Summer 2003
Notebook
Thin Gruel
How the Language Police Drain the Life and Content from Our Texts
By Diane Ravitch
The Right wants texts to reflect their idealized world of the past: only
two-parent families, mothers at home, no disobedient children. The Left
wants texts to reflect their idealized world of the future: old people
aren’t frail, neither race nor gender is an issue, and blindness is not a
disability. To please both sides, publishers now censor themselves, using
"bias and sensitivity" guidelines that would make you laugh, except for the
result: textbooks drained of life and delight, filled only with thin gruel.
At the Starting Line
Early Education in the 50 States
By Darion Griffin and Giselle Lundy-Ponce
The educational odds are against children who enter kindergarten already far
behind. What are states doing to help equalize children’s chances at the
starting line? Which states provide preschool? Which prioritize enrollment
for the most needy children? AFT’s new report on the status of states’ early
education efforts offers answers. Plus, a sidebar on the content that all
early education programs should offer.
Now That I’m Here
What Immigrants Think About America
By Steve Farkas, Ann Duffett, and Jean Johnson with Leslie Moye and Jackie
Vine
Nearly 12 percent of the U.S. population were born elsewhere. Many are our
students--or our students’ parents. What do they think of America? It’s not
perfect, and their lives are often hard. But they have a special perspective
on the country’s freedom and opportunities.
Ask the Cognitive Scientist
Students Remember...What They Think About
By Daniel T. Willingham
You are what you eat. What you see is what you get.... Based on decades of
research on learning and memory, Willingham offers another simple truth:
What you think about is what you remember. The implications for teaching and
assignments are substantial.
Thinking About September 11
Defining Terrorism and Terrorists
By Jean Bethke Elshtain
The second anniversary is arriving. How to remember it? What to teach? There
are many good answers. But they all start with getting the facts right, says
this distinguished scholar--in particular, that the perpetrators were
terrorists, not martyrs, not freedom fighters.
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