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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: one_less who wrote (17568)	4/26/2000 12:10:00 AM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

Forbid is indeed a strong word. There are certainly things I'd forbid my kids to read (not yet an issue; they are two and zero). Not much different from your list ... and to it I'd add "porn", i.e. sexually explicit material with no value beyond prurience. (Once they're out of the house, such a proscription becomes moot. But I can shield them from the worst of it while they are children. I hope.) If I seem weaselly on the cultural anchor issue, it's because I haven't fully formed the idea. It may be fatally flawed, or it might be worked into something I can confidently defend. I'm not sure at this point. ... Let me try to describe what I mean however. The German curriculum I endured as a young'un was fairly rigid in its requirements, and as a result I could be assured that anyone else who has been through that curriculum is familiar with a certain list of literary works, historical events, principles of natural philosophy. So I could quote a passage from a work that deals with some important or germane idea ... and have it mean something to my interlocutor. I see value in a standardized curriculum, one that emphasizes literacy ... not only with language as a tool for communicating, but with the story of mankind, the eternal golden braid of literature, history and philosophy (recently incorporating the sciences). If the individuals in a society have a common education in the elements of the mosaic of human culture, the people (individual and collective) will be smarter and more agile in dealing with issues, from small groups to international-level discourse. Sam Hayakawa said "Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it." I'd like anyone with a diploma to know this quote and a thing or two about its author. Knowing a decent spread of literature and history is like getting a big box of Legos - the recipient can build myriad things from the pieces, and each box contains more or less the same set of pieces.