Fall 2003
Notebook
Notebook--The No Child Left Behind Law
Education for Democracy (pdf file)
The political system of democracy is "radical, recent, rare. It is our
children’s inheritance." How to pass it on? How to embed a commitment to it
"deeply in their souls"? Over one hundred prominent Americans, from across a
wide political and cultural spectrum, signed this statement, which begins to
answer these complicated, vitally important questions.
In Pursuit of a "Civic Core"
A Report on State Standards
By Paul Gagnon
The author finds that
despite many good efforts, state standards for secondary-level social
studies subjects are either too vague or the topic lists too long--either
way, the core ideas and events that are indispensable to the formation of
young democrats are impossible to discern. What we need is a "civic core,"
standards that specify a limited set of such ideas and topics. Beyond this,
states, communities, and teachers could add additional topics.
Leaving Reality Out
How Textbooks (Don’t) Teach About Tyranny
By Diane Ravitch
To really understand
democracy--to understand why our predecessors fought for it, why each
generation since has fought to strengthen, expand, and preserve it, why they
created the institutions they did--you need to understand democracy’s
opposite. Trouble is, you’ll be hard pressed to find a textbook that reveals
the reality of life under tyranny.
Freedom’s Opposite
Recommended Readings on Totalitarianism and Tyranny
By Arch Puddington
Since the textbooks
say so little, teachers could use extra background on the realities of
tyranny. We offer here a suggested reading list.
Glimpses of Tyranny and Resistance
Tyrannies come in different forms and produce different horrors. In Rwanda,
as in Hitler’s Germany and elsewhere, the government used its immense power
to foment and unleash ethnic hatred so terrible it produced genocide. In
Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini’s regime meant harsh treatment of dissidents, the
end of academic freedom, book banning, required wearing of the veil--and a
secret literature class in which Iranian women were able to find in books a
"pocket for freedom" denied them in life. In these excerpts from two
outstanding books, we get glimpses of life and tragedy under two tyrannies.
Genocide in Rwanda
By Philip Gourevitch
Reading Lolita in Tehran
By Azar Nafisi
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