In 1990, the Minnesota legislature passed a law requiring something called "cultural dynamics training" for anyone licensed to provide child care around the state. An organization called the Cultural Dynamics Education Project then spent nine years designing and pilot-testing a curriculum for the effort. And now, after $ 700,000 in public expenditures, "Building Cultural Connections" is finally ready to go. Ninety "cultural dynamics trainers" bearing its wisdom are poised to fan out across the entire state. Yikes.
According to Katherine Kersten of the Center of the American Experiment, the excellent Minneapolis think tank, here are just few of the cultural connections these trainers will be building should the curriculum be approved by the state Department of Children, Families, and Learning:
Day-care providers are urged to beware the "assumption that English is the most important language." It is not. It is an artifact of "non-disabled European American" hegemonism, and the earlier children in day care are exposed to such acid, "the more likely they are to reject their home culture" and its sustaining "group identity."
Day-care providers should watch what they say, even in European American. They shouldn't say someone is a "quadriplegic," for example. No, no, no -- a person "has quadriplegia," an altogether more sensitive formulation. Babysitters shouldn't any longer say "people of color," either. That phrase "minimizes the unique history and culture of each cultural group."
Above all, day-care providers should be alert to the torture of modern childhood in all its forms. Biracial or disabled kids "being raised by non-disabled European American parents" have been "separated" from their true identities and must live "without mentors or positive role models." Minority and disabled kids being raised by their own kind are no better off: They inevitably "internalize" European America's "unjust and cruel oppression," come to "believe its lies," and grow up shackled in "shame, hopelessness," and "chronic depression." And non-disabled white kids? Don't even ask. They have "identities built on confusion" and must struggle to overcome "psychological problems of moral hypocrisy."
And here you thought all Minnesota children were above average. Garrison Keillor, call your office.