Gregory Freeman: One Month Is Not Enough. P-D 1/25/1994

Headline: ONE MONTH IS NOT ENOUGH
Reporter: By Gregory Freeman

Publication: ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Last Printed: Tues., Jan. 25, 1994
Section: WAR PAGE, Page: 9B, Edition: FIVE STAR

IT'S ALMOST that time again.
   From Feb. 1 through 28, a bevy of schools will pull out the stops for Black History Month, complete with special programs, speakers and videotapes on blacks from Booker T. Washington to Malcolm X. Every year, around this time, I get requests - as do many other blacks - to give talks at schools all over town.
   This year I considered saying no to all of them.
   I broke down and agreed to do a couple.

But I see some serious problems with Black History Month and how it is celebrated at many schools.
   Quite often, schools use February to focus on black history. Then when March comes around, it's business as usual. It's treated as a fad: We'll study black history for a month and then we'll go back to ignoring it again until the next year.
   Why isn't black history - and Asian history and Hispanic history and other forms of history - studied the other 11 months of the year?
   Why do so many schools refuse to provide a multicultural education?
   As a parent, I want my child to be knowledgable not only of the history of Europe and its contributions to the world, but the histories and contributions of Latin America, Asia, Africa and all points in between.

The phrase "multicultural education" evokes thoughts by some of schools that focus on multiculturalism to the exclusion of everything else.
   But a proper multicultural education is nothing like that, says Arturo Madrid. Madrid is the Murchison Distinguished Professor of humanities at Trinity University in San Antonio and founder of the Tomas Rivera Center. The center, based in San Antonio, is the nation's first think tank on Hispanic and Mexican-American issues.
   "There are those who prefer to demonize the idea of multicultural education, " he said. "They basically try to paint a picture of those who support the concept as bad people. And on the other end of the spectrum are those who trivialize such an education by supporting a low-level concept of multiculturalism as simply an issue of self-esteem - `this is good, and you should feel proud.' "
   Multicultural education should go much further than that, he says, adding that it also should go beyond history.
   Madrid believes it important to teach multiculturalism in the arts, social studies, literature and other subjects.

He also says that while bilingual education and Afrocentric education is important, "it should be a means to an end, not an end in itself."
   The bottom line, he suggests, should be for students to learn as much as possible and that they stay in school. One eye should be kept on that goal at all times, he says.
   But ignoring the world's diverse cultures will result in increased division and lack of understanding, he says.
   "By virtue of the revolution that we've had in communications, the world has gotten very small, " he said. "The world can come to us very easily. Nothing is alien any more because we can all see it on TV. Things that happen around the globe we see instantaneously.
   "We have citizens from the entire globe living in the United States, more today than ever before. Unless we understand more about how we act, speak, think, tensions will increase. . . . We need to adjust to a much more complex world."

For those who quickly label multicultural education as political correctness, Madrid retorts: "I don't take flight from the term `politically correct.' Politically correct people have historically been the ones struggling to see that American society is inclusive, not exclusive. People who resist the concept are the same people who resisted the telephone, the car, the airplane and the computer. Inclusiveness is needed now more than ever."

That, to me, is what a multicultural education is about - inclusiveness. With that, no need would exist for a Black History Month, because black history would be included in the regular curriculum. The same would be the case with other groups that now get short shrift in many schools.
Schools that teach black history only in February practice the art of superficiality. The same is the case with schools that would suggest that they've taught the history of Mexico when focusing only on Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata.
As we approach the 21st century, it's time for schools to get beyond that.

Daniel Schesch - Webweaver

back