Patriotism vs. Indoctrination

>> Chester E. Finn Jr.: Shouldn't we just forget about teaching patriotism to kids these days in schools and colleges, in their social studies class, in their civics class? I mean, isn't patriotism itself such a battleground in the culture wars that it's not worth even trying? What do you think?
>> Peter Berkowitz: Well, first of all, what's patriotism?

Patriotism is love of country. It's no doubt difficult to teach in our schools at any time, particularly in this time. But what do we really mean by it? We say love of country. We mean that our country deserves a certain respect, admiration, and gratitude. I think our schools can teach this, but I also think we should take some wisdom, really, from parents here.

Parents want to be respected, admired. They want gratitude shown toward them. But they don't say to their children, respect me, admire me, show gratitude toward me. They conduct themselves in ways that are worthy of respect, admiration, and gratitude. So, of course, patriotism can't be taught by lecturing, by hectoring children to love their country.

But I believe if you tell the story of America, you show America's greatness, the principles for which it stood, you show America's achievements. And its failings, you will develop in children through the course of their education, K through 12, a respect for America and admiration for America and even gratitude toward America.

>> Chester E. Finn Jr.: I can't dispute any of that, but I'm gonna push you on a few parts of it. I'm Chester Finn, known as Checker. I'm joined today by Peter Berkowitz, a Hoover Institution Senior Fellow, prolific author, winner of the Bradley Prize, columnist. Writes almost every day something worth reading, almost every day.

It's a treat to have this conversation with you, Peter, and I wonder if we would do better. In order to take sort of sand the sharp edge off the word patriotism, should we use one of those other phrases like informed patriotism, which I believe Ronald Reagan used. Or even Tocqueville's phrase, which when he came 200 years ago, which I believe was reflective patriotism.

Does adding a modifier help, or isn't it necessary?

>> Peter Berkowitz: I think it helps because, of course, we do want informed patriotism. We want thoughtful love of our nation of course it helps. Moreover, education in America, education for American citizenship means helping form students who can think for themselves.

So, of course we want them to be informed. But the real challenge, it seems to me, for our education today is not the precise word we choose to describe love for respect, for admiration, for gratitude to our country. But the way in which we teach our students, that's what's got to be significantly improved, I think.

We do need to return to the basics. We need to teach American history much better than we do. That's going to include an account of the achievements, real achievements for those of us who admire liberty and real failings. You can call that, it would be true to call it informed patriotism, but that's where it begins.

In a responsible account, a responsible introduction to the story of America.

>> Chester E. Finn Jr.: You're talking obviously about history as well as civics. You're really talking about the whole swath of social studies, as they normally call it in the schools. You're probably talking beyond that even, because a lot of what you're getting at seems to me to get into what literature are people reading in English class.

And how are they talking about the literature that they're reading in English class and history of science. I mean, there are a whole variety of elements of this that you could get at almost across the curriculum, couldn't you?

>> Peter Berkowitz: Well, yes, you could. And you anticipate a point I wanted to be sure to make from my point of view.

Civic education is the whole thing is education generally. It's not just a study of American history. But yes, after all, we want citizens to be introduced during the K through 12 years to the basics of science. We want our young people to introduce to the basics of literature.

We want them to learn how to write. We want them to know history, want them to know history outside of American history, Western civilization, other civilization, of course we want all that. And we want the students to be introduced in the right spirit. So a biology professor who teaches his or her students with respect, who excites curiosity for his or her subject, is, from my point of view, advancing civic education.

>> Chester E. Finn Jr.: Two things I wanna probe here. You often talk, in talks and in writing about liberal education. Another phrase that's sometimes controversial these days, especially in higher education. We don't talk about liberal education very often in the K12 world, which is not a. We're more likely to say core curriculum or something like that.

And yet core curriculum doesn't begin to evoke the spirit that the zeitgeist, if I think you're talking about trying to get across to kids. Am I hearing you right?

>> Peter Berkowitz: You are hearing me right. So, and let me emphasize the point. It seems to me that all education, especially basic education, really ought to be oriented toward producing citizens for a free society.

That means citizens who understand their rights, who are capable of exercising their rights, students who understand their responsibilities and are capable of discharging their responsibilities. So from my point of view, even as we begin with kindergarten, we're thinking about even the most basic elements of literacy. Why has the state got an interest in literacy?

