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State program aims to inject cultural correctness into day care Where would you expect to hear a statement like the following: "Race is an invented system, . . . an arbitrary classification created by Europeans using themselves as the model of humanity for the purpose of establishing their power and privilege"? Would it be a cultural anthropology class at an elite East Coast university? Perhaps a rally of Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam? Think again. Welcome to "Building Cultural Connections," a curriculum for licensed child care workers brought to you by the state of Minnesota. Building Cultural Connections is the state's response to a 1990 law requiring cultural dynamics training for all licensed child care workers from staff at large centers to moms caring for a few kids in their living rooms. After passing the law, the Legislature handed off responsibility for designing a training curriculum to a public/private group called the Cultural Dynamics Education Project, which spent five years in the effort. After using Building Cultural Connections to train 3,000 providers at pilot sites across the state, project officials have asked Commissioner Christine Jax of the Department of Children, Families and Learning to approve the curriculum's final draft. For many child care workers, sitting through the six-hour Building Cultural Connections workshop must be an excruciating experience. (Indeed, the curriculum repeatedly warns that some participants are likely to be uncomfortable.) For Building Cultural Connections portrays America as a truly horrific place to live. It depicts this country as dominated by a nefarious "non-disabled European American culture" that systematically withholds power from people of color and disabled people. The result? American childrenalienated from their authentic cultural traditions are psychological basket cases. European- American children develop "identities built on confusion," and struggle with "psychological problems of moral hypocrisy." Minority and disabled children fare even worse. They "internalize" the dominant culture's "unjust and cruel oppression," "believe its lies," and grow up mired in "shame, hopelessness" and "chronic depression." It's up to Minnesota's child care providers to save the day. Here's how Building Cultural Connections instructs them to do it:
Is Building Cultural Connections training likely to usher in an era of social harmony and understanding, as planners hope? Quite the opposite. The curriculum's muddleheaded notion that culture and ethnicity determine "who we are"--coupled with its push for racial separatism and its sneering analysis of "European American" culture -- can only be divisive and counterproductive. The curriculum's designers aim to "make all cultures equal," and inspire children to revel indiscriminately in cultural differences. Perhaps they don't know that the principle of equal rights -- their supposed touchstone -- is exclusively the product of Western civilization. Perhaps they haven't heard that various other cultures practice slavery, slice off criminals' hands, and perform female genital mutilation. Thus far, Building Cultural Connections has cost Minnesota taxpayers at least $700,000. Though cultural dynamics training for day care providers remains voluntary, it will become mandatory at some point after CFL's Commissioner Jax signs off on a curricular plan. Already, the Cultural Dynamics Education Project has 90 trainers ready to go. Fortunately for Minnesota, Jax has voiced serious reservations about Building Cultural Connections. In her view, the curriculum is guilty of some of the same stereotypes, mean-spiritedness, and narrow-mindedness of which it so glibly accuses European Americans. Apparently, Commissioner Jax is prepared to raise tough questions about the state's latest foray into political correctness. Other Minnesotans should do the same. -- Katherine Kersten is a director of the Center of the American Experiment in Minneapolis. |