It is important to teach our children, and to remind ourselves, of our heritage:
- of why and how we became a nation,
- of the basic principles and documents upon which the country was founded,
- of what it took to achieve today’s standard of living,
- of the mistakes we’ve made and,
- of the individuals and events that have played major roles in shaping the country.
Appreciating one’s heritage is a prerequisite for taking actions to sustain it. Being aware of our heritage helps us to appreciate what we have and to see our shortcomings so they can be addressed.
Teach Our Children
Teaching our children about the country’s heritage is important because they know no other way of life. They need to appreciate that the life they have in the United States is not a birth right – but rather it is a gift from the culmination of past generations. It took enormous courage, loss of life, pain, mistakes, hard work and risk to get here. Our children need to be made aware that they are going to be the custodians of this country and be taught how to do that well.
Remind Ourselves
Reminding ourselves of our heritage is important for similar reasons. However it has additional importance because, as we grow up and become involved in the day-to-day pursuit of our own lives, it is easy to forget that what we have isn’t the norm and that a free society requires continuous vigilance and substantial energy. It is easy to become complacent. Reminding ourselves also provides the motivation and justification for active citizenship.
Here are some things each of us can do to teach our children about, and to remind ourselves of, where we came from and how we have evolved as a country.
My experience is that, as a group, individuals who have immigrated to the U.S. and their first generation offspring, are more vocal and open about their appreciation for this country than those of us who were born here and whose parents were born here.
There are millions of individuals around the world that would love to live in the United States.
The Constitution and other founding documents talk mostly about our “inalienable rights”. These rights are freedoms that every individual in this country is able to enjoy. Also, we live in an era where the focus on our “rights” is strong – and perhaps a bit out of kilter with what was intended. It seems that special interest groups, as well as individual citizens, often use the phrase “have the right to” in ways intended to serve their best interest and not the country’s best interest, as intended by the founding fathers.
National holidays symbolize events that are significant to the nation. Celebrating them provides us with a chance to better understand, and to reflect on, those nation-changing events that took place on that day.
One of the best and most rewarding ways to understand how we have evolved as a country is to ask those who have lived here the longest. They are often our grandparents.
We often take what we have for granted. Because we are born in America, a country with many freedoms, we are not always aware of how rare, important, and fragile freedom is. We sometimes learn about freedom from our parents, but it’s also important that we learn about America and other countries in school.
For most of us, war is only a word and media sound bites – fortunately. One can only imagine the killing of other beings – the brutality, the maiming, the rape, the horror of hand-to-hand combat, the fear, and the life long memories if one survives.
Having a clear understanding of the basic founding documents gives us the proper perspective upon which to take actions and to believe in the actions we take.
Most of us grow up in only one part of the country. 61% of us live in the city area in which we were born. Thus our view of the rest of the U.S. is often skewed toward the environment in which we were raised. However, the reality is that the geography, the customs, the weather, the dress, the way of speaking etc. vary all across the country.
When I think of this action, I am reminded of how important it is to many adopted children to find out where they came from – to find their birth parents – in an effort to help them understand who they are and how their personal history is composed. Knowing our roots helps put our life in a real perspective, even if the reality isn’t what we hoped for.
There are many wonderful songs that reflect our heritage – wonderful not only in their music but wonderful in their words and tradition.
Spending time teaching our children about their rich heritage, about the struggles to form their country, and about ways to be a good citizen builds a background of respect for freedom and caring about its preservation.
Sometimes the best way to get a true perspective on a place is to go away and get some distance from it.
The U.S. is a gorgeous and diverse country in terms of its geography and natural resources. There are magnificent mountains, canyons, waterfalls, lakes, rivers, deserts, caves, bayous, outcroppings, plains, marshes, and on and on.
“In fourteen hundred and ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue”…and landed on the shores of Massachusetts. Almost three hundred years later, a group of English citizens who had settled on the American eastern shores, fed up with unfair taxation, declared their independence from England and became the United States of America.
Visiting a war memorial helps to personalize the horror and effects of war. I have been to several, and they moved and impressed me more than I imagined.