Seems to me it's got an interest in literacy because it's got an interest, ultimately, in informed citizens. And you can't be informed citizen without the ability to have some, at least basic competence in reading and writing. So for me, all education in a free society, an American society, is oriented around America's concern with citizens who are reasonably well informed about what their country stands for and how it's governed.

>> Chester E. Finn Jr.: You're talking also about pedagogy, about how a teacher, how an instructor conducts themselves. Goes about imparting the knowledge and skills and, I guess, attitudes and beliefs. Are you not?

>> Peter Berkowitz: I am very much so. And I think as much as in college, so too in K-12, I think John Stuart Mill put it nicely.

It's not the job of a teacher to impose his or her judgment. It's the job of the teacher to help form and train the judgment of his or her students. Needless to say, in kindergarten, in first grade and second grade and third grade, we're much more concerned with learning the basics.

Even more should teachers shy away from, I use a strong word here, indoctrination. But always, it seems to me, all teachers from kindergarten on up, it seems to me, are in one way or another in the business of informing and refining a student's judgement. And you mentioned pedagogy, Checker.

That includes the way we teachers conduct ourselves in the classroom, the way we show respect to all of our students. That showing of respect will take one form in first grade, another form in sophomore year of high school, another form of senior year in college. But showing respect to the variety of students, awakening curiosity in them, listening carefully.

All of this basic parts of pedagogy which contribute to, it seems to me, educating citizens in a free society.

>> Chester E. Finn Jr.: Let me note that we're just weeks away from Civic Learning Week in the middle of March, which has been observed in K-12 education every year for several years and is this year expanding to include higher education.

And this year is gonna culminate in a Grand Summit on March 13 at the Hoover Institution in Palo Alto. The first time it's ever happened west of the Potomac, as I understand it, which I think is pretty exciting. But many of the people participating will indeed be practicing educators, including teachers such as you were describing, perhaps some kindergarten teachers.

Most definitely high school and middle school teachers and college folks. But I wanna come back to kindergarten for a second because it's hard to picture what goes on in kindergarten that is A, helpful, and B, itself not potentially controversial. The Pledge of Allegiance, which you might start in kindergarten.

I can picture an agitated parent or some kind of watchdog coming in and saying, that's indoctrination. You're indoctrinating these five year olds into some kind of blind obedience to the United States of America. There's a bunch of controversial audiences watching what goes on in our schools as well as our colleges.

I'm trying to think about this from the teacher's perspective. What does the teacher say back to that agitated parent?

>> Peter Berkowitz: I must acknowledge that I am no expert on kindergarten education. And I must also acknowledge that I can see in 20, I was about to say 2024, but in 2025, that even something like the Pledge of Allegiance, which I recited as a-

>> Chester E. Finn Jr.: As a kindergartener, I'll bet.

>> Peter Berkowitz: As a kindergartener, no doubt, and even in higher grades, I can see how this would be controversial. So let me though, make a general point. It seems to me that it is not in general indoctrination for American public schools to be pro America, okay?

Now, how that's going to receive expression in kindergarten, first grade, second grade, all the way through high school, I can't say with any precision. I defer to you, who have a lifetime of expertise in these matters. But I do have some advice for teachers who need to deal with parents who think that being pro American is somehow involved with indoctrination.

First of all, it seems to me we have to recognize that state must have some reason why it uses taxpayer dollars in order to provide public education. It seems to me the largest reason is because we want to form good citizens. The very idea of forming good citizens implies that the country of which these young people will become full citizens as they grow up is a country worth understanding, maintaining and improving.

That's already to be pro American. I have to also, of course, emphasize to be pro American is not to be pro Democrat or pro Republican. It's actually to be interested. And those ideas, those institutions, those practices, those dispositions, that sensibility that under-girds this whole experiment in ordered liberty.

That experiment which is home to Democrats, Republicans and other political types. So on the question of the pledge, I'm going to say, let the experts debate that one. But a pro American public education seems to me the kind of education we ought to have.

>> Chester E. Finn Jr.: Yes, and the formation of citizens as a sort of profound, fundamental, maybe even foremost goal of educating the public is important, I think emphasize here.

Because so often public education is justified and the expenditure of dollars for it entirely in utilitarian terms, it's the preparation of people for the workforce. People who can earn a living, pay their taxes and so forth, rather than the civic function, the citizen function that we've been talking about.

