TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/092490/0924120.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 4KB | 86 lines

                                                                                EDUCATION, Page 95

Of, By and For -- Whom?


Race and ethnicity are the battlegrounds of history class


    The families of eight black students in New York City have
filed a class action against state education officials,
charging that the absence of a multicultural history curriculum
perpetuates a "lack of self-esteem and self-worth" among
African-American students. That, in turn, they argue,
contributes to blacks' poor academic performance, high dropout
rate and "antisocial behavior." By contrast, 28 prominent
scholars, including historian William Manchester and educator
and psychologist Kenneth B. Clark, are protesting a proposed
revision of New York State's public school history curriculum,
which, they say, risks reducing history to "ethnic
cheerleading." In California, meanwhile, the state curriculum
commission has rejected 16 of 26 new history and social-studies
textbooks, asserting, among other things, that the books fail
to focus enough attention on minorities.

    Race and ethnicity, two of the touchiest issues in American
life, have become an increasing source of friction and
inspiration for the country's frayed public education system.
Across the country, elementary, middle and high school
curriculums are being revised to give a better accounting of
the history and achievements of the nation's ever more diverse
population. But, at the same time, there is growing concern
that one of education's central goals -- the forging of
citizens who share a broad, common culture -- is under assault.

    At its best, the movement to rewrite history along broader
racial and ethnic lines is making for livelier and more
accurate instruction. California's public school system adopted
new history and social-studies guidelines in 1987. Now, for
example, students study feudalism as it occurred in Japan as
well as in Europe. In Portland, Ore., elementary school
teachers can select African-American examples for their history,
science or music lessons from materials prepared by experts
in each field. "America is, and has been from the beginning,
a multicultural and multiracial society," says Charlotte
Crabtree, director of the UCLA-based National Center for
History in the Schools. "Kids need to understand that."

    But some reformers have a more assertive agenda. "History
makes some people feel good and other people feel bad," says
Joyce King, a California curriculum commissioner who protested
the "racial stereotyping" in one proposed textbook because it
implied that black ghettos were "naturally crime-ridden and
dirty. If you create a curriculum that lauds the achievements
of one group and omits and distorts the achievements of
another, it has an effect."

    The self-esteem issue is a "red herring," counters historian
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. "No minority group is doing better, at
least as far as higher education is concerned, than Asian
Americans. They don't have many models in our history books."
Other educators worry about judging a curriculum solely on the
basis of its treatment of racial and ethnic issues. "If you
take this to its logical conclusion, you get Lebanon or
Northern Ireland," says Bill Honig, California's superintendent
of public instruction.

    Perhaps what most rankles among politicians, parents and
scholars is the angry tone of much revisionist rhetoric.
Reformers who want to vilify Christopher Columbus because, they
say, he slaughtered Native Americans may miss larger truths.
"We don't study the Greeks because they had slaves and
mistreated women," points out Honig. "Our job in education is
to put ideals before kids." But the questions are, Whose
ideals? and How should they be portrayed? -- all of which
promises to inspire clashes in American classrooms for the
foreseeable future.


By Susan Tifft.