Mike writes:
> I have a least a little understanding of how galling the spreading
>sludge of American cultures is to the rest of the world....
Without minimising the fact that the US is THE problem, there is no need
to be quite so appologetic. Last month was only my second time in the USA
(and the first time was a year earlier in Hawai'i which may not count)....
however through Holywood and RCA records (and other labels) I have lived
in a corner of the US for most of my life.
What I see is mediated through my own cultural surroundings, so it was
intersting to see if my perceptions of New York and San Diego matched with
actually being there. This is of course difficult because I am still
looking with my welsh-eyes. The availability (not spread or dominance) of
US culture is not of necessity, a BAD thing.
However it is the misfortune of some US citizens that you do not have
quite the same opportunity to engage in the media culture of the rest of
the world (with the minority exception of the BBC and some of our
commercial tv product like Mr Bean and Benny Hill). Overcoming solipsism
should be a priority, however being reflective about yourself is no bad
thing either. Am I correct in thinking there is no Geography curriculum
per se in US schools? It is mandatory for 14-16 year old children in Wales
to study California (seeing an atlas with the names of Califormina
locations translated into Welsh can be a bit dsiorientating). It is
mandatory for children aged 8-11 to study a developing(sic) country, with
"empathising" as a learning objective.
Why do your (Mike's) students not find the world a suitable challenge? US
history (save native American issues) is a wonderful source of studies of
conflict, liberation and fights for freedom. ( we Europeans a woefully
ignorant of US labor history ... but then I suspect so are many US
citizens).
Not having the exposure to others (even if the others we are exposed to
are you) is definately a loss. I have enjoyed my lifelong contacts with US
culture. New York turned out to be the most friendly city I have visited
anywhere in the world. It was an amazing buzz to engage easily and warmly
with such a diverse ethnic mix.
Whilst there I did a number of touristic things, however I eschewed the
Statue of Liberty ( green foam crowns must be the tackiest souvenir you
find anywhere). It is after all a cliched tourist event. On returning
home I saw the film of Angela's Ashes<< there is a potential long
digression here as to why the best Holywood directors, like Alan Parker,
are first generation emigre.. >>.This film forced me to re-evaluate my
relationship with the statue as it played such an important role in the
film as a symbol of hope and escape. Being of the '68 generation, I am
well versed in rhetoric of Yankee imperialism. The statue's symbolism was
lost on me after years of Viet Nam, El Salvador, the Middle East,
Nicaragua, Cuba etc etc etc. Without having too romantic a vision,
rethinking New York and it masses"yearning to be free" demonstrates what a
phenomenal and valuable resource the USA has been, and for many people
continues to be.
The other man's grass is not always greener ( I am the other man in this
case). This morning before work I watched a half hour of tv news. The
features were: what in the main UK newspapers, Mozambique, Pinochet, the
Brit Awards (the UK Grammy equivalent), and todays three major rugby
internationals. The Brit awards received most attention, follwed by the
rugby (with the match involving England (and Wales for that matter) taking
the prime time. Mozambique was a self congratulatory piece saying... with
the UK media saying how much better they are than the US media at
reporting Mozambique, and the newspaper review covered the main stories
of the day (Pinochet's dramatic recovery after a 18 hour plane journey)
the Brit awards (again) and a salacious novel written by an annoymous
Member of Parliament. The main cotrast between the CNN or CBS news stories
I saw were the length of time given to each item, which did allow for some
greater depth, but not much.
Watching BBC World News is somewhat better of course because a) it has to
fill 24 hours with news b) it has an international audience .
How does this effect education? There may be some simple indicators we
might look at. How much engagement does the US child get with
organisations like WWF (wild life not wrestling!), Greenpeace, Oxfam (itS
US equivalent???) and similar organisations? I know these organisations or
their local equivalents make inroads into education in European schools.
Has the presence of the internet made a difference? <<most sites are US
based, but it is nw possible to be in touch with the rest of the world in
ways never before imagined as my experience in Chilean villages
indicated>>. .
Although it requires hard work to achieve genuine collaboration and
empathy we do have some evidence that (internet and other) contact can
lead to collaboration, and that in turn to understanding. There is some
reporting of our work on
http://weblife.bangor.ac.uk/addysg/cyrsiau/wep/wephome.html
Just how much empathy can be gained through mediated experience? Can
curricula develop empathy? I am much taken by Kinchloe, J. L. & Steinberg,
S. R. (1993). A Tentative Description of Post-Formal Thinking: The
Critical Confrontation with Cognitive theory. Harvard Educational Review,
63 (3), 296-319. They present a curriculum based on exploring and
contrasting patterns of similarity and difference arising from different
cultural contexts, to understand the sources of those differences and
similarities. For all its failings with regard to Inuit people, I think
Bruner's MACOS was a step in a forwards drection. <<Oddly in the US this
was seen as a science curriculum and in the UK it was viewd as a
humanities curriculum>>.
I write this as a supporter of a "nationalist" political party, a speaker
of a language which only has 250,000 other speakers, and for a long time a
supporter of the 4th International. I write this as a subject ( we aren't
citizens in the UK) of what was one of the world's major imperialist
powers, where Welsh people as much as any were involved in the imperial
expansion (we are the Jones's that folks needed to keep up with) .
However I recognise USA has been a tremendous resource for the world as
well as being one of its major problems.
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