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After a long absence from the United States and the classroom, I've returned to rooms filled with angry Mexican-American faces, boys mainly.
I see anger in the way they scrawl their names on assignments. I see it in their threatening body language. In their eyes. And in their defiant attitudes.
This anger is unlike anything you will ever witness on visits to classrooms in Mexico. Even in the United States, in classrooms full of recently arrived Mexican immigrants, you don't see such anger.
So why all this Mexican-American anger, and where does it come from?
I still remember the angry Mexican-American boys I went to school with. I remember there was anger even beyond them, Some white boys were mad, some blacks and even some girls.
I thought it was all just a natural part of growing up, like acne. I had nothing to compare it to. Not until I lived in Asia for five years.
Only now does something that a high school teacher once told me make sense - that the primary objective of the education system of any given country is the socialization of its citizens, the creation of a loyal and patriotic population.
Take Japan, for example, when militarists took over the nation, They turned the Japanese warlike and aggressive. China, Russia and the United States can testify that little Japan can put up big fights.
In today's Japan things are different. The peaceful policies of the national government are reflected in schools. If I had to choose one word to describe Japanese schools, it would be “harmonious.”
Teachers spend a great deal of time fostering teamwork and cooperation in the classroom. Even in school sports, competitiveness and “winning is the only thing” don't exist. Participation by all is highly valued.
In Japan I never saw a fistfight and I didn't see children coming to school with twisted scowls on their faces.
In China I did see angry faces at schools. The anger there is fueled by the propaganda of the Leninist regime in Beijing, the nation's capital. They design the curriculum for all public schools and
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