I think this is a reorientation that would have to occur at many levels of the education system where we really do say, well, are they ready for a job when they finish high school, which job are they ready for? College and career? This very production function of that kind, rather than production of citizen.

>> Peter Berkowitz: Yes, I think this is a deep problem, but it's also worth noting that in some cases you get two for one, for example, literacy. Literacy is valuable both to free and equal citizens, and it's also actually a valuable skill in the workplace in our 21st century industrial and post industrial economy.

My impression, I should say, is that there is plenty of room in the curriculum to improve citizens understanding of American history, of the highlights, of the central debates, of the basic controversies. And by the way, as you're forming more able, more responsible citizens, I have a strong suspicion that you will actually also be forming wiser lawyers and doctors and business executives.

Who have a better understanding of how their various practices and their various disciplines pre-suppose a functioning rights protecting democracy.

>> Chester E. Finn Jr.: I like the broad brush that we're painting with here, because so often civics and civic education is thought of as a single course in one year in high school.

Sometimes half a course, sometimes, no course at all, but it's pigeonholed, it's siloed, it's compressed into this. Well, we're gonna do civics during the spring semester of your 12th grade after you've already been admitted to college, and have lost interest in high school entirely. So, the mere fact that we're talking about this as ranging across the years and also across the curriculum is, I think, a pretty important shift in what's often treated as civics education.

I wanna go beyond the K12 for a minute though, because you do a lot of teaching of college level students. Does what we've been talking about have a function there too? So, many of them are already majoring in something. They're already embarked on becoming computer scientists or something like that.

What's the relevance in higher ed of the kind of preparation for citizenship that we've been talking about?

>> Peter Berkowitz: Well, I think it's highly relevant partly because we've neglected it so much in K12. College education has of necessity, in my experience, it's become in part remedial education. Making up for the failure of K12 to actually prepare students well in regard to American history, the functioning of American institutions.

And of course, I'm not merely talking about how a bill becomes a law, although that's very important knowledge, and it's valuable for college students to acquire it. I myself would like to see a requirement at all of our leading colleges and universities for students to take a class in American ideas and institutions that starts in the colonial era.

That explores the American Revolution, the Declaration, the drafting of the Constitution, the Federalists, the rise of Jacksonian democracy. The approach of the Civil War, the conduct of Civil War, the abolition of slavery, the fight over Jim Crow, more and more and more. In my experience, even the students who come to my classes, which are classes that are focused on these issues, I find have a thin knowledge of America.

And in my experience, and I've taught a variety of students over the last several years at Stanford, they're very, very excited to learn about these matters. And they immediately see the relevance of American history and the great debates over American principles and the study of America's failures too.

As highly relevant to the kinds of lives they want to live and what they're going to regard as top priorities when it comes to American politics.

>> Chester E. Finn Jr.: As you know, the Hoover Institution's own center on revitalizing American institutions is intersected with Stanford University's Civics Initiative. Including a very interesting innovation at Stanford in recent years, which is to expect freshmen to take a civics course.

Which almost no college in America that I'm aware of mandates and in many cases does not even offer. Your teaching is part of that, is it not?

>> Peter Berkowitz: My teaching is part of that. I offer one of the courses that is sponsored by the Stanford Civics Initiative and it's also co listed in the Stanford Political Science Department.

And we should say that the Stanford Civics Initiative is the brainchild of our colleague Josh Ober, and strongly supported by Hoover Institution Director Condoleezza Rice. And I will say here too, Checker, I would go even further, I would mandate myself a core course in the Stanford civic class like the one I just mentioned.

America's political ideas, and institutions give all students a common ground and have more civic classes. But I would also emphasize the following, I think we shouldn't imply that civics education begins and ends with the courses that we call that we gather together under the category civics. So, for example, I think that classical Greek and Roman history should be understood as part of civic education, European history.

And so that people do not misunderstand, I also think that the study of foreign languages and the study of other nations and civilizations should be part of civic education for an American Citizen in the 21st century. Because you can't at the end understand fully, I would say adequately these days, rights protecting democracy in the United States unless you understand historical alternatives and contemporary alternatives.

