California has tried to control the publishers (Texas tries too,
but not effectively), but really the curricula still have to
conform to what university educators say the content ought to be.
A little lee-way is left to argue over, mainly in social studies
and choice of literary texts, but I rather doubt this all adds up
to very much that really matters to students: how much does it
matter whether you can't read a book about white people or can't
read a book about black people? Of course I am in favor of
inclusive curricula, critical US history, and less eurocentric
views of everything -- but that only applies relevantly once
students are in a position where _anything_ substantive about the
curriculum actually matters to them. If they cannot read the
textbooks, if they do not comprehend the ideas ...? If they
forget 90% of it within a month or two after the final
examination, does it matter what they forgot? (Actually I am not
in favor of _compulsory_ curriculum at all; let what is really
necessary enforce its own place in the curriculum -- if you _can_
do without it, fine; otherwise let students determine their own
curricula, with access to advice and alternatives -- it couldn't
be worse than what we are doing now!)
Personally I am intellectually appalled at the content of nearly
all curricula in all subjects I've ever seen. There seem to be
_no_ intellectually respectable textbooks so far as I know in the
US (am I wrong? there must be something out there?), and no
curricula I could have sat through without total boredom from the
age of about 7 or 8 (before which I was interested in almost
anything, it was all 'life-data').
Eugene Matusov gives good policy advice I think in saying that
the people who make decisions should be the people who have to
carry them out, and whose lives are mainly affected by them. Let
the students, even the youngest ones, choose what they will read
and study. At least then there will be people exercising judgment
about curricula for their own sakes and not trying to say what is
best for someone else. I would not presume to advise members of
another culture, saying that I know what is best for them,
especially if I did not understand their values, their view of
the world. I certainly don't understand the values, worldview, or
life-situation of people under the age of about 20 anymore
(lifestage amnesia is progressive, it does not apply just to the
infantile period). I certainly don't understand 8 year olds nor
do I believe any adult does. We are not morally or intellectually
qualified to make these choices for them.
But we are distant from students in more than just age. Few
influential educators share the social class perspectives of many
students -- even if we came from a lower social class originally:
there is a class-trajectory amnesia, too, at least on the rising
side. And we are also culturally unrepresentative by and large of
many significant groups (and yes, re-acculturation into the
hegemonic culture leads to a considerable culture-perspective
amnesia as well, which probably those who have it would be very
loathe to admit to -- when you stop living a certain set of
lifeways, you stop being able to think from their perspective, or
reconstruct how you once thought through them; what is left is
the self-delusion of memory). In these cases we are all the more
unqualified.
So of course are the business leaders. And so, in most respects,
are many of the conservative community leaders we find ourselves
in opposition to. But many parents, and some community leaders,
and some educators closer than most of us to the cultures of
various communities, can at least remind us that we see only from
a limited point of view -- one that is far too arrogant in its
universalism.
(I have not mentioned gender issues, which surely play an
analogous role in such arguments as well. I'm sure they'll come
up later.)
What substantial body of research do we have on what students
from lower social class backgrounds would like schools to teach
them? for example from drop-outs? from unemployed recent
graduates? from poor young women of color?
We do not need the business community to dictate the curriculum,
for it already dictates the criteria of hiring, and its work
methods dictate the skills needed to perform the jobs it creates.
What is our justification for _not_ teaching these skills (or
their more generalized prerequisite skills and knowledges) in
schools? What is our justification for graduating substantial
numbers of students who do not know how to do anything that any
employer (including us) would pay them even the minimum wage to
do? Is it our justification that they have at least forgotten
Shakespeare? algebra? biology?
I think we teach a middle-class, college-preparatory curriculum
because we don't know how to teach anything else, and because we
cannot believe that anything else could be equally desirable --
because we cannot imagine from another cultural point-of-view. (I
am not forgetting the diversity within other subcultures, I hope;
not only that some of these students will want a liberal arts
education, but also that what the others want may be totally
different from either a work-skills oriented curriculum or
anything else I can imagine. But I don't think anybody is
actually asking them ...)
I hope this sufficiently establishes my _bona fides_ as an
idealist in matters of education and curriculum! JAY.
JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
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