Sunday, May 23, 2010

20100523.1420

There has been much talk about the revisions the Texas State Board of Education is making to the curricular standards, some of it here. And I have written a few things about it, namely to the tune that the revisions are ill-advised and detrimental not only to the reputation of the Lone Star State but also to the ability of the children who will attend school in Texas (and in any other state that purchases the Texas editions of textbooks) to have an understanding of the history of their state and country that passes beyond rote recitation.

To be fair, one of the complaints that is leveled at the changes to standards, that they are political in nature, is a bit of a farce. All curricular standards, but particularly those in primary and secondary schools, are political; all of them, because of their application to students still in their formative years, exert a strongly socionormative influence. That is to say that they shape in fundamental, long-lasting ways children's concepts of what is and is not right and true. And as curricular standards decisions are always made by bodies that are in positions of authority, bodies that therefore have agendas and specific viewpoints that they wish to see reflected, they are always political, always ideologically-based, and necessarily exclusive of certain worldviews.

However.

The inclusive ideal of the United States, the one often cited that the country is a "melting pot" of various peoples and cultures, would seem to necessitate that the country forge a composite identity. One of the great strengths of the country is specifically that it incorporates other ideas than those which already exist within it. Doing so, for instance, ultimately allowed the United States to put an end to WWII--the scientists who designed The Bomb were not all or primarily native-born citizens. The language that so many who oppose multi-lingual education espouse is itself an idea incorporated from outside--and it still bears the name of a "foreign" people.

The prevailing cultural norms in the United States do not typically voice themselves in Navajo, after all. And Navajo was instrumental in the deeds of the Greatest Generation, to whose ethics and morals a great many people look back with longing.

To deny the contributions and influences of groups other than the mainstream to and upon the mainstream is academically irresponsible. The documentation exists to denote the truth of the impact non-Anglo populations have had upon the nation; even the very names of many of the cities and states derive from languages and peoples that are not English--including "Texas."

And it is not as though the curricular standards that are currently in effect, those which are being changed, are exclusive of discussion of the mainstream. Indeed, the primary focus in the primary and secondary schools remains on the "dead white guys" that are perceived as being under attack--one of whom is being eliminated from required study despite penning the foundational philosophical document of the United States and serving in its highest offices. "Traditional" history narratives still form the underpinning of curricular standards.

While it is true that certain of the colonies from which the United States grew were founded for specific religious reasons, a certain religious climate did pervade the people of the United States at the time of the nation's founding, and the foundational documents of the country's sociopolitical system do reference a supernatural agency, they AT NO POINT specify that it is a Judeo-Christian idea of God that underlies the law (try to find "Yahweh," "Jehovah," or "Jesus" in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution). Nor is it true that a Judeo-Christian worldview was the only one to which the framers of the Constitution had access; leaving aside the obvious contact with Native American populations which had their own ideas of the other aspects of reality, such people as Jefferson, Franklin, and Washington had access to Classical mythology and long traditions of intercontinental trade that would have facilitated some knowledge of non-Western ideologies.

More to the point, the fundamental tenets of Christianity (defined as adherence to the teachings of Christ)--such things as the charges "That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also" (Matthew 5:39), "Judge not, that ye be not judged" (Matthew 7:1), "Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again" (Luke 6:30), and the feeding of the multitude for free (John 6:1-11)--are not exactly abundant in the primary law of the United States. (Or in many of its subsidiary laws, except those which are often decried as detrimental to the moral fiber of the country.)

The assertions made that "this is a Christian nation" are not so strong as those who make them would like to believe. It would be untrue to say that Christianity has not and does not continue to exert an influence on the public policy of the nation, but it would be equally untrue to assign to it a role of singular primacy; there were other things going on in the colonies that became the United States and in the lands that the country would come to purchase and conquer. There were other people in the United States than those who did the purchasing and conquering. And to expunge them from the teaching of history would be to deliberately and knowingly perpetuate dishonesty.

And that is hardly the model of Christian teaching--or any acceptable ethical teaching--that we ought to present to our children.

No comments:

Post a Comment