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| If you visit the Prince William County School web site (www.pwcs.edu), you can learn a lot about the priorities in our schools. Take for instance their "Quality Management Plan" where we are told "Student learning will be enhanced by national, global, and multicultural perspectives". Later in the standards section, we learn that kids will have "Knowledge of various racial and ethnic cultures, as well as differences based on gender, age, and physical ability". This standard further states that kids will understand "cultural diversity" and the "common humanity all people share". What about the notion of a shared "cultural unity" that is uniquely American? I was struck by the absence of what is to be an American; on the unifying themes our founders warned us to embrace if we were to be a strong nation. Indeed, are the critics of multiculturalism right when they say that we have set the nation on a path of disunity by emphasizing-to excess-our differences? When I was growing up, it was fine to pay "homage" to one's ancestral past. That's not at issue here. But the extent of the problem was made clear to me a few weekends ago when the US and Iranian soccer teams met in an amicable match that ended in a tie. Prior to the game, some young American kids whose Iranian parents had immigrated to the US were asked whom they would root for? They responded without a trace of accent that they would be pulling for Iran, "their native country". OK, I've rooted for Germany against France in a soccer match. But I'm also at the point-200 years since my family immigrated here-where the US team gets my sympathetic nod over Germany, every time. So what's the nexus between school web sites, soccer teams, and frumpy 'ol traditionalists. Consider what the founders of our nation had to say in the Federalist Papers. "Divide et impera" (divide and conquer) must be the motto of every nation that either hates or fears us" (Federalist 7). That's why E Pluribus Unum (Out of Many, One) is the motto that appears on the great seal of the United States. Our founders knew that if we were to survive as a democratic republic, our differences and former allegiances would have to be left at the shoreline. While we were not to disdain or reject the simple traditions of our former lands, we were to take upon ourselves a new identity characterized by love of this country. We were summoned to repel anything that might threaten faith, family, and freedom. Yet we are in a period today where the average student could no more tell you what E Pluribus Unum means than why it might be important to us as a society. Don't believe me? Ask the next ten highschoolers you see. We seem to have discarded "Out of Many One", for "Out of Many, More". In Federalist 41, James Madison reminds us "The picture of disunion cannot be too highly colored or too often exhibited. Every man who loves peace, every man who loves his country, every man who loves liberty, ought to have it ever before his eyes, that he may cherish in his heart a due attachment to the union of America, and be able to set a due value on the means of preserving it". Is there any more important notion to imprint on the minds of young citizens? Yet in these times of multiculturalism and diversity, the notion of E Pluribus Unum has been obscured. We find ourselves increasingly isolated from one another. Sadly, we have created an America whose identity is found on either side of a hyphen and we are reinforcing this notion in the education of our children. E Pluribus Unum as a national principle will continue to erode as the multiculturalist flash flood carves deeper gullies between racial and national groups. Isn't it time we recognize that unity springs from a willingness to set differences aside in favor of a common purpose and identity? The founders knew this. Shouldn't our children?
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