INDEPENDENCE ISSUE PAPER Independence Institute * 14142 Denver West Parkway #101 * Golden, CO 80401 » (303) 279-6536 June 9, 1989 WHEN EDUCATING FOR WORLD AFFAIRS, FIRST COVER HOME BASE By John kK. Andrews, dr. Perceptions of Global Curriculum Abuse “It is repugnant," asserted Thomas Jef- ferson, "to compel any man to furnish tax money for the propagation of doc- trines and beliefs with which he deeply disagrees." This is a fundamental principle of a free society. The reason that global education has become controversial in the late 1980s is that growing numbers of sensible Americans perceive blatant violations of this principle by educators in the public schools. I say "perceive." Each of us must draw cour own conclusions about the validity of ‘that perception, but the fact re~ mains that it has taken on a powerful life of its own. Iwill declare myself at the outset by saying that I believe the perception of curriculum abuse or educational mal- practice is in fact valid. I base this on firsthand experience and personal acquaintance with actors on both sides of the controversy. 1 further confess that my remarks today will enbody not only the professional judgment of a policy analyst, but also the indignation of a parent and the concerns of a patriot. My home state of Colorado has been a major center in the upheaval surround- ing global studies, peace education, and the so-called nuclear age curricu- jum. Things are relatively quiet in Denver today, but two or three years (Continued on Page. 2) WHAT KIND OF INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION? The movement to improve America's schools needs not only an accelera~ tor but also steering and brakes. Amid new calls for faster education reform from the National Governors Association, which has proved it knows how to step on the gas, we should think carefully about direc- tion and restraint. The governors put their weight be- hind structural changes for our schools in the 1980s. Now they are recommending a major curriculum overhaul for the 1990s, urging that students in coming years must gain a much higher level of inter- national competency. While that goal is generally wor- thy, some observers are concerned that both divisiveness and mal- instruction could result if the NGA report Teads to unquestioning acceptance of the so-called global education movement. Here is one such warning, delivered at a symposium on “Education for America's Role in World Affairs," sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education in Washington, D.C. on Nay 26, 1989. Note: The Independence Issue Papers are published for educational purposes only, and the authors speak for themselves. Nothing written here is to be construed as necessarily representing the views of the Independence Institute or as an attempt to influence any election or legislative action.ago the battle was white-hot. To give you the flavor, listen to a few para~ graphs from a commentary which I broadcast on public radio in Denver in the spring of 1986: Here is @ report on your tax dollar at work. The bad news is that part of your Colorado tax dollar is being spent to teach grade school and high school kids things that many Americans would regard as outrageous in the areas of politics, economics, and morality. The good news is that part of your federal tax dollar goes to pay the salary of a man named Gregg Cunningham who has blown the whistle on this abuse. It started with a group of decent and well-meaning professors over at the University of Denver. Their goal was to decrease war and suffering, to make the world a better place. They went to work urging the public schools to adopt a new approach called global education, aimed at showing how we can all live together more peacefully on this crowded planet. So far, so good. The trouble is, these professors have either innocently or deliber- ately produced a lopsided curriculum that fails to give students a balanced look at a number of controversial topics. Suppose you are ny child's teacher, fresh from a DU workshop on global education. You ask my daughter and her classmates to consider that U.S.-Soviet tensions may rest largely on misunderstanding of each other. That's fine. Just so you give equal time to the possibility that the tensions stem from a Soviet design to conquer the world. You ask the class to explore whether the world wouldn't be a more just place if private property was redistributed within nations and between nations by force of government. That's fine too. Just so you balance that exercise with some history that informs the students how successful free enterprise has been in lifting millions from poverty to affluence. You tell the kids how many died from the nuclear attack at Hiroshima. Don't neglect to tell them that many times more might have died if the allies had had to invade Japan on the ground. You assign them readings which present abortion as a convenient alter- native to the population explosion. Don't spare them the healthy discomfort of considering how they would like it if their mother had aborted them. Next the globalist teacher takes this class through 2 death education unit where they study suicide notes and visit a mortuary to touch a corpse. What's the motive here -- to make the children comfortable with the inevitable or to scare them into adopting the anti-nuclear pacificismA curriculum that really gave both sides of issues like these would be valid education. But Greag Cunninghan's exhaustive report* shows that global education as peddled from DU and similar centers nationwide is conspicuously weak on the mainstream side of each example I have given. It presents a subtle but powerful drumbeat on the pacifist, socialist, atheist, utopian side. Back in Washington, unfortunately, Congresswoman Pat Schroeder has tried to silence Mr. Cunningham, and higher officials in the Education Department have damned him with faint praise. This too is your tax dollar at work. But the little town of Bennett, Colorado, a farming community east of Denver, held a town meeting and Said "no thanks" to a lucrative grant that would have installed global education in its public schools. This was American self-government at work. AS long as there are communities like Bennett, indoctrination will not replace education in our schools without a Fight. That's the way it was along the foot of the Rockies three years ago. Later 1 will bring you up to date on the way it is in Colorado today, along with examples of similar controversies in several other states. But first let's try to look below the surface and determine why it is that globalism in the schools has such 4 polarizing effect. They Always Miss the Tag Rock singer Bruce Hornsby has a new song that voices the mood of populist anger against abuses by members of this country's power elite. One line complains, "We throw the ball to home, but they always miss the tag." I suggest to you that the backlash against global educators grows out of their failure to cover home base. The widespread perception, and again I emphasize "perception," is that globalism places insufficient enphasis on the values, truths, ideals, and insti- tutions which have made the United States of America the freest, fairest, most Prosperous, and most compassionate nation in history. Within the global movement, the reason for this omission seems to be a combination of disuse and disaffection. Many have simply forgotten how and why to keep these things central. But there are apparently some who are consciously determined that they should not be central. Either way the damage is done. For where in history do we find an example of a civilization or society that has been able to survive when it began massively neglecting to cover home base in the intellectual and moral training of its young people? Remember that we are talking here about the objective fact of controversy surrounding global education, not the more subjective issue of who is correct or incorrect about what the curriculum should be. When bitter disagreement envelops *Globalism in the Schools: Education or Indoctrination?, Independence Issue Paper No. 9-86. Order at $5.00 from Independence Institute, 14142 Denver West Parkway, Suite 101, Golden, Colorado, 303/279-6536. =e