PHK
When will we ever learn?
Late last month, a friend forwarded me an intriguing list entitled “10 Things Americans Can do to Support Public Diplomacy.” It looked as if the list had come from the State Department’s Bureau of Public Affairs since most of the items related to community support for State Department programs, but maybe not.
When I tried to find the list myself on State’s website, however, I couldn’t – but perhaps it’s just my own inability to find things on an overly busy page - although I did try all the possible links I could think of as well as the search engine before giving up.
Anyway, what most interested me in this “what-Americans-can-do” public diplomacy list was the second suggestion. This is the importance of increasing, adding to and sustaining foreign language training, world history and geography in American curricula from kindergarten on up. In fact, I concluded a talk with this very suggestion at a local service organization here in New Mexico earlier in the month. For a multiethnic country with a large and diverse immigrant population you would think this would be a no-brainer. But it’s not: the social sciences, geography and foreign language study have been ignored – or shortchanged - for years in these United States. The "No Child Left Behind" farce has just made it worse.
One of my former University of New Mexico students – an Iranian – had told me that at the time of the 2003 invasion of Iraq far too many of his UNM classmates had asked him what he thought about the US invading his home country. This was not true for the students in that 300 level upper division class I was then teaching – but then these upper division students were mostly political science and history majors – and at least one of them had already been in Iraq. Several others had lived overseas including various countries in the Middle East.
If I ever teach comparative politics again at the 200 level, however, I would begin and end with a map quiz. If I were to teach it outside New Mexico, I'd also include a map quiz of the US because far too many Americans think Texas' western border is with Arizona and that we in New Mexico still use the peso.
All show, but where's the go?
The W administration talks a good game – as this list suggests – but its focus on education seems to be limited to enforcing the teaching of reading and arithmetic.
Now I agree – it is crucial to have a society which can read and do math – but what about navigational skills – like map reading? My son’s great at it – but then he went to middle school in Finland where geography and orienteering were part of the curriculum – and we also dragged him all over the globe - from Moscow to Manila via Athens and Helsinki - so maybe he learned some of this stuff out of sheer necessity.
But what about the substance?
And I don’t mean the pseudo-science of “intelligent design.” Sorry, I’m a firm Darwinist and a believer in the scientific method. Besides geography, world history and foreign languages, I also think science labs, music, art, drama and recess belong back in the schools.
Teaching basic reading and math skills should not monopolize a curriculum. In fact, it’s a lot more fun to improve one’s reading skills by reading something interesting – that intrigues and engages the mind. Maybe that’s why the Harry Potter books are such a rage. The kids who read them can read. But then they need to be challenged further.