Today, the United States faces some serious problems with the public education system. There are any number of issues we could go into, like anemic test scores, racial segregation, or funding woes, but there is one less talked-about problem in the educational process that is so serious, it rises to the level of a national crisis: the social studies curriculum. There is a massive gap in information relating to the study of countries other than the United States, and it’s so bad that change is not even an option.
 | | American children will be continue to be dunces unless the education system is reformed |
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I spent most of my grammar school life from Kindergarten to 12th grade in public schools in the Midwest, with the exception of grades 4 through 7, which were spent in Saudi Arabia, India, and England. While abroad, I attended American schools with American teachers and an American curriculum. Living and attending school in other countries opened my horizons to the world, a fortunate circumstance from which I am still benefiting from in my mid-20s. I can easily adapt to new situations, understand events beyond national borders, and relate to people of very different backgrounds from my own. But foreign travel is an experience not afforded to most children growing up in America. Children who haven’t been exposed to different cultures need a strong educational foundation to bolster their understanding of the world outside their generally narrow spheres.
It seems unfair to blame the teachers for the lack of breadth in social understanding. In my experience, American public school teachers in middle class neighborhoods were by and large excellent and pushed me to do well. And we should know by now that the kids can’t be blamed either; if their curricula are not challenging enough, or somehow breed in them a large dose of cultural ignorance, then it is a problem with the institutions we have created for them. Something has to be done, and the changes need to happen at the federal level. Congress and the administration should get involved in solving the problem. I’ll outline action steps a bit later; first let me recount a few episodes that have made this issue personal.
In the Midwest, my peers’ knowledge about foreign cultures, foreign governments, foreign languages, world geography, world history, and most religions was abysmal. As a senior in high school, I was being asked ridiculous questions such as if Spanish was the national language in India, the native country of my parents. Compare that to first grade, when one of my friends asked my mother if India had any cars.
Then there was the time in middle school when someone asked, “Whose side were you on in the Gulf War: the Americans’ or the Saudis’?” Never mind that the two countries were allies against Iraq in 1991. This kid didn’t know the difference between a U.S. ally and a U.S. enemy in a serious war, and probably couldn’t have pointed either country out on a map anyway.
But is this such a big deal, in the grand scheme of things? What would be so bad about letting our kids learn the usual stuff., shuffling them along into their colleges and cubicles, and not worrying ourselves with teaching them about the world outside of American borders? Does it matter if our adult population is ignorant about world events?
To the credit of the education system in place today, most kids are not instilled with bigotry and chauvinism as it relates to race or national origin when they attend school, but that’s not enough. The truth is, we are so engaged in the world today, and on so many levels, that we cannot afford to be an uninformed citizenry for much longer, and we can no longer perpetuate its development. Our very survival as a country depends on it.
World relations are much more complex and arguably more dangerous now than during the Cold War. Since 1991, the game of survival as a nation has become trickier. Back then, the US’s primary foreign policy goals were containing communism and keeping tabs on the USSR. Now we face any number of new challenges like rapidly shifting security alliances, terrorism in our homeland, an intimately connected and vulnerable global communications network, AIDS and other epidemics, a U.S. military stretched thin by recent wars, and 8-10 countries in possession of nuclear weapons.
The major political issues of the 2004 presidential race are perfect examples of how America is knee deep in foreign entanglements which require a high level of understanding. Democratic hopeful John Kerry is bashing the outsourcing of jobs to foreign countries as he speaks on the campaign trail. Meanwhile, President George W. Bush is waging an extremely expensive and dangerous “War on Terror,” which includes the violent takeover of a Middle Eastern country and the loss of over 1,000 American lives to date. Based on the narrow and often skimpy education most Americans receive in school, I believe we are utterly ill-equipped as a society to make well-informed decisions about either of these issues. Instead, our thoughts are molded from the fiery political machinations from this side or the other, and the relentless waxings of media outlets, many of which are unabashedly biased. Like the citizenry of Rome in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, we are a massive mob of people with a short attention span that can be easily swayed based on a sound bite from the 9/11 Commission or the latest unemployment figure, rather than a comprehensive understanding of an issue. Or worse yet, we may be a mass of people who simply don’t care unless it directly affects us, our family, or our friends.
