Joanne Jacobs (isn't she supposed to be on vacation?) has a great new post up. In it, she juxtaposes journalist Andrew Gumbel's recent snit over a patriotic song for first-graders - he couldn't stand that a song for six-year-olds was seemingly lacking in historical accuracy and, gosh, so insensitive at at time when we're engaged in a war that all enlightened parents should oppose - with a recent report showing that, for all of the faults of US schools, excessive patriotism is not one of them:
Too many classroom lessons and text books contribute to a sense of historical indifference by focusing on America's darker moments, the report says. In a push to give a warts-and-all account of the struggles of democracy, schools have turned the nation's sins into the essence of the story instead of just a part of it, the new report says...
The report accompanies an earlier institute-sponsored study on civics standards, one that contends history and civics are often lost in the emphasis on reading and math.
The report says: "We do not ask for propaganda, for crash courses in the right attitudes or for knee-jerk patriotic drill. We do not want to capsulize democracy's arguments into slogans, or pious texts, or bright debaters' points."
But it takes aim at a lack of teaching about non-democratic societies, saying that comparison could show the "genius" of America's system.
The "genius" of American's system, and any attempt to inform schoolchildren of it, is just what horrifies snobs like Mr. Gumbel:
There is much that is admirable in the unique brand of idealism that drives American society, with its unshakable belief in the constitutional principles of freedom and limitless opportunity. Too often, though, the idealism becomes a smokescreen concealing the uglier realities of the United States and the way it throws its economic, political and military weight around the globe. Children are recruited from the very start of their school careers to believe in Team America, whose oft-repeated mantra is: we're the good guys, we always strive to do the right thing, we live in the greatest country in the world. No other point of view, no other cultural mindset, is ever seriously contemplated. Schoolroom maps of North America detail city names, roads and rivers within the continental United States, but invariably leave the areas within Canada and Mexico blank, as though reality itself stopped at the national border.
In other words, US schoolchildren shouldn't take pride in their country, shouldn't believe in the idealism that this country was founded upon, and shouldn't focus on learning the specifics about this country before they learn about other countries. Joanne patiently explains why he's wrong about this, and she does so in a much nicer fashion than I would have.
By the way, Mr. Gumbel also opposes the singing of the national anthem before ball games (you can almost see the effort it took for him not to explicitly equate "flag-waving" with "goosestepping" or "Heil-Hitler-ing"). How dare we show support for our country before a "routine game"? Why, don't we know that suppresses "dissent" and "critical thought" in our schoolchildren?
One of Tim Blair's commenters had this to say about Mr. Gumbel's piece:
Gumbel's piece made me laugh out loud. I haven't seen such a display of ignorance and hatred of American culture since I speeches I have read made by national socialists in Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
I am an European who emigrated to the US at the age of 28.
I was born in Norway, went to public schools in Norway and the Netherlands. My kids are now in the US public school system. My experiences from both sides of the Atlantic have taught me that European schools are in fact MUCH more ignorant of the world around them than their American counterparts.
The public school system in most parts of Western Europe is in essence pure indoctrination by almost exlusively leftist teachers born out the radical movements in the late 60s and 70s. Incapable of objectively viewing the US, they spew the irrational emotional outbursts now displayed by Mr. Gumbel. European children are taught by an early age such one-sided drivel that "the American government control democracies in Latin America"; or that "the American international agenda is driven by big business and corporate greed".
In contrast, Casto's horrid regime in Cuba is given little or no concern for critique in European schools, nor is the proper attention given to the millions of people slaughtered in the name of collectivism and socialism on the European continent in the past century.
People like Gumbel should not be taken seriously in public debate, since their motives are entrenched in irrational thought and emotional nonsense.
The widespread support for the Shanker Institute's report suggests that Mr. Gumbel's thoughts won't be taken seriously in the future. Good thing, too.
Update: Scrappleface has the scoop on the purging of "raging patriotism" that will soon take place in our nation's schools, and thoughtfully provides some sample information that will soon be available in history textbooks:
* The so-called 'Founding Fathers', when debating the Constitution, failed to consider the feelings of homosexual Latino abortion-advocating animal rights proponents. Therefore, the Constitution does not apply to anyone who disagrees with it.
* The United States got into World War II to protect future access to Volkswagen Beetles, angel-hair pasta and Japanese audio devices.
* If it were not for the Watergate break-in, George McGovern would have won the presidency in 1972, and by 1974 he would have taught "the world to sing in perfect harmony."
Posted by kswygert at September 10, 2003 03:48 PM