Cultural Education
A friend sent me an excellent blog post from the Whole Child Blog. The post is entitled Educating for Interculturality and the Right to Cultural Education. The author, Alseta Gholston, makes the case for a multicultural approach to every curriculum and addresses the backlash currently happening in the US. It’s a quick read and I recommend going over there and checking it out.
My own take on the subject is, of course, cynical with regards to the ability of public schools to take on this kind of approach without an extreme change in priorities. I don’t want to argue the benefits of a more well-round curriculum here (although if you’d like to leave a comment explaining why learning about different cultures is bad, have at it). The biggest issue here is the time issue. There is so much material to get through in one school year as it is. Then we have to make sure the students know it well enough to pass the state-created, NCLB-mandated standardized test. Most teachers I know take a good 3 weeks to review for the test and those happen in May. So the teachers have from September through April to teach the entire curriculum. I don’t see how we can cram in any more material.
The blog post also makes mention of three states where multicultural education is under attack. In Arizona…well, we all know what’s going on in Arizona with the new immigration law. Hopefully you didn’t miss the other law that bans ethnic studies classes because they “promote resentment toward a race or class of people.” The author of the law was apparently trying to eliminate Mexican-American Studies classes. And he succeeded. In Texas, the school board voted to change the social studies curriculum, “stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.” It was a strict Republican-Democrat party-line vote. Lastly, in Idaho, people are protesting the IB (International Baccalaureate) Program, claiming that the international prospective approach to education is anti-American.
What do we do? I believe the curriculum should be opened up to many other ideas and perspectives. The people who are the best educated are the ones who can look at an issue, consider many different points of view and make an informed decision. Are American schools stifling this ability? Or is it important to teach from an American perspective, since that is where we live? Is it detrimental for students to be exposed to ideas that may go against American values? Or should students be taught different opinions and make those value judgments for themselves?
“Interculturality”? Good grief, when are our public school teachers going to stop making up words and get down to delivering actual facts and content? You are NOT being paid with our tax dollars to reinvent the wheel. Your job is to teach your state’s academic standards. You are not a child’s pastor or parent. You are also not being paid by the United Nations to work with children.
The good people in Idaho oppose IB due to its allegiance to UN Millenium goals, elimination of choice and loss of local control. The concept of national sovereignty appears to be foreign to the vast majority of union public school teachers.
IB is a scam. SAY NO TO IBO!
http://truthaboutib.com/
I don’t know, Truth. I’ve been reading through your website and your argument doesn’t hold up. The intent seems to be to scare and incite ala Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Allow me to quote your website:
“The PYP curriculum model is dependent on our commitment to a particular belief about how children learn, encapsulated most clearly in the constructivist approach. It is acknowledged that learners have beliefs about how the world works based on their experiences and prior learning. Those beliefs, models or constructs are revisited and revised in the light of new experiences and further learning. As we strive to make meaning of our lives and the world around us we travel continually on the cyclic path of constructing, testing, and confirming or revising our personal models of how the world works.”
You go on to say:
“What does any of this have to do with improving academics? This is the CORE PHILOSOPHY of IBO – to “revisit” and REVISE the VALUES you’ve taught your children at home. Anyone who can’t see the red flags or alarm bells contained within IBO’s own document as a direct assault on our Constitutional and Judeo-Christian values must be deaf, dumb and blind.”
Did it ever say anything about revising or revisiting values taught at home? No. The point is to make sense of the world around you as your experiences change. Otherwise you are an adult with the intelligence of a 2nd grader. This is how we learn, by taking in the world around us with our very own perception filters to sort it out. As we gain experience, we reformulate our ideas about how things work.
As James Madison, main writer of the US Constitution (the document that you hold so dear but yet barely understand) said:
“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”
However, you strive to deny children that very knowledge by framing everything in one point of view. That leads to tyranny.
Really, “Truth about IB”? You do realize that the UN basically is the United States, right?
Regardless, the concept of what you call “national sovereignty” isn’t about teaching our children that the United States embodies the only way a country could or should be. While this is a great country, education is about presenting the whole picture, what is good AND bad about our democratic system. Otherwise, how could our children think critically about important issues and laws, including whether state academic standards are adequate, or whether to support or oppose a curriculum that presents a worldwide perspective?
Eliminating the IB program is the equivalent of burning books. You are taking away the power of choice and knowledge, not only for children, but for the parents who may want to make that choice for their child. When has this country ever stood the elimination of choice, and therefore, the elimination of freedom?
The concept of freedom of perspective appears to be foreign to you and those who wish to eliminate the IB program.
Dear Seriously?
The UN is basically the United States? Wow. That is probably the most warped and disturbing defense of IB I’ve read to date.
Eliminating IB is NOT the equivalent of burning books, far from it. IB is a superfluous, elective, non-mandatory, expensive program. IBO is free to sell its “product” to private schools. It is not a program that should be supported with American tax dollars. Parents who want IB can make the “choice” of paying tuition to a private school to have their children indoctrinated in that manner.
“To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical. ” ~ Thomas Jefferson
“Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.”
“Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”
Thomas Jefferson also said some pretty strong things about the power of education and the need for people to be informed.
You need to make up your mind about your mission here. If your point is that public schools should not be paying for the IB program because it is expensive and unnecessary, that’s a defensible argument that can be rationally discussed. If your point is that the IB program leads students to anti-American sentiment and undermines personal values, that’s an entirely different (and wholly irrational) argument. Which is it?
Dear Truth about IB,
I’ll give you that my UN argument is just as warped and disturbing as your argument against IB. An eye for an eye, right?
So, you’re telling me that only people with money for tuition will be able to offer their children a multicultural education? Our good friend Thomas Jefferson might not agree with that:
“Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty” – Thomas Jefferson
When you neglect to offer the same educational opportunities and access to information to all students regardless of income, you neglect to preserve the liberty that makes this country great.