So from my point of view, all that, too is part of including study of other nations and civilizations is part of civic education, broadly understood. But I'm happy to use for that, so as not to confuse people, let's call that liberal education. And if you allow me to say the true civic education is liberal education.

>> Chester E. Finn Jr.: So now, let me be a college sophomore for a moment and bring you back down to Earth, Professor Berkowitz. Professor Berkowitz, I just wanna be an engineer. I don't need any of that stuff you're talking about, and I don't have room for it in my schedule.
>> Peter Berkowitz: That's not true, young man.

Stanford already gives you some room and the engineering department already gives you some room to take electives. And I fully understand that you cannot devote yourself to the kind of education that I'm talking about. We all have to specialize in the world in which we live. But there's room in your schedule for one or two or three or four such courses, and especially a course on American ideas and institutions.

One or two courses on history and literature and another nation or civilization. And if there's not, that's a failing of Stanford University. Because never forget, young man, you are not only an engineering major, you are also a citizen and a human being. And to fulfill your responsibilities as also not only an engineer, but citizen and human being, you will find that these courses are quite valuable.

>> Chester E. Finn Jr.: Well, thank you, Professor Berkowitz, I'll go talk to my advisor and see if she agrees with you. Now, I'll shift back to my other role and ask you to engage. You mentioned that at the higher ed level, much of it feels remedial to you because K12 is not doing its job.

Let's do a thought experiment for a moment, let's assume that K12 really gets its act together and does a much better job of this kind of preparation for citizenship. What is then the role, as you see it, of the college, of the higher ed element? On top of that, if you stopped being remedial, what would you be?

>> Peter Berkowitz: You would be involved in deepening your knowledge of that to which you've already been introduced to. For example, I have now been teaching the Federalist for many years, many years, going into decades. And you could take what I'm about to say as a kind of criticism that I was about to say.

Each year that I teach the Federalist, I deepen my understanding of the Federalist. Now the criticism might be, well, what's the matter with you? Why couldn't you get it right the first time? The defense of me might be, well, these are deep and enduring ideas. The more I learn about politics, the more implications I see, the more complexities I see, the more problems I see.

So I would simply say that when colleges ceases to be remedial, you will be farther along in the ascent. It also means that you will devote less time to the basics, more time, let's say, to the traditions that form the American tradition. After all, the American tradition didn't spring full form out of nothing.

The American political tradition has a root in biblical faith. It has a root in classical civic republican teachings, and it has a root in the English tradition of freedom, the common law, John Law, going all the way back to Magna Carta. I don't expect sophomores in high school to have immersed themselves in all that.

And I don't expect engineering students at Stanford University to immerse themselves in all that. But less remedial education, more advanced education, but always returning to the basics, always deepening her knowledge of the fundamental principles and the best in our constitutional tradition.

>> Chester E. Finn Jr.: Sounds right to me. But the instruction that is needed to do what we're discussing at actually, at any level, whether it's elementary school or high school or college, requires instructors, teachers who know these things well enough themselves and as well as the pedagogy.

I know you're not engaged in teacher preparation as such, but what do you suppose our institutions that prepare teachers need to do differently in order to equip teachers with the capacity, as well as the knowledge, to do some of the things we've been talking about? The content, the pedagogy, the role playing, the role modeling really, that we've been talking about.

Remember, we got almost 4 million K12 teachers in American education. Three and a half million, it's the biggest single workforce within the American workforce. Actually, and it's never going to be able to be filled entirely by people who've been deeply steeped in liberal learning for a very long time.

What do they need?

>> Peter Berkowitz: Yeah, so we can reduce this to basics, especially when we're talking about the teachers of very young students who will not be entering into the intricacies of James Madison's account of pluralism in Federalist number ten. But there are common sense elements of liberal education that all teachers, I think, can learn about and improve on.

First of all, it seems to me that education has to combine these two things which sometimes pull in opposite directions. Awakening students curiosity about a subject, also conveying the basic facts, elements of the subject. My sense, and again I emphasize I'm no expert on K through 12, especially the younger grades.

But my sense over the years is that we neglect the basic facts for fear of imposing on students. And yet at the same time, instead of awakening curiosity, I think we increasingly, these days, I worry that teachers bring a set of ideas that border on ideology into the classroom.

