I am writing in response to Chester Finn's unfair characterization of the article "On the Spirit of Patriotism" written by Michalinos Zembylas and Megan Boler and published in the Teachers College Record (TCR) online edition. [See http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=44#642 for Finn's editorial. See http://www.tcrecord.org/ for the article by Zembylas and Boler.]
As one of the co-editors of this special issue of TCR, I must protest.
His conclusion, that the problem with progressive educators is "that they harbor doubts about patriotism" is inflammatory and untrue. Mr. Finn knows perfectly well that the point of the article was not to question patriotism, but to challenge the ways that honest patriotic sentiments have been exploited by the news media and government officials to promote their own agendas. Even the quote he cites makes that distinction quite clear. This is not doubting patriotism, but doubting "patriotism" of the sort that is used as a hammer to attack one's enemies and silence one's critics (in other words, exactly the sort of thing Mr. Finn is doing here!). I would argue that it is in fact deeply patriotic to point this out.
Instead, Mr. Finn takes this occasion, as did Ellen Sorokin in her notorious Washington Times article on the NEA, to use selective quotes and distorted interpretations to paint groups he happens to disagree with as unpatriotic and un-American - a strategy that smacks of McCarthyism in the present context. Unlike Ms. Sorokin, Mr. Finn has pretenses at least of academic integrity, which makes his blatant use of this strategy all the more inexcusable. He knows exactly what he is doing.
Professor Nicholas C. Burbules
Department of Educational Policy Studies
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Chester Finn responds: Wrong, wrong, wrong. Professor Burbules's view of patriotism, like that of Drs. Zembylas and Boler, is so remote from any normal meaning of the term as not even to qualify as proper usage of the language. My dictionary contains but a single definition of "patriotism": "love for or devotion to one's country." I defy any reasonable person to read the TCR article in question and conclude that (at least with respect to education concerning September 11, the nominal subject of the piece) its authors are advancing "honest patriotic sentiments." I'm not sure what their agenda is, but the security of the United States - which includes the protection of academics' right to write idiotic things - does not appear to be very high on it. None of this would matter much if it were purely a matter of academic disputation. What frightens me is the possibility that our ten year olds will be taught by people who have drunk from this poisoned well.