EDUCATION AND "AFFIRMATIVE ACTION"?


Some of us remember a few years back, when UC Berkeley determined that Asians were no longer "target" minorities, and the handwriting on one department's bathroom wall on campus read: "Lower the curve: Kill a chink."

Since then, there's been such a furor over dismissing more and more groups from "affirmative action," that some nebulous headway (ain't that always the way?) may be forthcoming: this Spring, USA Today published an article titled "University of California limits loss of minorities," in which we read that, "Minority students admitted to the University of California appear to have heeded pleas from administrators, professors and alumni to enroll there despite the system's affirmative action ban. The percentage of underrepresented minorities (African American, Hispanic and American Indian) in the freshman class on the university's eight campuses this fall will drop only slightly, to 15.2 percent from 17.6 percent last year. But at the system's two most selective campuses, UC Berkeley and UCLA, the decline will be sharper. Those campuses will enroll their lowest numbers of minorities in nearly two decades" (Charisse Jones, USA Today, May 21, 1998, A3).

We wonder, however, what (or whose) goal has been met here: yes, students may have "heeded pleas from administrators," et al, and those students will ostensibly garner a fine education. We're still not sure about what's around the bend, or the attitude about that academic "curve"...

In point of fact, the onset of the current academic year saw the release of yet further confirmation of the demerits of exclusion: According to a USA Today report, there is still a growing disparity between the SAT scores of students who attend suburban schools and those in urban and rural areas. Not incidentally, 40-50 percent of African American and Latino students who take the SAT live in large cities. In addition, SAT scores of students whose families are possess less formal education continue falling further below the national average, while the scores of students from well-educated families are rising further above the average. And, while averages on the test for girls have increased more than for boys in the last decade, the female average score is still 42 points below the male average score. (USA Today, September 2, 1998, D2) What's wrong with this picture? Do the math...



COASTAL BARRIERS AND REFUGES FOR BILINGUALISM


In California, the movement is still afoot to dismiss all forms of state-santioned bilingualism. At the same time, however, the public school system in Miami is expanding bilingual education, acknowledging that students will benefit from the ability to speak, read, and write in both English and Spanish when preparing for career opportunities in heavily bilingual communities, such as those in many parts of Florida (and California.) The Los Angeles Times reports that, "There was little protest and much praise when the school board this year endorsed a plan to increase bilingual teaching for all students, not just those with limited English skills, from K-12. Other school districts nationwide have come to similar conclusions. There are at least 200 programs in 20 states that immerse students in English and another language" (Nick Anderson, Los Angeles Times, "Miami sees bilingual training as vital" as published in The Seattle Times, May 26, 1998, A3). On the issue of "pride," STANDARDS continues to take the position expressed so well by author Toni Morrison, in her introduction to Race-ing Justice, Engendering Power. Morrison conducts an investigation of the Thomas-Hill scandal with a sense of individual outrage, as well as communal renegotiation (which is, after all, her style). During a long comparison of Clarence Thomas' rise to the Supreme Court to Robinson Crusoe's relationship to the indigenous character, Friday, Morrison concludes:

"Voluntary entrance into another culture, voluntary sharing of more than one culture, has certain satisfaction to mitigate the problems that might ensue. But being rescued into an adversarial culture can carry a huge debt. This debt one feels one owes to the rescuer can be paid, simply, honorably, in lifetime service. But if in the transaction the rescued loses his idiom, the language of his culture, there may be other debts outstanding. ... No culture ever quite measures up to our expectations of it without a generous dose of romaticism, self-delusion, or simple compassion. Sometimes it seems easier, emotionally and professionally, to deny it, ignore it, erase it, even destroy it. And if the language of one's own culture is lost or surrendered, one may be forced to describe that culture in the language of the rescuing one. ...Minus one's own idiom ... it becomes easy to confuse the metaphors embedded in the blood language of one's own culture with the objects they stand for ... Under such circumstances it is not just easy to speak the master's language, it is necessary. ...Such rhetorical strategies become necessary because, without one's own idiom, there is no other language to speak."

