a Royal Wedding or Jubilee, but that really was more of a learning experience and activity than “yeah GO UK!”.
Nah, that’s pretty creepy in my opinion. Additionally, due to our particular situation schools wouldn’t want to be seen to be “taking a side”
As has been pointed out by others, a group has come out to try enforce “Britishness” through that whole “Strong Britain, Great Nation” thing, but they’re a fringe group.
I don’t even think school announcements are a thing outside of North America. You guys have created your entire school system and culture separate from the rest of the world. Aside from children in class rooms, there are very few common factors.
At one point in middle school, some teacher suggested that we should start the day by singing the national anthem so we would get up when the guy entered the classroom and start singing, so he couldn’t stop us, then we would sing the long version, with all the verses.
It lasted maybe 2 weeks and it was just us doing, nobody else in school was doing that.
He absolutely hated it and he was the one who called it off.
We did the same with religion class, where the priest suggested that we should sign a psalm. A kid that was the son of a priest taught us to sign this really long psalm. Guess who ended up hating the psalm singing?!
Oooh yes. Students would recite the “student vow” every morning, and the national anthem would be sung every Monday. The vow goes like “I am a Turk, I am honest, I am hardworking, I protect the younger, respect the older, to love my country and my nation more than I love myself, let my existence be a gift to the Turkish existence or something like this. I think this has only been revoked last year. Every school also has a Turkish flag (then again, there is hardly any building that doesn’t).
Edit: Apparently although the vow was officially revoked only last year, it had already gone out of practice in the past ten years.
I think that we sang the National Anthem occasionally and one time in first grade I remember singing a song about Finnish flag and pledging an alliance to it (and to live and die for it), probably outside looking at the flag in a flagpole. I would assume that all schools have flagpoles and fly the flag on flag days. Currently there are 20 flag days that honour things like Finnish poetry or Finnish nature as well as some patriotic or military ones.
If you did that here, people would think the Nazis are coming again.
No offense but North America is a really socially backwards place. Living out Patriotism should be banned from any kind of educational place, especially *compulsory* ones. That is truly fucked up and just straight up scary to me. Seeing Americans stand up and sing their anthem reminds me of Pre-WW2 Nazi footage.
If you want you or your kids to be patriots, I don’t really care if you don’t hurt anyone, but jesus fuck stop reeling in all other children into that too. It is basically just propaganda. Same for religion being taught in schools.
Back in the 80/90s when I was a kid we used to have “morgensang”, literally “morning singing”, it wasn’t usually one of national anthems (we have two by the way), but occasionally it would be a national anthem but sometimes it would be other more or less patriotic songs and sometimes it would be just other (non-patriotic) popular folk songs. I think it was also mostly in the lower grades that we did that.
I don’t know if they still do this today.
In Ireland school is more about religious indoctrination than loyalty to the state. Most schools when I was small were patronised by the church. Majority still are but many secular schools are popping up.
Looking forward to seeing the census results for the number of people who note a religion on theirs.
You learn the words to the national anthem but that’s about it. If there’s a big international sports tournament they might have a day where everyone is encouraged to wear a jersey or green clothing.
Lol, no.
The only anthem-related activity we ever did in my school was one year when the Galician language teacher promised to give us an extra half point in our final exam for every verse of the [Galician anthem](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zytLUE–FVE) we were able to memorize and write down.
It happened once (in 14 years of schooling), it was completely voluntary, it was a regional anthem rather than the national anthem (which doesn’t even have lyrics), and I don’t think anybody bothered to memorize more than half of it.
We only sing the anthem during Hurling/Gaelic football matches and other sports like soccer and Olympic stuff. That’s if we know the anthem lol. Most Irish people seems to just hum the tune because of the anthem is in Irish and Irish isn’t widely spoken in every day life for many. There is also Irelands call for rugby matches which is ment for both Republic of Ireland and Northern Irish players, I love that anthem to be honest.
Irish people aren’t really patriotic until the country or the people get majorly insulted lol. I’m proud to be Irish but at the same time I’m like “why am I still here?” Haha. I find the extreme patriotic minds of most Americans a bit creepy. Especially the anthem in schools in the morning. It’s like a cult.
No, kids don’t sing or stand for the national anthem in schools. The national anthem doesn’t play in schools. There are no national symbols of any kind inside classrooms, but usually you will find a picture of Jesus Christ above the blackboard, in every classroom.
