Zinn-o-phobia

According to Webster: a fear and loathing of Howard Zinn, the freshly deceased author of “A People’s History of the United States”.

First published in 1980, the book has sold two million copies, becoming something of a “standard” text in many of the nations high schools and colleges.

The question, that Zinn’s death poses anew, is how can a simple minded, slanderous screed against this country be adopted, by much of our educational system, as a reliably accurate narrative of this nation’s history.

Presumably those who make such decisions, including our President – the nation’s chief apologist, embrace the book’s politically correct and accusatory premise.

America, according to Zinn and virtually every left-wing, America-hating, socialist sympathizing academic, has grown and prospered at the expense of its designated downtrodden.

Those with official victim status currently include: women, blacks, Native-Americans, the poor, the undocumented, the generically challenged, etc, etc… virtually everyone except upper-middle class white males.

Zinn and the lunatic fringe, of which he was an icon, believe the country’s government and institutions malevolent, manipulative, and morally criminal.

His objective was to influence, especially the young, rather than inform.

Howard Zinn was no more an historian than Joseph Goebbels was a journalist.

Education

Help is on the way.

A small “cadre of highly skilled educational leaders committed to reform… knowledgeable in the way children learn, grounded in management and politics.”

The operative presumption here is that “meaningful” reform of our public schools will require the skills set Harvard’s new Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership can provide.

A new breed of interdisciplinary, multi-faceted, abstract theoriticians with real world skills confronting inscruttable complexities and insurmountable obstacles armed only with creativity, intellectual rigor, implacable commitment and a Harvard advance degree.

It won’t be long now.

Perhaps only six or eight five-year plans away from achieving twenty year-old goals.

At the risk of seeming dangerously simplistic I think the problem is dauntingly simple. Though its obvious solution defiantly difficult.

It’s not the classroom, it’s the culture.

It’s not educational reform, it’s cultural regeneration.

It’s not expertise, it’s example.