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PARTISAN REVIEW
or color or sex. That's not what it's about. I don't think the university
is or should be attempting to be therapeutic. It's not designed to solve
people's personal problems. We should rid ourselves of them and let that
be known. People of prominence and esteem and authority ought to
speak out and let their views be known. I could make a speech about
what the university should do, but I'll refrain from that. You all make
your living that way. But I would be satisfied if we would assert our–
selves strongly about what we are not supposed to do.
Jean Eishtain:
I agree with Vann Woodward. But first I wanted to re–
spond
to
Celeste's comments about the freedom to learn and good
teaching. Good teachers require good students, students with the capac–
ity to sit still and be disciplined, to get their homework in on time and
so on. To do so, students need stable homes. If we want to have a large
impact on education, we must promulgate public policies that support
stable two-parent households. All the evidence we have from research on
the family indicates that a kid gets a better start in life on every scale -
education, employment, and so on - if that child has a stable home life.
But in the last several decades we have seen the deinstitutionalization of
the family. This has had devastating consequences, particularly in the mi–
nority community. We have elementary school teachers who quit teach–
ing, not just because there isn't enough money in it, but because more
and more kids are angry and disoriented. They come in and want to beat
up other kids, and there's no one you can talk to about it. The parents
are not there or are too strapped to pay attention. But whenever you
talk about family issues, you're immediately called a reactionary. We must
resist that. So you can't deal with education in isolation; you've got to
look at the wider social ecology. If we were to move toward public
policies to help keep families stable, we'd see some real changes. Look at
a group of kids and see who's most at risk for poverty. It is the one who
isn't in a two-parent household.
c.
Vann Woodward:
Would you want to be identified with the idea
that the university should assume social responsibility for the stability of
the American family?
Jean Eishtain:
No . I was talking about the elementary school and
about what kids bring
to
the classroom, whether or not families there
are involved in the educational process and can support and sustain the
notion of discipline, of doing homework, and so on. If we're looking at
what is to be done, for education, I think we can't do that in isolation.
