Standard Cant - Katherine Kerstin

Standard Cant - Katherine Kerstin had this editorial on the state's proposed, and contentious, new Social Studies standards for school kids, in the Sunday paper.

For those of you not from Minnesota - the question of how Minnesota will assess what its school children have learned has been a long, contentious one, which came glaringly to light five years ago with the adoption of the "Profiles In Learning", a set of standards that were flawed (although not as deeply as the more reactionary of its critics thought) and had the tang of "ideological wonkery" all over them.

Under the Pawlenty administration, there's a new proposal; a list of things (in this case, in Social Studies) that kids are suppose to be able to learn at each grade level.

Predictably, the standards have drawn fire - in this case, from the academic left:

"What would our children's history classrooms look like if the 'U' professors, and like-minded critics, got their way? One thing's sure: Every day, our kids would walk out of class hanging their heads for shame at being Americans. The professors' letter makes clear that they see America -- first and foremost -- as a nation that has oppressed women, enslaved blacks and exploited the poor. They want our children to see it that way, too. That's why their letter is full of recommendations like this: When Minnesota 8- and 9-year-olds study colonial America, they should focus on 'the genocidal impact of European incursions,'the extinction of numerous species and the destruction of whole environments.' When third-graders study the Pledge of Allegiance, they should learn that its author was 'forced by the political climate of Jim Crow and xenophobia' to omit the mention of equality, along with liberty and justice.

The professors reject the new standards' Government and Citizenship benchmarks along with its history benchmarks. They object, for example, to a first-grade standard that encourages 'good citizen traits' like 'honesty, courage, patriotism and individual responsibility.' Why? Portraying such traits as important components of citizenship is tantamount to teaching patriotism as a 'reflex action of blind obedience or conformity.'"

The whole thing is worth a read.

The academic left which controls the agenda for the "educational-industrial complex" seems to regard any and all observances of respect for the Nation (as opposed to Society) as propaganda - and there certainly are precedents for this belief. Education should not become propaganda.

The key phrase in the previous paragraph, of course, is "any and all". Some notion of the nation, at least our nation, America, as something with some admirable traits, is a good thing - as long as our schools can teach enough critical thinking skills to students to discern between information and propaganda.

The problem, of course, is that they don't do that today. Children get plenty of propaganda - "left-wing" cant on social issues, politics, and personality theories - today, all of which goes unanswered. If you've followed this blog for a while, you've heard some of the stories.

How to deal with education? More later.

Posted by Mitch at November 12, 2003 05:14 AM