We hear that. But what are our children hearing? In an article titled "'We the People' or WWW?," Karen Thomas of USA Today reports that, "Only 74 percent of teens in a new survey knew that Al Gore is the Vice President, but 90 percent knew Leonardo DiCaprio stars in the movie 'Titanic.' 95 percent knew that Will Smith starred in the television series 'Fresh Prince.' The survey of 600 teens was sponsored by the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia in order to compare teens' knowledge of the Constitution with their knowledge of pop culture. Teens apparently know a great deal more about pop culture. For example, only 25 percent knew that the Constitution was written in Philadelphia, but 75 percent knew that the ZIP code 90210 is for Beverly Hills. Only 35 percent knew that "We the People" are the first three words of the Constitution, but 71 percent knew that www are the first three letters of a Web address. 81 percent knew there were three brothers in the group Hanson, but only 21 percent knew there are 100 senators." (September 3, 1998, D6)

Talk about "the master's language." With the advent of the Taco Bell's faux-Evita chihuahua "bilingual spokeshound" and the national outcry from Chicanos against the franchise's efforts to fly the Mexican flag, we shudder to think what further dilution "pop culture" continues to bring to the tempermental river between ethnic cultures and cross-cultural understanding...



FRANCES FARMER REVISTED


Remember the scene in the adulterated biographical film Frances, starring a young Jessica Lange, where Frances Farmer is in high school and reads her winning essay decrying god, church and state to a horrified auditorium? Seems Farmer's '90's contemporary is facing some of the same derision: A high school sophomore, MayKait Durkee, at Fallbrook Union High School (50 miles north of San Diego, California) who objects to reciting the Pledge of Allegiance is fighting for the right to sit quietly during the daily exercise of patriotism. The student said she does not believe in God, thinks the United States government is corrupt and that American society is too violent, so she should not have to show respect for a country that has so many problems. The student told her world history teacher, Lutz Zastrow, that she would sit quietly at her desk while the rest of the class stood for the pledge. When the class finished, Zastrow ordered the student to stand in front of the class and recite the pledge by herself. The student refused, and the teacher threatened her with detention and sent her to the principal's office. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit in behalf of the 15 year old to protect her First Amendment free speech rights. (Simpson Education Communication's editor's notes that, "In a 1942 decision in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, the United States Supreme Court ruled that students could not be required to recite the Pledge of Allegiance because forcing them to do so requires the individual to communicate by word and sign acceptance of state-mandated political and religious ideas.") Original story appeared via the Associated Press, "Girl fights for right to skip Pledge" as published in the Peninsula Daily News, May 31, 1998, C1.

As educators and students, we sometimes confuse judgemental thinking with critical thinking. Most of us have worked with students who share concerns similar to the California teen in the story above. Many of us have had moments of private concerns, or public outrage, about the same issues. Here's the thing, though: a refusal to show respect for something that has "so many problems" is the kind of thinking that leads us, as a nation, not only to apathy, but to a bitter prejudice. If we apply the same logic to the issue of homelessness, we don't have to honor or respect people who don't have homes, rather than identifying and working to remediate the problems that create homelessness. Same goes for poverty, the "welfare state," our "race wars" and the other intolerances we daily breed amongst ourselves.

The advisory board of educators who contribute ideas and suggestions to STANDARDS has regularly pointed out that many students can move beyond this blanket dismissal of nation and state by analyzing the content and origins of documents like the "Pledge of Allegiance" and "The Declaration of Independence." Fact is, those works were never meant to include, and certainly not to represent, many of us. With that in mind, we nourish the intrisic pride in ourselves and others, to begin building our own individual and communal code of ethics, sources of allegiance, and declarations of freedom.

Here's a good example of renewing individual and communal pride, from a reservation school in Arizona:

In the 1993 school year, teachers at Baboquivari Middle School on the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation sent students to the principal's office for discipline 1,399 times. But over the next three years, disciplinary referrals dropped 54 percent, to 639 last school year. The principal and some teachers at the school 60 miles west of Tucson credit the steady drop in violence and other misbehavior to revival of an O'odham tradition- telling stories. In 1994, the school launched a program in which tribe members visit students, primarily at-risk students, and tell old stories and help renew fading cultural traditions.
--Enric Volante, The Arizona Daily Star;
published as "Trouble-plagued reservation school has telling change"
in The Seattle Times, May 31, 1998, p. A8

Other schools have begun creative writing projects, autobiographies, geneology, story quilts, and art exhibits that reassert pride, toward staving off the bitterness and violence that comes of despising difference. Forcing students to maintain the status quo hasn't worked in this nation's schools for the entirety of this century and, despite television "news magazines'" reportage on the streamlined societies in Asia where intolerance of difference is said to force "respect," we don't see that system playing very well on the US national scene.


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Text and graphics © 1998 by Canéla Analucinda Jaramillo

Again we thank Dr. Steven W. Simpson, Simpson Communications, for keeping us abreast of current educational news.