Public schools are facing the largest crisis in American educational history. More and more minority students are attending public schools, and traditional methods of instruction are failing to meet their needs. The back-to-basics and belt-tightening movements within public schooling are part of a last-ditch effort to support an elitist education which alienates and represses minority students. Critics suggest that Eurocentric thinking (founded in the philosophy of Aristotle and Plato) seek to control the impoverished classes and to maintain dominance in the Western world. These critics call for a new rhetoric in the classroom based on the "Afrocentric idea," which incorporates Black rhetorical devices. These include the call-response process, indirection (the approaching of a subject in a circuitous fashion), styling (the manipulation of language or mannerisms to favorably influence listeners), and appeals to a subjective or emotional sense rather than Eurocentric logic. A twelfth grade English teacher suggests that to learn from the Afrocentric ideal, educators can: (1) bring rap music into the classroom; (2) let the study of rap lead to a study of what the rappers are saying; (3) incorporate Black studies across the curriculum at every educational level; (4) do away with tracking; and (5) allow oral presentations of students' written work. (SG)