Smithsonian Conference: "Guidelines for Ensuring Quality Multicultural Education at the K-12 Level"

This short speech addresses the treatment of diverse peoples in school textbooks. Al Shanker urges that the stories of under-represented groups be told, but he warns against inclusion at the expense of historical accuracy. He describes the risk of exchanging one set of myths (i.e. American history consists of great white men performing virtuous deeds) for another set of myths (i.e. American history consist of white men oppressing and exploiting white women and people of other ethnicities). Shanker insists that no group is perfect and that in an effort to write more inclusive history, the underlying unity present in the American story should not be erased.

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