Matters worthy of consideration

Superintendent Alan Derry’s proposal that Sullivan West schools consider adopting the International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum has not yet been formally presented, but it has already given rise to some impassioned response. Some of it has appeared in the “Letters” section of this newspaper, below.

We have reviewed both the material on the IB website, and that on the site for the “Earth Charter,” a UN-sponsored document on sustainable development that the IB incorporates into its curriculum. We do not have enough information, on that basis, to take sides on the issue. But we do feel that there are certain basic principles discussed by the IB that are worth considering when it comes to how we want our children to be educated.

One such principle is globalism. This should not be confused with “globalization,” the move towards a flat-world economy associated with job outsourcing, lopsided trade agreements and corporate supremacy. The Earth Charter sums up globalism as follows: “We must decide to live with a sense of universal responsibility, identifying ourselves with the whole Earth community as well as our local communities. We are at once citizens of different nations and of one world in which the local and global are linked.”

The idea of globalism may seem threatening to some, especially with regard to an organization that, like the IB, is headquartered overseas in Geneva. And if it were the case that the IB curriculum advocated replacing or superseding the U.S. government with a world government, we could not endorse it. But as suggested in the preceding quote, it appears that the IB emphasizes a balance of the local with the global.

With catastrophic weather increasing, a global pandemic impending, fossil fuels disappearing, nuclear weapons proliferating and the limitations on proliferation loosening, it seems obvious that the human propensity to do whatever we happen to feel like without consulting or considering other people (or nations) isn’t working very well. That doesn’t mean we have to have one world government, but it does mean developing skills for cooperation rather than dominance and aggression, both on an individual and a government level. That’s not an attack on U.S. sovereignty; it’s plain common sense, and it is something we should consider encouraging in our classrooms. Whether the IB curriculum would do so successfully is a question worth exploring.

Another idea that might seem threatening, mentioned in the IB curriculum and Earth Charter, is the issue of the inequality of wealth and income. It is easy to jump from the idea of wealth equalization to the word “communism” and from thence to totalitarian states like the U.S.S.R. Nobody would like to see anything in our schools that would encourage this country to become like Stalinist Russia.

But a concern with the growing inequality of wealth and income is not communistic. On the contrary, it is essential to the defense of the working middle class, which has always been the heart and soul of America.

Real average weekly earnings in this country have declined over the past four years. The top tenth of one percent of households earn more than the bottom 30 percent; in 2003, CEOs earned 300 times as much as the average worker, up from 42 times in 1982. Labor compensation as a share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is at its lowest level in 40 years while the share of after-tax corporate profits is at the highest levels ever recorded.

It’s not communistic to be concerned about these trends; it’s what we have to do if the American dream is to survive into our children’s generation. If the IB curriculum doesn’t do a good job of encouraging this awareness, maybe we should find something else that does.

The IB curriculum raises other issues that may be subjects of contention. For instance, some view the IB as anti-Christian because it embraces a variety of religious expression. We can’t address all such issues here, but we do suggest that residents of the Sullivan West district read about the IB curriculum for themselves at www.ibo.org, and about the Earth Charter at www.earthcharter.org, before jumping to conclusions. Whether or not Sullivan West ultimately adopts the IB programs, an informed discussion about the issues that the curriculum raises can do nothing but good for the community and our children.

Dr. Punnybone

The Game Is on the Line