The first high school graduation we attended on this side of the Atlantic was in Texas .................

quite the eye-opener.

and yes, we did stand for it, but we did not put our hands over our hearts! We did get some peculiar looks from people around us for that, but no-one said anything.

We used to stand and sing God Save the Queen at primary school assemblies. That all stopped in high school, I think the teachers knew they were on a hiding to nothing.

My high school was pretty boring, no anthem, a few speaches, 900 names later and its done.

Pretty boring overall.

Anthems do seem rather anachronistic. Having said that, I read something about a new "black anthem" emerging in the US. Just what we need, more tribalism.

I went grades 1 to 4 in a little 2-room country school (brass bell on the teacher's desk, wooden desks with a hole for the ink bottle) and every morning we stood and sang God Save the Queen and Oh Canada and recited the Lord's Prayer. After we moved to the city I don't really recall doing any of that in school, though I believe we did sing the anthem and recite the prayer in Cubs and Boy Scouts. I remember the debate in Scouts over what to do about the 2 Handel brothers being Jewish vs Lord's Prayer. One possible solution was to have them mouth the words.

UK’s system of not separating church and state and forcing religion in schools is a real problem as it separates children and enforces superstition. Ontario has Catholic schools which (for whatever reason) are taxpayer funded but at least its not mandatory.

Homo Sapiens formed in caves and the humans are tribal. Is singing anthem a logical thing to do? No. But its sung when Canadians win gold at the Olympics and most tend to support Canadians in sports (or Brits or whatever they feel). Not logical at all but its harmless. Remove national anthem and Canadians will replace it by some other tribal characteristic, be it race or religion or class or gender or some other flag which tends to divide kids into “us” and “them”. Not a good thing.

Perhaps adopt this version


And for something completely different

This is pretty much the anthem of the Metis Nation:

child 1’s high school graduation in Ontario they were lead into the hall by a piper playing’Scotland the Brave’.

Never had that at any stage of school for 10 years in Aberdeenshire (although no-one got to the leaving school stage while we were there)

The problem of religion in UK schools is not to do with the non-separation of church and state, but with particular "faith schools". State schools either have no religious affiliation or a nominal religious afflilation, and in each case, teach some fundamentals of all the major superstitions religions.

BTO all the way

Newfoundland went to a secular school system sometime in the 90's - so my Mrs tells me. However, the names of the schools are slow to change, particularly the formerly catholic ones. Too many Holy Heart of Jesus Mary and bloody Joseph Elementary/High Schools around for my liking.

No wee donkey?

In England the law says that all pupils in state schools must take part in an act of daily superstitious nonsense of prayer. And most of the time (by law) it has to be Christian. That’s to do with non-separation of church and state. Parents must specifically request for their kids to be excluded from the religious ritual every other kid is taking part in, which is in itself an act of religious discrimination.

Many schools, particularly secondary ones, do not follow the law, but your luck of avoiding Christian indoctrination very much depends on where you live.

At the start of my secondary (Comp) school in 1968 we had to buy our own Hymn books and from the SPCK bookshop. Detention until you got one.
Didn't think much of it back then but forced to pay for it and from a dodgy organisation too. Not sure if it could have been bought anywhere else, but I remember we were given Gideon bibles. Maybe they should have given out the hymn books free instead.