Jul 27, 2026 · 12 min · 10 segments
Lenny McAllister has spent decades shaping public policy and civic life at the state and national level. He is an author, a Senior Fellow at the Commonwealth Foundation, and was a main stage speaker…
Lenny McAllisterGuest
Siena RoseHost
So if I understand correctly, you are talking to teachers and speaking to people around here about the importance of patriotism and pro-America values in the classroom.
The theme is the patriot teacher and talking about how teachers across America have both an obligation but also an opportunity to strengthen the civic character of our children.
We oftentimes think about voters as being American citizens, but the truth of the matter is those five-year-olds, six-year-olds, seven-year-olds, they're American citizens too.
And if we can get the opportunity to teach them to be proud to be American in first, second, third grade, we can raise them to be responsible citizens.
And so what my speech is going to focus on is the fact that American education has always been the glue that keeps this country together, that brings up patriots, particularly during difficult times like we're living through right now.
What has prompted you at this time right now to really come out and speak about this more often? I mean, you're writing a book or it's coming out next month.
And this is more of an issue, I gather, with the rise of woke and woke 2.0, as it's been called.
What what prompted you to really dive into this and step forward and speak out about what you're seeing?
Well, when I wrote a Venn diagram of one, one of the things I wanted to explain to everybody was the fact that there are common values that have always worked in America for 250 years.
And they've worked across all different sections and corners of our country.
And when we can remind Americans that we have that common value, DNA, the values that makes this country work.
It's a lot easier to pull out of bad economic times or division or right now, as you well know, Sienna, the lack of pride that many Americans have to be American and the younger the American gets, the less pride they have.
I wanted to write something that would remind everybody these are things that have kept us through harder times.
We can continue to be great, but these are the values that we need to do that.
Part of my speech tomorrow is to remind teachers, you can teach this to children with your example, with your smile, with taking a patriotic perspective when you're teaching them arithmetic and spelling and particularly history and civics.
So if I understand correctly, you are talking to teachers and speaking to people around here about the importance of patriotism and pro-America values in the classroom.
The theme is the patriot teacher and talking about how teachers across America have both an obligation but also an opportunity to strengthen the civic character of our children.
We oftentimes think about voters as being American citizens, but the truth of the matter is those five-year-olds, six-year-olds, seven-year-olds, they're American citizens too.
And if we can get the opportunity to teach them to be proud to be American in first, second, third grade, we can raise them to be responsible citizens.
And so what my speech is going to focus on is the fact that American education has always been the glue that keeps this country together, that brings up patriots, particularly during difficult times like we're living through right now.
What has prompted you at this time right now to really come out and speak about this more often? I mean, you're writing a book or it's coming out next month.
And this is more of an issue, I gather, with the rise of woke and woke 2.0, as it's been called.
What what prompted you to really dive into this and step forward and speak out about what you're seeing?
Well, when I wrote a Venn diagram of one, one of the things I wanted to explain to everybody was the fact that there are common values that have always worked in America for 250 years.
And they've worked across all different sections and corners of our country.
And when we can remind Americans that we have that common value, DNA, the values that makes this country work.
It's a lot easier to pull out of bad economic times or division or right now, as you well know, Sienna, the lack of pride that many Americans have to be American and the younger the American gets, the less pride they have.
I wanted to write something that would remind everybody these are things that have kept us through harder times.
We can continue to be great, but these are the values that we need to do that.
Part of my speech tomorrow is to remind teachers, you can teach this to children with your example, with your smile, with taking a patriotic perspective when you're teaching them arithmetic and spelling and particularly history and civics.
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