National Anthem Project - Criticism of The National Anthem Project

Criticism of The National Anthem Project

Collectively, criticism includes the following:

1. The Star Spangled Banner has long been contested as an appropriate national anthem for the United States because of its melody, incorrectly, is believed to have been borrowed from an old drinking song (To Anacreon in Heaven), and allegedly militaristic lyrics.
2. The National Anthem Project places emphasis on the patriotic and historical music genre, and one song in particular, displacing study of other areas such as peace studies, multiculturalism, and international education (see UNESCO's 2006 statement on arts education).
3. The National Anthem Project encourages American music teachers to focus on content and coverage rather than musical skills and understandings in their curriculum, an approach that is contrary to some contemporary theories of instructional design.
4. Like the “Mozart Effect,” use of the National Anthem Project for music advocacy brings greater attention to the work of music educators, but it also promotes the educational use of music as a tool for non-musical objectives in other academic subjects.
5. The National Anthem Project facilitates the promotion of a corporate agenda in public schools, complete with company logos some characterize as advertising.
6. Since its inception, military divisions were publicly credited as "Supporting Organizations" for the project and explicit discussion of support for the US military (clearly coinciding with ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) has featured prominently in public discourse surrounding this project.

Public criticisms include Amy Beegle's (2004) documentation of musical propaganda in American schools during World War II, and suggestion that music educators should “reflect upon the experiences of past generations” (p. 67). Later, Jere Humphreys remarked that “the National Anthem Project sends questionable messages during this time of controversy during a foreign war and the reduction of civil liberties at home and abroad” and warned against the “messages and images this campaign engenders” (Humphreys, 2006, p. 183). More recently, Carlos Abril (2007) cautioned that most of the Project's efforts “propel absolutist views in which declared truths take a front seat to divergent understandings and discoveries” (p. 81). Estelle Jorgensen (2007) also wrote that “selecting The Star-Spangled Banner as the focus of a national campaign to teach the nation to sing can be read as too narrow an objective in that it forwards the limited claims of nationalism to the exclusion of building international and local affiliations and identities. Rather, music teachers need to resist the claims of excessive nationalism in order to ensure that these other interests are also served.” (p. 153).