Reply #3: Hopefully,

[LWolf]

the real teacher would have known better.

I have to stand with my students, in the gym, every school morning while the pledge is recited. I rarely recite. When I do, it's to join in for that last line: "with liberty and justice for all."

The whole school is there. There are plenty of students not reciting. No teacher has ever made an issue of it.

When a students asks me why I don't recite with them, I reply,

"The purpose is for you to learn the pledge, by practicing it. I've already learned it. Once I've made a pledge, I either meant it, and will honor it, or I didn't, and won't. Repeating it doesn't change that. It just makes me feel like my word isn't trusted."