I worry that they have a checklist, they want students to embrace, even very young students, embrace these judgments. So, if we can go back to awakening students curiosity about the world, about American history, about literature, but also ensuring that they know the basics, literacy, numeracy. That rhetoric, that is that they know how to write a grammatically sound and coherent English sentence.

Which is now all the more urgent in a world awash in social media, in which the incentives are to communicate in sentence fragments, let's call them. So I think there's plenty that teachers can do without expecting from teachers of very young students the inappropriate immersion in grand and complex ideas.

>> Chester E. Finn Jr.: I'm looking at the thousand books surrounding you and the few hundred books behind me and thinking that we are old-fashioned. In the time when kids are looking at their phones and making little videos on TikTok and texting four word sentences to their friends, composing a grammatical sentence even feels like a bit of a stretch, does it not?

>> Peter Berkowitz: It certainly does, but the argument cuts in the other direction. Old timers like this are suddenly even more relevant because we possess knowledge that's on the verge of being lost. Call it the knowledge of knowing how to read a book, or for that matter now, long form journalism of 1,500 words.

>> Chester E. Finn Jr.: That's really long, go ahead.

>> Peter Berkowitz: Four pages, and by the way, on a serious notice, and now as we are talking amid the rapid rise of artificial intelligence, college students now have the capability of speaking a few lines. Putting a few questions, and having artificial intelligence churn out a seminar paper that could pass muster in many classrooms.

In other words, we are losing a lost art, and you might say, well, good riddance. We've lost rotary phones. Many young people not know what a rotary phone is. They can watch movies from the 1960s. In any case, I believe that still to understand your rights and responsibilities as a free citizen, the art of reading books is still highly valuable to forming citizens in a free society.

So that means that we are engaged in a fight against the tides. So be it.

>> Chester E. Finn Jr.: Before we conclude, I wanna come back to patriotism and the political difficulty of being explicit about it as an educational goal. People often on the left, but not entirely, accuse anyone that says it of jingoism, of kind of a blind, unreasoning support for somebody or something that they don't know much about.

But that they're being told they have to be in favor of kind of an almost allergy to this positive affiliation with the country. On grounds that that means you're affiliated with whoever happens to be leading the country at the moment or whoever happens to be agitating the country at the moment.

I think a lot of teachers in schools and maybe in colleges, they're probably two different problems. But a lot of teachers in schools feel like they're being watched unless they say something that might indeed be accused of turning their kids into jingoists or for that matter, into anti-Americans.

Navigating that path is a very difficult challenge for educators today. Do you have any counsel on this problem? Because it's a real one.

>> Peter Berkowitz: It is a real one. I feel it myself, and we should say it's not just a problem of today. This is what you're describing is really a problem of education in a free society.

Because education in a free society is directed at enabling students ultimately to think for themselves, to make their own judgments, to widen their view. But you can't do any of that. You can't judge responsibly unless you know some basic facts, unless you know what happened. You can't judge responsibly.

You're not really thinking for yourself unless you're familiar with your countries, as I said before, its great achievements and its genuine failings. You can't judge for yourself, you're not thinking freely. You're chained by someone else's ideas unless you've encountered a variety of perspectives on your country. And by the way, you can't think for yourself unless your teachers have modeled for you what it is to listen to a variety of perspectives.

So an informed patriotism, enlightened patriotism, is entirely proper. It seems to me that Abraham Lincoln was right. The United States was the first country ever, anywhere to be based on a universal principle, specifically universal principle that proclaimed that all human beings are by nature free and equal. It's also an agonizing fact about this country that we did not adequately honor that principle.

We betrayed that principle at the founding because our country gave legal sanction to the evil institution of slavery. All this is part of liberal education. And by the way, I should end here. Again, it's not the job of a teacher. It's not the job of enlightened patriotism to be celebrating the achievements of this president or that president.

It is the job of enlightened patriotism to understand how America's fundamental principles and basic constitutional institutions have provided for the citizens of this country a freedom of religion. Of speech, of press and petition and assembly that has been matched by few, if any countries. And that is a source of reason to respect America, to admire America, and to be grateful America, and to try to make America better.

>> Chester E. Finn Jr.: Wow, I can't think of a better introduction to Civic Learning Week 2025. So thank you very much, Peter Berkowitz. It's great to be with you and I look forward to seeing you again real soon.

>> Peter Berkowitz: Thank you, Checker.