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PARTISAN REVIEW
DR:
You know, self-esteem is really based on accomplishment. The
teachers are convinced of the importance of self-esteem, yet its primacy in
the classroom weakens teachers' authority to the point that they can't say
anything wounding to self-esteem. This paralyzes them. For example,
there is the prevalent assertion, "Tracking is bad." What I see happening
now, as a result of the almost overwhelming belief that you mustn't have
tracking, is that you bore the gifted students and humiliate the slower
students.
DB:
Multiculturalism, it seems to me, comes in several forms. One favors
the study of various cultures for the sake of new knowledge. And another,
which is more controversial, is the belief that the study of non-Western
cultures promotes self-esteem in minorities. The debate over multicul –
turalism has become terribly political.
DR:
It's a visible debate, but it's a small part of the mammoth structure of
higher education.
It
operates in the humanities, in history, sociology, an–
thropology, and social psychology, but not in economics; very little in
government; not at all in the sciences. And it isn't something one is going
to find to a high degree among the community colleges.
DB:
Doesn't the support of a multicultural curriculum have something to
do with findings that when black students are asked to read Shakespeare
they don't find it interesting? On the other hand , the poetry of Langston
Hughes resonates with them; it reflects their dialect. How can educators
persuade their students to transcend their particular backgrounds? How do
you overcome that?
DR:
I'm reminded of a totally contrary story by the founding dean of the
University of Massachusetts at Boston, Paul Gagnon, an historian who has
been writing on these topics. He has also written about French higher
education, so he's multicultural in that larger sense. When UMass/Boston
was founded in the sixties it became tilted toward the vulnerable fields of
faculty radicalism. The University wanted to adapt to its urban setting
along the lines we were just mentioning, including being attractive to
black undergraduates. Gagnon ironically recalled that a black student had
come to him and asked, "Why can't
we
have Shakespeare? They have
him at the Amherst campus." And I thought that was an interesting
comment on this very theme. Surely I have no objections to having
Langston Hughes in the curriculum. What I'm concerned about on the
college level is that students read the same books at the same time and
