On Monday morning the first flag
ceremony is at 8 and students then go to class at 8:15, so flag ceremony takes
the place of homeroom. The older students go to flag ceremony at 8:40 so their
first class isn’t until 9. On Fridays the LP, L9 and L10 have their flag
ceremony at 3:20, right after school but the 11s and 12s have flag ceremony at
the beginning of their lunch, at 1pm, this is the ceremony that I need to take
attendance at.
In the theater the students sit in
assigned seats according to their homeroom. I am responsible for section 6 of
L11, of which I know two students. Fortunately for me, they sit in the very
last row of the balcony on the left hand side, 11 in the middle section, 11 on
the far left. On the first Friday, they were not sure where to sit, so I handed
my attendance to Behiç, (be careful how you pronounce that name, remembering
that ç is said ch…) a student I knew and he organized everyone
into their seats. It shouldn't be that hard, it is alphabetical. In theory, I
shouldn't have to know these students at all, I just look for the empty seats,
I record if they are absent and put my slip in a box by the door. If they are
not in the right seat, and their seat is empty, they are marked absent. I am
not sure what the consequence for that is, but I don’t think they'll be in the
wrong seat for long.
So, after all of this detail, you
are now dying to know what happens at the flag ceremony, right? Notice how I
have built up the anticipation. It starts with announcements from the Head
Master and the Turkish director, then anyone (students or staff) can make an
announcement by previous arrangement. ;I am starting a trumpet club, here is a
little bit of trumpet music,' 'we are starting a peace club, if you don’t join
us, you must love war,' or 'remember the dress code and only wear single
colored socks,' etc.
Then two students, one boy, one
girl, from the chosen homeroom class, come to the front and everyone in the
room stands up. The boy is wearing a sash and they take the flag out of the
stand, set it in the sash flag holder. He then clasps the flag with both hands,
thumbs pointing down, such that the flag is at about a 45 degree angle. Then
the music starts. An instrumental version of the national anthem plays through
the loud speakers and everyone sings with their hands down by their sides,
standing up tall. When it is finished, they wait patiently while the flag is
returned to the stand before they relax and leave the theater.
Here is a link to the lyrics and
history of the anthem on Wikipedia:
Here is a link to a audio recording
of it being sung:
Somehow the instrumental version we
use at school seems darker, and the kids sing it lower, but you get the idea.
The kids take this very seriously,
there are no hands in pockets, no talking no slouching, nothing. I have yet to
see the flag ceremony from the front, I think it might be overwhelming. On one
hand it is clear that national pride is very important, on the other hand it is
a little scary.
I was talking about this with some
of the other teachers and we were comparing to America as we are wont to do. I think there is a lot of national pride,
maybe too much, much of it manifested in an us vs. them mentality, but I can’t
think of anything like the Turkish flag ceremony.
I can remember saying the pledge of allegiance
every morning in elementary school, but not in middle school, and certainly not
high school. (Do they still do this?) I feel funny saying it on the rare
occasions we are required to. (Wasn't it part of Obama's inauguration?) Now,
stopping to think,(and I can say the whole thing without looking it up) it is
not just the controversial, ‘under one God’ line that bothers me, and it isn’t
the message, who can get upset with ‘justice and liberty for all’? I think it
is the automatons we become when we all say it together. Perhaps this is what freaks me out a little
during the flag ceremony.
But what about the national anthem?
We don't sing it very often, except at sporting events, but why is that, we
wondered at book club last week. Felicia did a bit of research and found this
article: http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/6957582/the-history-national-anthem-sports-espn-magazine
which explains why the national anthem is sung at baseball games and by
extension, other sporting events. I was surprised to learn that it was sung at
baseball games before it was the national anthem. Whenever I sing that song it
makes me cry, I guess out of national pride, so that elementary school national
pride indoctrination must have been sufficient.
Sometimes it is hard to be ‘Proud to be an American’, we
have done so many things as a country that I am far from proud of. So it sounds like I am conflicted, there
certainly are places in the US, where national pride is very overt. When I was visiting my Uncle, Aunt and Cousin
in Utah, we took a trip up to Preston, Wyoming, home of the famous Night Rodeo
where national pride was dripping off every cowboy hat and belt buckle. I felt as uncomfortable with the jingoism
there as I do during the flag ceremony here.
Perhaps it is the blind obedience that bothers me the most.
Wow, I didn’t expect to go there with this blog post. I think I’ll have to end with Finlandia, a
song which I really like and I appreciate that Grace sang it on the 10th
anniversary of 9/11. This is the Indigo
Girls version, one of my favorites: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mINZkelXaA4
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