American Dream 101

MY LITTLE SISTER just entered the eighth grade at La Colina Junior High in Santa Barbara, California. Maybe it's the proximity of the Reagan ranch, or maybe it's just the beatific sunshine, but Santa Barbarans must be more inclined than the average to be content with the status quo.

Otherwise there's simply no explanation for the assignment my sister brought home this month. Her first history unit is "The American Dream," and assignment number one was a questionnaire for Mom, Dad and dinner guests about what the American Dream means to us. The answers all had to be yes or no, without qualification, which in itself tends to preclude critical thinking. But it was the questions that really bothered me. Loaded is an understatement.

Is America a land of liberty, justice and equality?

Well, yes. And no. For whom? Not for all, but more than most places.

Is America the greatest nation in the world?

Why is there even a question in these terms? Who is composing this hierarchy of nations, and by what criteria?

Is America's role to lead the nations of the world?

That all depends whether you want a normative or descriptive answer. Just yes or no, please.

Is America unique?

This is an easy one. We all learned in kindergarten--at least back in the Seventies we did--that everybody is unique. Even superpowers.

The closest thing to a critical question, one that might suggest an attitude to one's country in between blind flag-waving and cynical dismissal, was:

Does America have a long way to go?

Now, everyone from Pat Robertson to Jesse Jackson to Lyndon LaRouche can agree that America has a long way to go. We all know that the only people really happy with the way things are are those Democratic tax-and-spenders still left in office in Massachusetts.

I know I went to school back in the sensitive, touchy-feely Seventies, when America was weak and terrorists pushed us around and our president let us call him by a nickname. I even called my fifth-grade teacher "Marty." But I appreciated assignments that taught "critical thinking" along with "values." That was when our teacher didn't tell us what he thought about the Wednesday Afterschool Special until after we'd all discussed cheating at sports, a friend dying, exploding Ford Pintos or alternative energy sources.

IT'S EASY to make fun of that kind of education and all the "I hear what you're saying" and relativism that can go along with it. But we never got the feeling, as current strong-values advocates claim, that are no values or standards of right and wrong. We learned that different standards do exist, but that there are gray areas. I definitely came out of class knowing cheating was bad, dying was sad, and not to sleep with that sexy 17-year-old guitar player until at least my 15th birthday. Yet no one ever told me America was the greatest nation in the world without discussing it.

Mario Cuomo has jumped on the heretofore conservative bandwagon to endorse "values education"--that is, telling kids what is right and not teaching them how to decide for themselves. He has limited his proposal to issues about which there is no dispute "in the community." Few such issues exist, however, and who is going to gauge the community's value system?

Civics has a way of turning into cheerleading, especially in the balmy sun. And when our schools no longer teach citizens to think for themselves, that's not just bad education. It's a good way to destroy a democracy.