European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - September 9, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 columns the stars and stripes Friday september 9,1986 Flora Lewis new soviet policy might help revitalize . Moscow the United nations has Long been lurch ing into disrepair ineptitude and impotence. The Mam thing done about it was to ignore the world organization. But since the soviet Union unexpectedly changed its position chances arc starting to improve for making it the soviet policy is part of Mikhail Gorbachev s new thinking in foreign , it is a recognition that military Power in t enough to ensure soviet influence in the world that major War cannot be contemplated and that soviet Domestic needs would be better served by pulling Back from regional conflicts and. If possible resolving follows logically that Moscow is seeking now to Revita Lise the United nations since that is the Best place for it to pursue a role that was getting difficult to sustain unilaterally. A number of specific Steps have already been taken including paying up past dues. Moscow is now playing Host to a big conference on the future role of the United nations in an interdependent there arc reasons for caution in assessing How far this will really take the soviets toward becoming peacemakers and How consistently new promises of cooperation in the United nations will be fulfilled. For one thing there Are too Many soviet proposals on every possible aspect of . Operation or Paral Ysis and too Many of them Are vaguely grandiose to Lake in another the momentum of Gorbachev s re forms remains in serious doubt. In is easier to change soviet foreign policy than to restructure the soviet Economy and so the direction of this decision is prob James Kilpatrick ably irreversible. But an ominous Icbale is surfacing ostensibly about Stalin and the origins of the cold War actually challenging the new line thai class analysis does t apply to issues of world Security. Class analysis Means simply that everything wrong is the fault of imperialists and capitalists and that communists have a monopoly of Good idea and Good intentions. Though soviet officials deny it the argument echoes in reverse the warnings of american hard liners about letting Down he guard against the foe. Nonetheless official policy now is to strengthen the world system undermined from the Start by East West conflict. All the other things wrong with the United nation shave been encrustation on the fissured foundation. The Secretary general s recent successes in regional wars owe a lot to the new soviet stand. Not surprisingly prospects for peace in Afghanistan Angola the Western Sahara and Cambodia and be tween Iran and Iraq have excited a mania to let the , do now Iraq is saying the United nations should assure clearance of the Shalt Al Arab clogged by sunken ships. Some palestinians talk of turning territories occupied by Israel Over to temporary United nations administration. Ironically inflated and unreal Zable ambitions for United nations responsibilities Are coming along just when the organization is running out of Means. It can t pay for whal it already has to do and will soon need to do. Some people have suggested diverting supposedly vast savings soon to be achieved by disarmament agreements into building United nations forces sometimes the Sam people who already proposed using All that Money for development Aid Anco then for Prelec Ting the environment that s the kind of Blue sky talk that makes United nations debates so Money has to come the Way it always comes from government budgets. The spotlight is now on the United states which can i consider its debts to the United nations As another deficit 10 be financed by foreigner. By the time president Reagan goes to new Yorkton make his last speech to the general Assembly this fall he should certainly be Able to announce that the United states will pay its May be self satisfying but it is no excuse to say that since the United nations refused to act when the soviets would t pay the United Stales Necin i meet its in is against United Stales interests. Elliot Richardson Secretary of defense and then at Torney general in the Nixon administration Points out that while relative United states Power in the world has in fact declined. United states responsibility for leadership in maintaining world order remains intact. That Means a larger More constructive role in inter National organizations not copping out. Richardson would make a Good Delegate to the United nations in a Republican administration whether the Republican or the democratic candidate wins the next administration will have to be More s Good the soviets Are changing policy. In would be Folly to leave them alone in the Lead. Bennett s valedictory demands serious attention big Bill Bennett Secretary of education re tires this month from the Job he has graced for the past 3vj years. He goes out As he came in whooping it up fora return to fundamentals. His final publication As Secretary epitomizes his Cru Sade. Here he imagines a James Madison elementary school and describes the curriculum m he would like to see 1hc school provide. This is Bennett at his Best. Every Page breathes with his love of children and his fervent Faith i Western culture. Bennett is a True believer. In cynical Washington such men Are rarely seen tic begins by acknowledging the palpable improvement in elementary schools in recent years. He has visited do ens of schools with committed and Abb principals and teachers whose Success with their students is a Joy to even so. The level of achievement in still Loo Low. In several important disciplines american children lag Well behind their for eign counterparts. By the time they finish the eight Grade Poomany four students Are ill prepared for the kind of High school education we want them to have. Bennett ii nothing if not Blunt. He blames 1hcwshortcomings on an educational establishment that of Pansus common i arc Eivid educational Wisdom continues to deride courses that Are Rich in solid Content. It still is fashionable within the establishment to disdain Nice facts in favor of Gau incr these superstitions and prejudices still find their a into our children s elementary school classrooms in English programs that spurn serious literature in favor of Bland basal readers and skill workbooks in social studies teaching that neglects history and Geog Raphy to concentrate on mundane details of everyday life in mathematics instruction that however dressed up with fancy new so Ralcgie and slogans is nevertheless restricted to years of repetitive rudimentary ankh Micic. In science lessons without scientific method in Art and music experiences which rarely extend beyond undisciplined appeals to feelings and a motions and in foreign language education that hardly exists at All. In sometimes seems that such curricula Are constructed on the Assumption that it does t really matter whal Young children study so Long Asil is frivolous in challenging and easily accessible whal would Bennett have the slates and localities do he would Start children in kindergarten with the classic fables fairy tales poems and Nursery rhymes that arc part of our enduring culture. He would Intro Duce the elements of grammar and composition in the first Grade. Second graders would write simple Book while s Stuart Little and Charlotte s by the eighth Grade they would be Inlo works by Shakespeare Hawthorne Stephen Crane and Wilia gather. Bennett s curriculum in mathematics the sciences and social studies would be As solidly based. His fourth graders would be studying plane geometry his sixth graders would be expected to master cube roots negative numbers and the pythagorean theorem. Bennett would introduce second graders to vertebrates and invertebrates the movement of planets and magnetic forces. His social studies curriculum would be Strong on geography and history. Children at age 6 would gel their introduction to the Constitution and the Bill of rights. When Bennett has advanced these ideas in the past the educational establishment has responded with scorn and derision. Bennett is he lives in a a Tomusk dream he has no realistic undemanding of the problems that go with leaching in schools of the inner cily disadvantaged children whether they Are White Black or hispanic cannot digest so demanding a responds by citing individual schools in which precisely this has been done. My Edith Magnet elementary school in Temple. Texas is one such school. Forty percent of its pupils Are disadvantaged hut 97 percent of its fifth graders have mastered Reading skills far above the state s valedictory publication ought to com Mand the serious attention of school boards principals and teachers across the nation. The elementary school is the foundation of education. We had better see tort that the foundation rests not upon Sand but upon solid Rock instead. Ute Lyhl i
