From: Michael Wiik (mwiik@messagenet.com)
Date: Sat Aug 24 2002 - 11:53:11 MDT
Jus found this: might help explain some things especially wrt immigrants
particpation (or lack of) in american culture and society...
<<Anti-Social Studies
So many ideas for improving the curriculum--all of them bad.
...
Alan Schulman, a participant in a panel examining "The Impact of
September 11th on Social Studies Professionals" at a meeting of a
Greater New York NCSS-affiliate chapter, got to the heart of the matter.
Responding to a teacher who said her students had been wanting to know
more about American history since the attacks, he said, "We need to de-
exceptionalize the United States. We're just another country and another
group of people."
...
Many states have embraced the NCSS's idea that you don't need to know
any American history to be an effective citizen. Hawaii, Wisconsin,
Arkansas, Maine, Michigan, and Minnesota, among others, use the NCSS
guidelines as the model for their state social studies standards and
thus require their students to study no history at all. The states that
are developing strong history standards--notably Massachusetts,
California, Texas, and Virginia--still confront the problem of finding
teachers who can put them into practice. Many young people entering
teaching today went to schools where, thanks in part to the influence of
NCSS, their experience with American history was largely limited to
reports on Sojourner Truth, dioramas of Navajo villages, and "reasoned
judgments about specific cultural responses to persistent human issues."
...
THAT A PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION of teachers would do nothing to
encourage kids to think of themselves as Americans with a common history
and common ideals will surprise no seasoned observer of the nation's
schools.>>
http://messagenet.com/fw/f1173.html
aka
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/188qolmw.asp
-- ====================================================================== Michael Wiik Principal Messagenet Communications Research http://messagenet.com ======================================================================
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