Good Guys, Bad Guys, and Stifling The Spirit of Inquiry

By Audrey Shabbas

What's going on in the social studies classrooms of America's schools? Recent polls of high school students tell us that Johnny thinks Nicaragua is in the Arabian Gulf and that Lebanon is in Central America.

There is, consequently, a national debate going on over how and what gets taught, and the neoconservative critics of the present system seem to be winning, as they point the finger of blame at the social sciences. After several years of attack on global education, international studies, ethnic studies, etc., the neoconservatives have called for the deathblow to the social sciences, leaving in their wake history and geography as the disciplines worth saving.

The educational guru of the neoconservative movement is Diane Ravitch, an educational historian at Columbia University. The movement's manifesto is the 22-page Education for Democracy, a joint project of the Educational Excellence Network (Diane Ravitch, chair), Freedom House (Leonard Sussman, director), and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), which published the work in 1987. Some may know the AFT as the once "liberal/progressive" teachers organization, but after 25 years with Albert Shanker at its helm, the organization has changed. New Yorkers who read Shanker's weekly column are well aware of his steady drift to the right.

Education for Democracy makes interesting reading. It begins with the call to have all students learn: (1) "Democracy is the worthiest form of human governance ever conceived," (2) "We cannot take its survival or its spread for granted," and (3) The values of our society "cannot be taken for granted or regarded as merely one set of options against which any other can be accepted as equally worthy."

History Only Through Western Eyes

With these as underlying assumptions, it is obvious that anthropology, critical thinking, and open inquiry, must all be scrapped. The teaching of history is then heralded as the guarantor of future good citizens. Furthermore, it must be only the history of Western civilization, chronologically taught (none of these "issues" or "problem-centered" approaches), combined with a good geography course, presumably so we will know where the "others" are.

Those whose teaching experience goes back to the McCarthy period will recognize language that is all too familiar. It is curious that an organization under the authority of the same person for a quarter of a century 'should become the champion of democracy—a term the document never defines. While attending the annual meeting of social studies educators, I asked the AFT representative promoting Education for Democracy, why the piece never defined democracy. He responded, "Look, lady, it's like Truman said about Somoza, 'Sure he's a bastard, but he's our bastard!...

It is clear who the "democracies" are. Ravitch and others divide the world into "our friends,our adversaries, and the Third World." The inference clearly is that we have no friends in the Third World.

While Diane Ravitch is the acknowledged guru, there are two other persons who share the neoconservative podium and whose philosophies permeate the AFT piece. Just a week before his untimely death, Chicago's mayor, Harold Washington, correctly described William Bennett (former secretary of education) as "the custodian of the dismantling of public education in America." Lynne Cheney of the National Endowment for the Humanities can be remembered for having orchestrated the national campaign against Ali Mazrui's groundbreaking film series "The Africans," which dared to offer an African perspective on African history. Cheney's campaign against this PBS series included newspaper ads that read, "if you hate America, you'll love 'The Africans."'

California's new "Framework for History/Social Science" is the triumvirate's test case. More than one commentator has called it the "Ravitch California Framework," for she was its principal author. The impact of the framework will be felt not only on education in California but throughout the country, since California is the model for which publishers will be cranking out new textbooks, and to which other states will be looking as they write their own guidelines.

Islamic History Ignored

The California framework is based on the chronological teaching of history and chooses 500 A.D. as a cutoff point for studying those ancient Middle Eastern societies to which the world owes so much and which form the basis of our "Judeo-Christian heritage." Teachers are instructed to emphasize the "major historical figures who helped establish these early societies and their codes of ethics, justice, and their rule of law ... whose ideas and teachings became enduring influences." The Prophet Mohammed does not appear in the catalogue of such figures. When challenged, California officials retorted: "He doesn't fit the timeframe." Only after considerable pressure from Arab-American and Muslim communities was similar language adopted to describe Mohammed within this timeframe, 500-1700 A.D., in which he does appear.

With regard to how the modern Middle East is to be taught, neither community pressure nor scholarly advice would sway the authors from their intent. High school sophomores will learn about the modern Middle East as a "political hotbed unsettled by the passions of nationalism, religion ... [in] continual ferment ... war, power struggles, use of terrorism." It is as though in some "pre-study" exercise they had asked students to brainstorm all the things that come first to their minds when they think about the Middle East (often done by teachers to elicit a catalogue of negative stereotypes that can be used as a basis for discussion). In this case, Ravitch took the catalogue of negative images and composed an introductory paragraph.

Good Guy Vs. Bad Guy

Against this background, students are to study the region through two countries—one good guy, Israel, and one bad guy, Syria. This good guy/bad guy dichotomy comes quite naturally from the team which divides the world into friends and enemies. The dichotomy here is spelled out in specific terms as to what students will be taught. About Israel: "...importance of the land in Jewish religious history ... holocaust ... its democratic parliamentary government, free press, and independent judiciary ... an economy overburdened by military expenditures ... precarious existence in a hostile region." About Syria: "...problems of illiteracy, shortage of health services, ethnic rivalries, religious tensions ... status of minorities ... control of the media." All of the items in the catalogue of "Life in Syria," it was pointed out, could be examined while studying Israel. The intent clearly is not to have students investigate in the spirit of open inquiry, but to tell them at the outset what they will find, thus dispensing with the need for investigation. When questioned about such an approach, State School Chief Bill Honig defended this as an "educationally sound approach, for, after all, Israel and Syria are as they are described."

Clearly the national debate over education does indeed impact on how the Middle East is taught, and how textbooks will treat the region. The Middle East contains Israel, a "friendly democracy," and other countries, which are "enemies" or part of the "Third World." Study one good guy and one bad guy and you understand the Middle East. Clearly, for those who care, their work is cut out for them.

Audrey Shabbas directs the office of Nadja: Women Concerned About the Middle East in Berkeley, CA, and is the editor of Nadja'sThe Arab World: A Handbook for Teachers.