However, on Independence Day and Ohi Day (our two big national holidays in Greece), there are student marches besides the main military march, and the #1 student of every school marches in special uniform while carrying the Greek flag (he/she is called “the flag-bearer” and it’s considered to be an honour bestowed to the top student of each school).
Also, typically there is a big pole with a Greek flag inside the premises of every public school in the country (from elementary to high schools, not in every university though). That’s about it.
Yes. The national coat of arms has to be hanged in every single classrooms. No exceptions. Like, there’s no money for a damn clock in every classroom, but a picture of the coat of arms has to be hanged.
On national celebrations we had to put on special clothes (ugly black/white stuff). At the beginning of these celebrations the anthem is played and everyone has to stand and sing along. A the end an other national song is played that is similar to the anthem and you have to stand and sing.
I went to primary school in India and then secondary school in Germany. The contrast in showing patriotic symbols and doing patriotic rituals at schools was one of the first things I noticed when I moved to Germany.
In India we had school assemblies every morning of the week right before classes. The flag would be raised and the entire school would recite the pledge of allegiance and sing the national anthem together in the school yard and then walk orderly into their seperate class rooms. Not to forget school uniforms and physical punishments. It was all very military style.
In Germany we had none of that. Never saw the flag anywhere near the school unless it was the World Cup or the Euros. Never sang the national anthem together. Don’t even know if we even have something like a pledge of allegiance.
Honestly, the reluctance towards patriotism is one of the things I loved and still love about living in Germany. It’s refreshing. I found the extreme patriotism I experienced in India very overwhelming and almost suffocating to a degree.
Not to the extent of daily pledges, but yes, patriotism is deeply ingrained in our school system. Every school ceremony would begin with the national anthem, we’d celebrate the Independence Day and Constitution Day. A big chunk of the Polish language curriculum is martyrology literature and even small children are taught patriotic rhymes and songs.
We do study the national anthem in music class and in history class we focus a lot on expansionism, dramatic victories and defeats and there’s especially a lot of nationalistic angle in how we study 19th and 20th century history – basically our people were a victim of cruel empires and then opportunistic neighbors, our freedom fighters were all pure martyrs, our people suffered many atrocities but never committed any, all land our country ever held is ours and what is stolen by our neighbors must be reclaimed. Oh, and there’s Macedonia.
As far as I know, we only sing the national anthem on independence day and at hockey events. I remember at around fifth grade we were standing outside my school around the flagpole singing the national anthem while our PE teacher played the trumpet. Fun times.
The only patriotism in my childhood at all was the scouts’ flag ceremony.
The scouts used to be very much about god, queen and country, not to mention militarism, racism, anti-Catholic sentiment and onanophobia(!), but by the time I joined, they were really just a fun adventure club for boys (girls now, too, but at that time guides and scouts were separated until about 15). And the flag ceremony always seemed like a bit of fun more than any real commitment to the regime.
The American habit of pledging allegiance every day just feels a bit….creepy. There’s a whole set of things which appear common in the US around patriotism – the pledge of allegiance, the way the military is venerated, the near worship of the flag, standing hand on chest to sing the nation anthem before every sports match etc which make me feel pretty uncomfortable
I think it’s partially because of Europe’s pretty recent history of tearing itself apart with wars driven by dangerous levels of nationalism. It’s not that these kinds of things Americans do are themselves dangerously nationalistic, but they have something of the same flavour.
That might be part of why they’re a lot less common in the UK. Ask someone to stand and do a pledge to the flag and they’d not only tell you to piss off, but they’d probably see it as a very non-British thing to do. Outside of the more bonkers parts of the right wing of the political spectrum, most people just don’t express any sense of patriotism they have this way. Overt in-your-face declarations of patriotism are commonly viewed as tacky and unnecessary. People who promote them are more likely to be looked at with suspicion than with pride.
The one exception is during sports events. Then suddenly flags are everywhere. But even then, it doesn’t have the same serious connotations. Patriotism isn’t so much some kind of “duty to the motherland” thing, but just a bit of fun. Then the tournament ends, and everyone goes back to normal.
On an average day I could walk around my local town centre and see maybe one flag at most (and England flag, which the local church sometimes flies). I cannot remember the last time I heard the national anthem being sung on TV, let alone actually been around a ground of people actually singing it.
