Living in the Boston area and teaching middle school means that professional sports are often the student-preferred subject of the day in my classroom. We have had a pretty good run of late; our home town team, the Patriots, is on the way to the Super Bowl this Sunday, and last year, the black and gold of the Bruins dominated the fourteen and under fashion scene as the team brought home the Stanley Cup.
My observation is that kids still look up to sports heroes; the faces of middle school boys often take on a fierce intensity when talking about their favorites. Brady and Gronkowski are the men of the hour, and in the spring, it was goalie Tim Thomas of the Boston Bruins.
So for me as a teacher of civics in the Boston area, last week was tough. Kids look up to Thomas, yet he refused to travel with the team to Washington to be honored by the President of the United States. Well, that is his prerogative, I guess, but sometimes when kids are watching us, we have to just suck it up and do the right thing even though it might cost us a little personal energy. It was not a political event or endorsement of the President, but rather just a chance to be recognized by our Head of State and the leader of our country. Thomas’s refusal made me feel sad because so many kids admire him, and he does set an example.
In my classroom, we talk a lot about politics, both historical and current. One of my rules is that students are free to express their own political views; however, they may never speak disrespectfully about our elected leaders or their spouses. My philosophy is that in discussing civics, we must be civil.
We have great kids at Sage, yet I sometimes feel that we are fighting a battle against the negative influences that surround them. Loss of manners and civility, and disrespectful behavior toward the institutions that we should protect, like the Presidency as a symbol of our representative democracy, abound. While this was even true when I was a child with respect to soldiers coming home from Vietnam, this lack of civility seems more pervasive today. The symbols of our democracy mean much more than the person holding the flag, the man who holds the office of the Presidency, or the individual man or woman in uniform. How can we teach our children to revere and honor these symbols of our country when the adults, especially those adults kids think of as heroes, cannot set aside political differences to be recognized by our President in a non-political setting? How do ordinary teachers combat this powerful, yet negative, example in trying to instill a sense of pride and respect for our institutions?
My mom has been Kennedy woman since 1960, and whenever we talked about politics before Ted Kennedy’s death, she always took pride in the fine example of Senator Kennedy’s celebrated friendship with Orrin Hatch. She held it up as a model for public servants and for my sisters and me to find common ground with people with whom we might not agree. As Senator Hatch wrote upon the death of Senator Kennedy:
“I hope that America’s ideological opposites in Congress, on the airwaves, in cyberspace, and in the public square will learn that being faithful to a political party or a philosophical view does not preclude civility, or even friendships, with those on the other side.”
Too bad Tim Thomas didn’t listen to Orrin Hatch.
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