On November 23, the Monday before Thanksgiving, almost the entire school sat in the Heller auditorium for an Orchestra and Special Chorus MX. When the orchestra started off with the National Anthem, many in the Parker community were surprised.  But it would have shocked students and teachers across the nation–many of whom sing the National Anthem before assemblies and recite the Pledge of Allegiance every day–to realize that next to nobody knew the words.

The orchestra started to play “The Star Spangled Banner” for the audience to sing along, and what I heard from the audience was exactly what I expected to hear from Parker students: a couple of students singing what they knew, others humming, and the majority keeping quiet.

In my experience at Parker I have never placed my hand over my heart or faced the flag to pledge my allegiance or even been taught the 8 lines of our country’s national anthem. Music Department Co-Chair Sunnie Hikawa rushed to our aid mouthing the words to get us all to sing.

That same week on Wednesday, the entire school gathered for the Thanksgiving MX, put on by the third graders every year. In my six years at Parker, I have noticed that there is one thing that every Thanksgiving MX has in common besides the holiday: at the very end, the whole school belts out the tune “Simple Gifts” before leaving for Thanksgiving break. While I don’t know how old this tradition is, I do know that it isn’t a completely secular song, while our school supposedly is.

“Simple Gifts” was written in 1848 by Joseph Brackett, Jr., a Shaker living in Maine. Shakers are a fundamentally Christian religious group that believes in the second coming of Christ, celibacy, and the imminence of the world’s end. A dancing tune, “Simple Gifts” was written to endorse the Shakers’ belief that true satisfaction comes from humility and from freedom. However, Simple Gifts also alludes to the world’s end and the second coming of Christ in the lines “when we find ourselves in the place just right, we will be in the valley of love and delight.” While I agree that Parker should teach all its students humility, is it appropriate to teach humility through a religious hymn suggesting that the world is ending soon?

While it’s important to look critically at the U.S. through many lenses, there seems to be a problem with teaching students a sense of pride for their nation. Why spend the time teaching “Simple Gifts,” an apocalyptic religious dancing tune, or Corinthians, whose verses come straight out of the New Testament, when Parker can teach its students the National Anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance, poems that are taught in schools across the nation and sung proudly at sporting events, and which represent the freedom and democracy of this country, values that Parker demonstrates day after day? The Pledge of Allegiance invokes the name of God, but at least it ties us to a larger community and a shared past. Are we Parker people too skeptical to express our allegiance to a country we all live in and share values with?

While “Simple Gifts” may help tie the Parker community together, our not teaching the National Anthem or the Pledge of Allegiance separates Parker students from the larger American community.