I never had a flag flying at any of the schools I went to, or ever sung the national anthem while there. Most people don’t know the words anyway.
>the announcements go on it always starts off with a recording of the national anthem where everyone must stand and stay still until it finishes. This happens every day. For Americans, they say the pledge of allegiance after that I believe.
This may be true at some schools, but it is absolutely not universal, and I don’t think it is the norm.
(Source: went to public school in Massachusetts and Vermont, have taught at two public schools in Texas)
I do vaguely remember a pledge of allegience in elementary school, but it was definitely optional, and they never played the national anthem. Never heard the pledge or the anthem in middle or high school, nor at either of the schools I’ve taught at.
All of the schools have had an American flag on a pole in front of the buildings, though (although the schools I’ve taught at have a lot more flags from other countries on display.)
I used to live in Mexico, and every monday we’d have to sing the Mexican, the German and the national anthem of the state we were in. As I was a kid I may not have liked it but it was just normality to me. It was only once I moved to Europe that I realised how odd it is to sing 3 anthems every monday for no apparent reason?
It made me appreciate how subtle European national pride is in general.
We never had anything patriotism related apart from participating in the 17th of May celebrations.
But when I grew up in the nineties, and probably at the particular place I went to primary school it was common to sing a lot of religious songs and do the lords prayer every morning, so it wasn’t exactly a lot better. I don’t think they still do that, and even back then it was probably more of a rural phenomena but there was definitely no such thing as keeping religion out of schools at that point.
Just so no one gets the wrong idea, that is not true for America (or at least the whole nation, it varies by school district). Through years 6-8, we said the “pledge of allegiance” once a week. It wasn’t taken as seriously as OP suggests. Years 9-12, we never did the pledge. One thing that seems true about compulsory patriotism in schools is the flag. It flies outside every school, and almost every classroom has one (I had one teacher who thought the concept of compulsory patriotism was stupid, so he kept the school-provided flag in his closet).
I think it’s more the opposite – you are taught to be wary of (blind) nationalism and patriotism because of what horrors it could wreak if the person exerting them is a bit overly zealous.
We sang the national anthem a few times in music class and talked about all the aspects of the “Lied der Deutschen” and why the first to verses could be misinterpreted (and just are untrue at this point as well, considering the German language doesn’t go from “der Maas bis an die Memel, von der Etsch bis an den Belt” anymore), although we also did learn about the British and the American anthems in English class and the French one in French class too later on in 7th grade or so.
Obviously we learn about our history a lot and all aspects of it – be that in history, societal studies, German, music or art class, but its way more of a neutral/self-critical view on our history than anything else.
We had a flag pole at our elementary school back in the day, though it showed the city and state flags rather than the federal one.
This feels almost scary to me. It always reminded me of the indoctrination done by Nazis and similar regimes. Once you have to show patriotism by having flags everywhere, singing anthem and pledging allegiance, something just feels very wrong.
The very open way America indoctrinates kids into patriotism is very offputting for Swedes I would say.
That’s not to say the school doesn’t instil some values which are central to modern Sweden and therefore inadvertently creates some patriotism, or that for example the history education has a perfectly critical look on Sweden (although I would argue it does an okay job with certain topics like the treatment of the Sami nowadays).
The only time the national anthem is sung in school is during graduations, and even then it doesn’t always happen. And there is definitely nothing like a pledge of allegiance which is a really alien concept for most Swedes.
It’s worth mentioning however that although being openly patriotic is generally viewed with suspicion I think most Swedes are a lot more patriotic than they’d like to admit. We have a tendency to view ourself quite highly, sometimes a bit above the rest even if we don’t admit it. And we have a tendency to go our own way thinking we know best, such as with corona which backfired hard early but worked quite well later in the pandemic.
Murican here. My highschool had a morning live program that students produced and every class (the first morning class) would watch that prior to the lecture starting early in the morning. It was usually about 10-15 minutes long and it was kind of like a morning show where they talked about brief news events as well as upcoming school activities. They tried to make it humorous and the intro/outro was an AC/DC song. I still remember the highschool mornings whenever I hear AC/DC. We did do the pledge of allegiance with the morning cast while we stood up and I mean people were barely reciting it. Nobody really did it seriously. It was just like “ugh another morning routine”. The national anthem played in the background while we did that, so we weren’t required to sing it thank god. I think only my teachers took it seriously because they have to be an example. But the rest of us were falling asleep while barely standing up for the morning pledge of allegiance. I haven’t had to do this since highschool, so it’s really weird now that I think of it. Feels like something only places like North Korea would do.
