PhatPhysiks.com

Most of us know by now that the indigenous children of North America were sent to oppressive schools by the government of the United States.  These schools separated the kids from their families and cultures with the stated and funded purpose of indoctrinating them into the common European derived American culture.  The way to do this was to destroy their old culture.  The purpose of this was, of course, security.  It would be less likely that such a child would grow up and want to rebel against the United States government.

I think many would agree that the purpose was defensible to a point.  A purpose of the public education system in the US is to assimilate children into the common culture.  The question is do we have to destroy the old culture to do so.  To some extent, yes.  If I am teaching a student science or math, and the culture does not see any purpose in science or math, then I as a teacher must, to some extent, violate the culture of the student.

The question is that violation an expansion of the student’s culture, for example can we remove some bits of the old culture, replace it with bits of the culture to be assimilated, and still have some level of respect for both.  This is what often happened appeared to happen when Christianity was introduced.  Or do we need to obliterate the old culture, which is what the US was trying to do when the forcibly removed kids from their parents.  I believe it is the former.  It is interesting to how many people seem to believe it can only be the later.  Who remove the kids from public school because, in the modern need for cultural diversity, the schools are not longer marching to the European Christian culture.

This indicates that, for the most part, we in the US have known exactly what we have done.  When we teach history a certain way, when we limit the classes in math.  When we restrict the teaching of science, not to maintain ignorance of the working class, but to not offend a few people, we know what is going on.  There is no hiding from the facts.

It disturbs me that we have seen, we know, and yet we continue to hurt children to promote some questionable cause, to maintain a social order that arguably is not even relevant in the 21st century.  In a world where communication is all but free, where travel between any tow points on the globe can be done in a day or so, where being the top 5% of the population is no longer good enough because the population has expanded to the world, any limitation we put on education or potential is self destructive.  Yet we continue to so do.

Here is the classic example.  Though I cite on anecdote, this situation has been a constant throughout my life.  First background.  In teaching, one must present the information in many different manners.  One may start with a verbal description.  The an alternative verbal description.  Then several forms of 2d graphics, the a 3d representations that involve movement.   In some cases, math as language is used. Basically anything that gets the point across, and is age appropriate, is to be used.  Millions of dollars are spent to train teachers to do this.  Teachers who just talk are given bad reviews.  We are to use all the tools at our disposal to teach.

Except for language.  In most cases, unless one is a special class, one is supposed to speak only English.  There are many justifications for this.  It costs more to print in other languages.  Not everyone knows more than one language.  The kids have to learn english eventually, so why let them speak anything other than English.  These seem like good reasons.  But they are not.  They imply that we are to educate everyone to the same mediocre level, which we do not.  They imply that if someone comes into my algebra class not knowing 8th grade math, then I should just let them fail the class and not help them with remedial work.  Teaching is based on multiple representations and re-teaching and  using every tool available to help the child internalize the information.

Language is culture, and just like we did with the indigenous people, we are denying culture by denying language.  Still today I see monoglots become very offended when the kids do not speak english.  I have been reprimanded for explaining to individual students in another language.  Mind you, the student is responsible for learning, but is not allowed to use the available tools.  Denial of a language is denial of a culture.

I teach very ordinary kids with often an extraordinary lack of education.  One things that makes these kids special, however, is that they are very hard working and creative.  Another is that each knows two to three languages.  This is an advantage.  I often introduce a subject and then let them work out the specifics.  It is interesting because they will switch languages, but not randomly.  Often when one student is helping another, the language will shift as the student tries to work out how to explain the topic.  In principle this is not different from me starting with an equation, then translating the equation into english, but to many of my collegues I am doing great harm by allowing this to happen.  It is like when I allowed one group of students to explain some problems in Russian to help with that class.

Denial of language, denial of alternative expressions, is denial of culture.  I think we all understand this, which, as I mentioned, is why so many parents are now keeping their kids at home or sending them to private school where the language is more consistant with what the parents were brought up to believe was correct.  But, as I was also mentioned, though we may have to violate a culture in the name of assimilation, we do not have to disrespect it.  Most of my classes may be taught in English, but that does not mean that other languages are taboo.  I may teach a science class that makes some fundamentalist shudder, but that does not mean I think their beliefs are wrong or inappropriate.  Other teachers may present a biased history, but that does not prevent parents or other adults from expanding and correcting that history.   We must teach to assimilate, but that does mean we must destroy.