EDUCATION BEYOND POLITICS
377
parents' comments are being treated as symptoms, therapeutically. I think
pushing this kind of mindlessness is a real problem.
Abigail Thernstrorn:
Most parents believe in God and country, and
when their kids come home from school and say, "Did you know that
Christopher Columbus was a racist homophobe?" why don't they get
upset?
AI Shanker:
If the parent complains, the parent is told that the young–
sters are taught this way to raise their self-esteem, because if they have
low self-esteem they can't learn. And they have low self-esteem because
the people who have been in power up to now have imposed a cur–
riculum upon us. And when these kids see what their heritage is, and
how they have been brainwashed, they will achieve well. Therefore, if
you want your youngsters to achieve well, you'll support this. Parents
will also be told that this self-esteem rationale is legitimate and scientific.
And there's no one there to say, "Look, lots of groups throughout his–
tory have had high self-esteem and have not been literate or productive
or ethical. "
The fact is there has been a lot left out and distorted in our curricu–
lum and textbooks about the contributions of minorities. This is and al–
ways has been a multicultural country. I support multicultural education.
But what I see happening and don't support are "-centric " educations
and the self-esteem argument used to support them.
Wilson Moses:
Well, we should convince people that folks who have
inferiority complexes are often over-achievers. Then we can convince the
parents - I am being sarcastic - to instill inferiority complexes in their
children.
Fred Siegel:
Part of the reason that there isn't as much protest as might
be expected is that people sort themselves out. Families place their chil–
dren in private or parochial schools, or they move to more congenial
districts. The net effect is that the public schools are being abandoned by
a significant part of the middle class. Families flee to suburban public
schools that are functionally private, that is, most of the local taxes are
directly devoted to the schools. Faced with intractable institutions that
seem incapable of performing their basic missions, a significant portion of
the population has seceded from public social institutions. It is part of
what might be described as a double secession in which, for different
reasons, both part of the middle class and part of the black underclass
secede from common institutions and a common culture.
On a second point, it is important to note that the enabling myth