I’ve never heard of any American school playing the national anthem in the morning. The pledge, yes, they do that. I don’t think students are typically required to recite it, though in practice, people would think you’re odd if you refused since it’s seen as a pretty trivial thing to get upset about (except the “under God” part which is more controversial, and you definitely are not required to say that and a fair number of people don’t).
I remember we had some Jehovah’s Witnesses at my school who refused to say it because I think they don’t do oaths or something. I think other kids thought it was kinda weird (though people tend to think that religion is weird in general) but nobody gave them a hard time about it AFAIK.
I suppose that if the anthem plays, you’d do the respectful thing and either be quiet or sing along. The anthem almost never plays. Patriotism and cheerleading are two very different things, and what Americans and Canadians do seem really creepy, like something out of North Korea.
I do see the argument in it that Americans and Canadians are countries made almost exclusively out of immigrants with different backgrounds, and that the flag and national symbology are the most immediately common thing between all of you to get together behind of, with all your different backgrounds, and all. It makes sense that, say, a Polish-American and an Italian-American had, at some point, different cultures and languages and quirks, and if nothing else they could at least share the American dream (it gets more complicated with Africans and Native Americans, but still).
Most European countries aren’t like that, and have a very large portion of their countries have similar roots so that there is already some cohesion and shared interests in that regard. Some 90% of people in Portugal must have almost 100% Portuguese lineage going back to pre-history, and most immigrants who come here do fall in line with that culture as well, since there’s really no escaping it, so what unites us all is a sense of Portuguese-ness, and not the actual internation symbols. I’d say that the Portuguese flag and anthem are for external display, rather than internal identity.
So, I know singing/flag-waving is innocuous on its own, and has had an historical purpose, but it’s still a weird direction to have taken a step in.
Nope never had anything like that.
We don’t need things like compulsory patriotism since we all know we are the best.
We may have highest production of meth in Europe.
We also may have the highest alcohol consumption in Europe.
We also may have really big porn production.
We might not be so wealthy.
In plenty of things we might be 100 years behind apes.
But deep down we know that we are better than others.
So yeah. 14 years of “O Canada” every morning at 8:55 AM under my belt.
I’d also like to clarify that the O Canada thing is *optional* – there are parts of the country (notably Quebec) where this doesn’t happen at all, or happens *way* less frequently.
Ontario is really the weird one – we play it every single day, without fail. Late to class? If it’s playing, you f’in *stop*, stand, hats off, and *wait*. The teachers will literally hiss at you. There are exemptions for students who don’t wish to participate, and the teachers are much saner than in the US. Why Ontario, though? I couldn’t say for sure. I’m sure there’s a historical reason.
I think there’s sometimes a cultural misunderstanding – “O Canada” isn’t really associated with crazy right-wing nationalism/fascism in the same way as some European anthems. In fact, the most recent debates about it involve making the English version gender-neutral so it covers everyone.
There are [plenty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_gravesites) of other reasons why removing the anthem from schools should be part of the national conversation, though.
It doesn’t happen in Spain. Of an average Spaniard saw that in a classroom, they’d think it’s a ultra-nationalist fascist school supporter of the Franco dictatorship.
Spaniards have a complicated relationship with “patriotism”
You really can’t generalize what happens in American schools to that extent. Our school systems aren’t nationalized.
I have never been in a school that played the National Anthem anywhere other than school sports games – and not always then.
We did say the pledge in elementary school, but that stopped in my school when the Cold War ended.
There’s an awful lot of variety though, and it’s technically been illegal to force a student to stand and recite the pledge since 1943.
French here, no and I wouldn’t call it “compulsory patriotism” but nationalism. Putting children in lines making them pledge alliegence on a daily basis has more to do with military drills than civic education. There’s a pretty good song about it called “another brick in the wall”. You just have to associate the bricks with names and the wall with memorials which in France are so numerous there was one in my high school with hundreds of names on it.
if there was a national holiday on a school day and there was an event going on because of that then yes, they would usually play the anthem and we would stand up for the anthem. I think it was played at the first day of the school year as well. otherwise, no