Chaplain and anthem proposals wouldn't really have helped Iowa students

The Iowa Legislature is again working to improve our schools.

What if lawmakers get their wishes?

Let’s imagine students singing the national anthem daily, as House Study Bill 587 proposes.

Let’s imagine chaplains helping our students, as Senate Study Bill 3092 proposes.

The bill supporters claim the chaplains will provide support for our students, since counseling staff is limited. These chaplains don't need training. They don’t need licensing or certification. They don’t need any special endorsements unless the local school board adds them. Sen. Jeff Taylor, R-Sioux Center, the subcommittee chair where the bill originated, said he didn't see the bill as "dangerous."

Under the anthem proposal, each classroom would be required to sing at least one verse of the national anthem daily, and all four verses on patriotic holidays. Imagine a volunteer pacifist chaplain who raises questions about when and whether bombs bursting, and violence are justified. Is this as threatening and “dangerous” as a chaplain from the Satanic temple?

Imagine a pacifist chaplain. Let’s call him Dan, after a long-ago Kalona pastor who was hung in effigy for his outspokenness about World War II. As the students stand for the daily singing of the national anthem, chaplain Dan remains seated. What if Chaplain Dan starts handing out pamphlets that discourage students from joining ROTC? Does this make him a “dangerous” chaplain?

Don’t worry, Chaplain Dan won’t end up as a school chaplain. He believes in the separation of church and state.

What if a chaplain starts talking about Francis Scott Key, the writer of “The Star-Spangled Banner”? What if he told students how Key wrote of “Negroes,” as “a distinct and inferior race” and how he strictly enforced slave laws and prosecuted abolitionists?

What if a chaplain engages students on verse three, which says:

No refuge could save the hireling and slave

From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,

Do we want students singing about slaves finding no refuge? Do the bill’s supporters want students to ask uncomfortable questions about living in the “land of the free”?

Suppose Collin Kaepernick or someone like him, decided to be a school chaplain. He could be a football coach and a chaplain. What if this chaplain started listing reasons to not stand for the anthem? What would kids learn about patriotism? About racism?

Having chaplains opens a can of worms.

Singing the national anthem raises questions of patriotism.

Can patriotism be mandated? Does singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” make you more patriotic? Blind patriotism and sugar-coated history are not what kids need to learn.

What does it look like to respect America?

What does it look like to respect the separation of church and state?

What does it look like to empower students to see America’s past and find new hopeful and healthy ways to be American?

Gov. Kim Reynolds says parents should have a say in the schools. What if parents desire that neither violence nor blind patriotism be elevated? What if parents don’t want chaplains who mix faith with American fidelity?

Chaplain Dan or even Chaplain Kaepernick aren’t the ones I fear. I fear chaplains who might threaten children with hell and an authoritarian God. I fear chaplains who mix God and country. I fear chaplains who tell LGBTQ students they’re flawed. This can’t be good for mental health. And what about chaplains who might follow in the ways of abusive ministers? We all have heard the hushed stories of sexually abusive priests and preachers.

What makes students and all of us patriotic isn’t singing the national anthem but seeing our state and our country care about people here, and around the world.

Let’s think again about what would improve our schools.

Jane Yoder-Short lives in Kalona.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Chaplain, anthem proposals wouldn't really have helped Iowa students