DEALING WITH MERITOCRACY IN DEMOCRACY
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schools, actual classrooms, actual teachers. What I do not know-and I
believe no one knows-is whether the historical culture can still be taught
effectively in schools (as in our inner cities), in which the majority of stu–
dents are African American and Latino. If it can be, I would like to see it
continued. It would not of course be continued in the form it took in the
1950s.
It
would tell a somewhat different story, incorporating the adapta–
tions we have seen in recent decades, in which the roles of immigrants,
minorities, women, have been expanded, but in which the story is still a
positive one. It would be the story of a changing nation successfully incor–
porating new elements, but still one nation, in becoming
if
not in reality,
in all aspects. I would adopt as the theme for this kind of education the
title of Alan Wolfe's new book,
One Nation After All.
If we go into our classrooms, do we find that the historical culture for
our inner-city students is simply oppressive, unconnected with their lives,
denied by their experience? That experience we know is also in part "con–
structed" and maybe these students have already been subjected to so much
deadly criticism of the society from various sources that reach them, from
the mass media to ideologists of all kinds, that they see their experience as
one of denial and oppression rather than as one of opportunity. In other
words, how disaffected are they with the "historical culture"? I think this
is a much more important question for research than the conflicts over
what should be done in the curriculum. Because what should be done has
to be affected by who the students are, what they understand, how they see
their experience.
I have seen evidence on both sides, in accounts of current schools and
in some research, but we know remarkably little of how the traditional
curricula of the "historic culture" or the newer multicultural curricula
fare with students. By knowing more we will be in a better position to
respond to the conflict between historical cultures and multi-cultures.
Peter
Wood: We've run over our time so I think we'll have to limit our–
selves to two questions. Anyone?
Speaker: I have a slight quibble with you when you say that science and math–
ematics, etc. have not been affected. Billions of dollars are spent in America
every year and millions of people indulge in alternative medical procedures.
Most,
if
not all, of them have irrational, non-Enlightenment-based theory as a
substructure. In addition, things like acupuncture and other Chinese forms of
treatment, Hindu forms of treatment, American Indian forms of treatment are
popular. Now, I understand perfectly well what you mean by "multicultural–
ism" but this whole phenomenon has to be at least the effect of what
multiculturalism does in other areas.