One major recent event should bring home why more serious attempts at education reform should be sought. When two passenger jetliners exploded into the World Trade Center on September 11, as a nation we were shocked. Why would anyone do this to us? Why do they hate us? As a resident and municipal employee of New York City, I saw it as a personal attack. Having lived in Saudi Arabia when I was younger, it brought things full circle. I wasn’t nearly as surprised as most Americans. It made sense to me that people in the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia, felt that way about Americans. But if I hadn’t spent that time in Saudi and seen what I saw, my education would not have prepared me to come to grips with this event in its socio-political context. Without any background on events going on in the Middle East, there was no way for American citizens, or even our leaders, to have known how desperate the situation was getting, and how a team of 19 Al Qaeda suicide hijackers could form. I don’t blame the media for this: it’s a business, and therefore only answers to its customers. But our public schools are not businesses; they exist for the public good, and as such they need to be held to the highest standard. A better educated public will eventually produce a more responsible media.
One disturbing consequence of our low standards is our abject ignorance on the 9/11 issue: our ignorance about Middle Eastern history, our ignorance of America’s involvements in the Middle East, our ignorance about the effects of European colonial powers on the region, and on top of all that, our ignorance of the growing religious militancy and its aims, our ignorance of Arabic, Islam, the manner in which the Saudi government rules, and the economics of the region, all of which have came back to bite us in the ass. Perhaps it wouldn’t have prevented the attack, perhaps it would have. Regardless, there’s a domino effect at work here: an inadequately educated population creates an inadequately constructed government. This is at least part of the reason why we are unprepared to manage the “War on Terror,” which is in its nascent stages, and has been run poorly from the onset. We’ll have to live with its negative repercussions for decades to come. And if that weren’t bad enough, it is likely that our economy will continue to suffer as we fail to compete with other countries which have a better understanding of how the world works, and how to do business with people outside of their national borders. On the plus side, maybe these problems will at least serve as a wake-up call for our educational establishment.
There are many ways to correct the problem. First of all, foreign languages should be taught earlier, when they are easier to learn and more years are available for study, rather than in high school, when a majority of students will never gain a mastery of the language. We’re mostly wasting our time if we’re trying to teach French or Latin starting in 9th grade (note that most people learn languages very early in life rather than as adults). Languages can expand a young child’s world, and allow them to explore a new line of thinking about the same objects and ideas. In fact, foreign language classes should be mandatory, starting in first or second grade, and continuing on through high school. Opponents have argued that this would confuse children. On the contrary, studies have shown multilingual kids have higher capacities for performing well cognitively. If most other countries do it, why can’t we? Why is our bar lower?
Another mandatory practice that we should consider is some form of exchange program, also starting at younger ages. A few high schools already do this, but they should start in middle school, by which time children will have picked up adequate foreign language skills. If not an exchange, there should be mandatory chaperoned educational trips during summer or winter breaks. Exchanges and trips would do a world of good by giving lessons about the globe, and America’s place on it. In some communities, these steps are already being taken, and their forward thinking should be applauded.
Any government classes should cover not just the U.S. civic system, but those of foreign countries as well. English classes need to increase breadth to cover great works of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction from outside of just America and Western Europe. History classes are in want of a larger perspective than what is offered by the strict Ameri-centric curriculum that currently exists. Geography is perhaps the most dire case— Americans need to know where countries and cities are located on a map! We simply don’t know our way around in the world, and we’re touting ourselves as the leaders.
All of these things are not too difficult to achieve in a short time frame provided we approach these changes with a focused goal in mind, and the determination to make the education system more functional and beneficial for our children. Considering what is at stake, there is no reason why we can’t. There is no government conspiracy aiming at keeping our kids ignorant; textbook content isn’t shackled by corporate profit-seeking. If funding trips or foreign language teachers is a barrier, let’s take it from the $87 billion “War on Terror” pot: better education is exponentially more worthwhile an investment in future security than killing or torturing people in the Middle East.
There will be those in our country who are fearful of dramatic changes in the way our children learn; if raising the bar in education for a change frightens them, perhaps they need to be schooled.
