That Dad-blamed "D" Word
Let’s be realistic. “Diversity” means “the condition of being diverse.” “Diverse” means “different,” or “partly or totally unlike in nature, form, or quality.” Tradition is much better than diversity. Tradition is, well, traditional. Whenever I think of how the word “tradition” was invented to signify “cultural continuity in social attitudes, customs, and institutions,” I breathe a sigh of relief. A school board that reveres traditional activities, or traditional anything, is to be commended.
With the passage of a landmark policy on non-school activities and information dissemination in the schools, Washington County School Board should not be content to rest on its laurels. More discussion should be devoted to how something as pernicious as diversity is embodied in the basic school curriculum. Forget school-sanctioned events. As it stands, children could come home from regular classrooms talking about “diversity,” a word that is a euphemism for all things nontraditional.
Consider the fact that Virginia, with its innovative Standards of Learning, is considered a model of curriculum reform. When Leah Vukmir and William Durden wrote "Introducing Rigorous Standards into Wisconsin's Schools: The Virginia Model," they were highlighting the exceptional job Virginia has done to classify learning objectives over thirteen years of schooling, from kindergarten to graduation. What were they thinking? Surely they could have picked Utah, or even South Carolina, to exemplify right thinking for the rest of the educational world.
And why is that? Diversity! Just read The Virginia Standards of Learning, a government document published in Richmond and also free for view on the World Wide Web. Diversity is written all over the face of this document. It is written between the lines. Although schoolchildren are introduced to the concept as early as kindergarten, that is not enough for our broad-minded state education system. Diversity is cycled and recycled throughout the curriculum, from science to English to social studies. Even math!
For example, History-Social Science Standard 3.12 boldly states the following objective: “The student will recognize that Americans are a people of diverse ethnic origins, customs, and traditions, who are united by the basic principles of a republican form of government and respect for individual rights and freedoms.” Should schools be teaching our children that Americans by definition are diverse? That they respect individual rights and freedoms? Shouldn’t inherently volatile concepts be taught in the home?
If it’s not worrisome enough to find “diverse” and “tradition” mentioned in the same sentence, just consider Science Standard 3.6: “The student will investigate and understand that environments support a diversity of plants and animals that share limited resources.” If we start teaching children that diversity exists not only in the American way of life but also in nature, there is no telling where their minds will take them. They might start putting two and two together.
It gets worse. English Standard 12.3 expects seniors to “relate literary works and authors to major themes and issues of their eras.” I’m not sure high school seniors are ready to discuss “a matter that is in dispute between two or more parties.” Seniors who are voting, or who are close to becoming voting members of society, should immerse themselves in literature that avoids major issues and themes, especially issues and themes of contemporary American society.
Not even mathematics is sacred. Geometry students studying logical symbols such as Venn diagrams to quantify verbal arguments must, according to Standard G1, identify “the converse, inverse, and contrapositive of a conditional statement.” Just think. This SOL assumes that adolescents can be trusted with alternative points of view. It presumes that a truth can be conditional. What’s next? Abandonment of family values?
Felicia Mitchell. First published in Washington County News (Abingdon, VA), 15 December 2004, p. A4. WCN is a publication of Media General Operations. Copyright 2004.
With the passage of a landmark policy on non-school activities and information dissemination in the schools, Washington County School Board should not be content to rest on its laurels. More discussion should be devoted to how something as pernicious as diversity is embodied in the basic school curriculum. Forget school-sanctioned events. As it stands, children could come home from regular classrooms talking about “diversity,” a word that is a euphemism for all things nontraditional.
Consider the fact that Virginia, with its innovative Standards of Learning, is considered a model of curriculum reform. When Leah Vukmir and William Durden wrote "Introducing Rigorous Standards into Wisconsin's Schools: The Virginia Model," they were highlighting the exceptional job Virginia has done to classify learning objectives over thirteen years of schooling, from kindergarten to graduation. What were they thinking? Surely they could have picked Utah, or even South Carolina, to exemplify right thinking for the rest of the educational world.
And why is that? Diversity! Just read The Virginia Standards of Learning, a government document published in Richmond and also free for view on the World Wide Web. Diversity is written all over the face of this document. It is written between the lines. Although schoolchildren are introduced to the concept as early as kindergarten, that is not enough for our broad-minded state education system. Diversity is cycled and recycled throughout the curriculum, from science to English to social studies. Even math!
For example, History-Social Science Standard 3.12 boldly states the following objective: “The student will recognize that Americans are a people of diverse ethnic origins, customs, and traditions, who are united by the basic principles of a republican form of government and respect for individual rights and freedoms.” Should schools be teaching our children that Americans by definition are diverse? That they respect individual rights and freedoms? Shouldn’t inherently volatile concepts be taught in the home?
If it’s not worrisome enough to find “diverse” and “tradition” mentioned in the same sentence, just consider Science Standard 3.6: “The student will investigate and understand that environments support a diversity of plants and animals that share limited resources.” If we start teaching children that diversity exists not only in the American way of life but also in nature, there is no telling where their minds will take them. They might start putting two and two together.
It gets worse. English Standard 12.3 expects seniors to “relate literary works and authors to major themes and issues of their eras.” I’m not sure high school seniors are ready to discuss “a matter that is in dispute between two or more parties.” Seniors who are voting, or who are close to becoming voting members of society, should immerse themselves in literature that avoids major issues and themes, especially issues and themes of contemporary American society.
Not even mathematics is sacred. Geometry students studying logical symbols such as Venn diagrams to quantify verbal arguments must, according to Standard G1, identify “the converse, inverse, and contrapositive of a conditional statement.” Just think. This SOL assumes that adolescents can be trusted with alternative points of view. It presumes that a truth can be conditional. What’s next? Abandonment of family values?
Felicia Mitchell. First published in Washington County News (Abingdon, VA), 15 December 2004, p. A4. WCN is a publication of Media General Operations. Copyright 2004.
posted by Felicia Mitchell | 6:46 PM
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