[Prudence]

Here's my biased take on the matter:

I originally intended to be a history teacher -- high school level. But the teaching program at the state college (and not even one of the big names, just a regional state school) required a special application for anyone wanting to teach history. English lit? No problem. Math? Come right in. History/social studies? Fill out the 5 page questionnaire detailing your "multicultural experience." How racially mixed was your elementary school? How many non-European languages do you speak? In the words of Dave Berry, I am not making this up. "They," whomever "they" are, decided that they were not going to train white history teachers. (Apparently role models aren't as relevant in physics, as this wasn't across the board.) "They" wanted to train teachers who could provide a "more appropriate" view of "history."

I knew from my own high school years that the times, they were a-changin', but that was sort of slap in the face come the end of sophomore year at good ol' state school.

And how does that play out in the classroom? "They" are so concerned with making sure every group and subgroup gets their turn in the spotlight that the message is completely diluted. The basics of American and world history are ignored because they tended to involve white men. So rather than address why that is and move on with what those white men did, the white men are ignored for the comparatively trivial happenings of non-white or non-male people.

And inevitably at this point someone mounts their high horse and denounces me as a right-wing zealot. Which is fairly amusing, since most people who know me would be more likely to say knee-jerk liberal. (Including my father-in-law, who I think may have disowned me because my husband told him how I voted last election.)

So let me throw in an example using a class of people of whom I have some first-hand knowledge: women.

American lit class. And the new "revised" textbook has all sorts of self-congratulatory introductory crap about how enlightened it is and how it includes works by so many previously unpublished female authors. Do you know why many were previously unpublished? Because their writing was crap! Be honest and talk about schooling and social expectations for men vs. women. Highlight the few women who did succeed. Talk about women who published under male names. Heck, even throw in an example of the pulp nothings written by/for women to clarify the sociology. But don't fill college-level anthologies with crap just because you want to say that 30% of your content was written by females. How does this help? If anything, this reinforces the "women are crappy writers" thinking.

I was going somewhere with all of this.

Anyhow, I think the point I was trying to make is that curriculums -- at all levels -- are so watered down with trying to be representative of the infinite variety of humanity that the result is just mush.

And now I'm late for my public flogging.