Teaching Patriotism: Embracing Multiple Paths in Our Curriculum

The future of civic education and social studies is on the ballot in November. 

Hold your eye roll. I know this is instance No.1,292 of someone telling you that catastrophe looms for “X” if you vote “Y” on Nov. 5. I get it.  

That doesn’t make this warning untrue: Any push for “patriotic education” should be treated as a potential toxin that threatens the lifeblood of community, belonging, unflinchingly accurate history, and civic engagement. Give me a few minutes to explain why it’s essential to be wary of how politicians manipulate people with how they define loving your country.

The dictionary defines patriotism as “love for or devotion to one's country”—simple but leaving much room for individuals to decide what it means for them. Some liberals and Conservatives hold passionate, opposing interpretations in that gray area. 

What Does It Mean To Be An American Patriot?

While researching whether teaching patriotism without “othering” people is possible, I found the article “Can Patriotism Be Compassionate?” Its author states that the values of Left-leaning people derive mainly from the foundations of care and fairness. It’s not that Conservatives don’t value those traits; they tend to give more weight to loyalty, which explains why they often claim a stronger love for their country.*

Anyone who has followed American politics for any length of time knows that Democrats are often on the defensive against Republicans to validate their patriotism—which is why Democrats tried so hard to “take patriotism back from the GOP” during the DNC Convention.

Plenty of Liberals will tell you that true love of a country should include aggressively calling out its flaws and working to improve. That effort begins with acknowledging the many moral, civil, and criminal crimes committed against marginalized communities from the country’s founding to the present. Conservatives claim such persistent complaints and dwelling on long-past events are symptomatic of a deep loathing of America. 

The political battleground of the 1776 Commission versus the 1619 Project is a good example. Republicans have promised to reinstate the 1776 Commission, an effort to promote “patriotic education,” and contradict the 1619 Project, which emphasizes the systemic racism built into the country's foundation and its persistent effects. 

The Hechinger Report has also analyzed how the highly influential Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 could affect education if its authors were to take leadership positions in a new administration, as several held in the past. The foundation’s leaders believe educating students about racism risks promoting bias against white people and harmfully dividing people by their identity. They claim CRT training and school activities disrupt “the values that hold communities together, such as equality under the law and colorblindness.” 

In short, many of the most influential Democratic and Republican leaders remain far apart on what it means to be an American patriot. These differences of opinion aren’t the subject of a harmless philosophical debate without real-world implications. Kids are affected, and their education, job prospects, and social and emotional wellbeing suffer.

Regardless of who’s the next president, educators will still have some autonomy to determine how they teach patriotism while shutting the door on jingoism, White Christian Nationalism, racism, and anti-Americanism. Their decisions could have a lasting effect on how their students perceive their place in the world. 

Assume Your Textbook Is Wrong

There’s overwhelming evidence that history textbooks have purposefully presented a distorted and often racist version of events and influential people. Or, it omits the injustices entirely!

The Tulsa Race Massacre is one viral example in recent years that was like a physical blow for many people who discovered they never heard of the atrocity in school. People in power didn’t want students to know about the racially motivated slaughter. 

Students must understand how people can become animalistic mobs, why that particular event occurred, what its many long-lasting effects are, and how to prevent such atrocities. 

Textbook authors frequently glorify the federal government and lift a narrative that purports to be patriotic but ultimately is anti-democratic. Historian James W. Loewen (1942-1921) wrote several books about the facts textbooks often left out or twisted. He surveyed 18 commonly used history textbooks. 

The consensus: The federal government’s racist systems and leaders are hidden, and they’re given credit for civil rights victories that belong to Black activists!

Loewen wrote: “Textbook authors seem to believe that Americans can be loyal to their government only so long as they believe it has never done anything bad. Textbooks therefore present a U.S. government that deserves students’ allegiance, not their criticism.”

Consciously Take Steps To Include Everyone

When I was a kid, I often heard, “America is a great melting pot!” My understanding of a melting pot is that it mixes many ingredients to make a great meal. And yet, teaching patriotism in schools with manipulated history textbooks left me thinking that America is made up of only a couple of ingredients. 

I can vividly recall how little I learned about impactful people who weren’t white heterosexual men. I’m in that demographic, so I didn’t realize how harmful that was for everyone else. 

Can we teach patriotism without conformity? Educator Anil Hurkadli, a research fellow with the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institutional Antiracism and Accountability Project, asked that question last year. He felt alienated “as a gay, brown kid born to Indian immigrant parents” in rural Iowa.

“My civics education in school exacerbated those feelings. It consisted primarily of rote daily recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance and a watered-down history of European immigration through Ellis Island. Stories like my family’s were noticeably absent, signaling to me that loyalty and conformity were my only choices to feel a sense of belonging.”

He concluded: “There isn’t—and never was—one way to be an American, and our civics curriculum and pedagogy should reflect that.” 

* Jonathan Haidt also discusses this in his book "The Righteous Mind."