> I don't think students need to be protected from diversity, only from
> viewpoints that seek a monological authority (whether establishment or
> oppositional).
>
Jay's point about not being protected from diversity is
fundamental. My work on cultural dynamics (MCA-97 paper) suggests that it
could be taken one point farther: children need to be protected from
monolithic thinking. The issue is that fast-growing, exceedingly dominant
practices/species/groups/cells drive out competitors and doom themselves,
cancerlike -- they exhaust the resources needed to sustain them and then
are unable to reproduce themselves. From this perspective, the Canadian
issue certainly IS diversity and the teachers and public have as much need
for alarm as any historical group who has had to face those who would
demand that their way be the only way.
David