Is political correctness sometimes detrimental to our children's education?

Question

Several years ago, I had a black acquaintance whose daughter attended a school with mostly black students. I remember talking to the daughter about her classes one day, and I found some of what she told me disturbing. Well, for starters, the daughter told me that their classes changed from semester to semester rather than from year to year. What was disturbing, though, was what she told me about her geography studies. Apparently, they had been studying each and every country in Africa since school had started in August. If I remember correctly, this conversation took place in September or October. I wonder when they were planning to cover Asia, Africa, the Americas, Australia, and Antarctica! Not only that, but I also glanced through her math textbook. Not only did it deal with math, but it also had boxes that had fun facts about black culture! I'm sure they were interesting, but what did they have to do with math? Don't get me wrong. I think it's important to learn about the world

outside Europe and North America, but aren't we compromising on the children's education by pandering to forces of political correctness?

Answer 1

This type of curriculum you describe is very polarizing to the youth engaging in it. It's part of the biggest problem with the U.S. in general. This method of educating sends a subliminal message that it is ok to segment yourself from other cultures, their history and their merits. Whether it's Eurocentric or Afrocentric it's still damaging to society as a whole.

Answer 2

Awareness is good.

Pandering is bad.

Distracting from essential learning is just ridiculous.

The modern world exists as it does because of the impact of Western culture over the last few centuries. To focus on the minutiae of other cultures to the extent that students lose understanding of what made their lifestyle possible is to do them a disservice.

And, to answer your question, I believe the amount of "political correctness" (although, in this case, I think you are concerned about "multiculturalism") that our children are exposed to is detrimental to their well being.

Answer 3

This is certainly not political correctness "gone amok" as true PC advocates that ALL cultures and ethnicities be represented in education. Rather this is blatant ethnocentrism in its extreme since only the cultural background of the majority of the student body (in this case, blacks/African-Americans)is being represented while systematically ignoring all others. This definitely needs to be brought to the attention of the school board where that child resides.

Answer 4

This sort of thing actually happens all the time. On the one hand, you can applaud the school for providing valuable cultural information about the school's predominant base of students, but to be totally one sided is essentially racist.

Just reverse the race being discussed and in print to see what I mean. What if in the math book, it was all fun facts about white culture? What if in history they only covered Anglo Saxon history? I realize that in decades past they probably DID do things like this, and some well-minded person decided to reverse it to balance things out.

Unfortunately reverse racism is still racism. Racism is racism regardless of color.

Just like Black Entertainment Televison is racist, as is the NAACP and The United ***** College Fund. If there was a White Entertainment Televison channel or a United White People's College Fund or the National Association for the Advancement of White People, you can bet Al Sharpton would be there in a New York minute to cry racist.

Yes in years past racism was alive and well in our country, and yes, even today (as with the Jenna 6) racism still exists in pockets, but eventually we need to strive to be balanced about race and racism. Swinging the pendulum 180 degrees is still racist. If our society is to truly move past it, we need to truly see value in all cultures and embrace all people of all races, and being PC becuase of things our forefathers did doesn't really help. In fact it makes things worse.

Answer 5

YES , not every one is created equal.
we learn from history no matter who writes it. we should stop wallowing in it. get over it and change what we can going forward.
i spent the summer un nuetering my boys from this PC junk.
school kids like that will have plenty of remedale course (at taxpayer costs) to catch up with.
there will always be winners and others trying to drag them down to their level.

Answer 6

Try taking the term political correctness out of your vocabulary.
Did you ever stop to think that maybe Americans are just trying to do what's right and that maybe they're not perfect and may not do the exact right thing, but that what matters is the intention behind "political correctness" to do the right thing?

You seem to have put a lot of thought into how we're "wrong", but what efforts do you put into what's right?

I don't know you from one question but you come across as threatened by blacks to me. I apologize if that's not correct.