The old approach to education ... of the type my farming grandfather got was the reason why the United States grew wealthy, free, and stable.

Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

The best teacher I had-ever-was Marie Rudd, who taught grades three through five in a three-room schoolhouse not far from Boise, Idaho.

None of her students were children of privilege; we were sons and daughters of farmers and sawmill workers.

Yet we learned the fundamentals-multiplication tables and fractions, grammar and reading, history and geography-which Mrs. Rudd drilled into our minds like a Marine Corps sergeant.

There was nothing warm and fuzzy about this process. Two plus two always equaled four, never five, no matter how we felt about it. We were there to learn, and our self-esteem and confidence improved when we gave the right answers.

Yet this regimented approach to learning didn't stifle our creativity or dull our imaginations.

A few years later we studied under Edith Peterson, an Emmett High School math teacher who graded us not only on our answers in algebra and geometry but also on whether our spelling was correct.

What then is the problem today?

In a recent column at National Review Online, Victor Davis Hanson, one of today's truly brilliant political commentators, agreed that the problems of many elementary and secondary school students "begin at home or arise from our warped popular culture."

But instead of calling for more feel-good approaches to learning, he offered a sharply different approach to solving what he described as an "epidemic of ignorance":

"We should first scrap the popular therapeutic curriculum that in the scarce hours of the school day crams in sermons on race, class, gender, drugs, sex, self-esteem, or environmentalism. These are well-intentioned efforts to make a kinder and gentler generation more sensitive to our nation's supposed past and preset sins. But they squeeze out far more important subjects.

Dr. Hansen stressed the need "to restore ... traditional learning" through the teaching of literature, history, math and science "before the United States loses its global primacy."

HIS RECOMMENDATION for public education offers a bold departure from current trends, which were reflected in an Aug. 29 letter to the Times/News.

The writer suggested that helping students answer "Who am I?" and "How can I fit in and contribute...?" as a fundamental goal of teachers.

But, as Dr. Hansen observed, the product of this approach to education is many under-educated students who are ill-equipped for life beyond the classroom.

The letter writer also was critical of remarks by Highline School Board member Susan Goding, who dared to disapprove of displays at district headquarters and in some classrooms of flags of foreign countries alongside the American flag.

There is nothing wrong with placing smaller flags, which represent the "old" countries from which students or their parents came, on classroom walls.

But flags of other nations from their past should not be accorded equal treatment with the American flag.

Many of these young people already are American citizens by birth. Others someday will become naturalized citizens of the United States-and, in the process, they will reject past allegiances and swear sole allegiance to their new country.

These students, whether they are young Americans or future citizens in the making, need to learn to view America with pride and loyalty, beginning with these words:

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the country for which it stands...."

When this happens, our flag does not blend in with all the rest, but stands out as a banner of freedom and hope for all Americans.

ERIC MATHISON'S column last week had a familiar ring.

"When you don't have the facts," he argued, "fear is all that is left."

Then the connection came to me: the left's rhetoric downplays the threat of Islamo-fascist terrorists, much like skeptics within America First rejected the reality of war prior to Dec. 7, 1941.

But rather than continuing to oppose a president they didn't like, America First members backed the war effort after Pearl Harbor. And their earlier rhetoric never vilified the United States or our armed forces.

The views of Ralph Nichols are his own, and do not necessarily reflect those of Robinson Newspapers. He can be reached at ralphn@robinsonnews.com or 206-388-1857.