It’s Time To Mess With Texas
History should be something we learn from, but if the Texas School Board gets its way learning will be replaced by indoctrination.
The board is to vote on a sweeping purge of alleged liberal bias in Texas school textbooks in favour of what Dunbar says really matters: a belief in America as a nation chosen by God as a beacon to the world, and free enterprise as the cornerstone of liberty and democracy.
“We are fighting for our children’s education and our nation’s future,” Dunbar said. “In Texas we have certain statutory obligations to promote patriotism and to promote the free enterprise system. There seems to have been a move away from a patriotic ideology. There seems to be a denial that this was a nation founded under God. We had to go back and make some corrections.” [emphasis mine]
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the phrases I’ve highlighted strike me as more appropriate for a philosophy or religious study course rather than a history course. Promote patriotism? Promote free enterprise? Patriotic ideology? America is a nation chosen by God? Nation founded under God? These statements have nothing to do with history and everything to do with a conservative political agenda.
Why don’t conservatives just come out and speak the truth? They want a Theocracy, not a Democracy. They want mandatory patriotism, a place where no criticism of God’s chosen nation will be tolerated. Imagine raising your children this way? Bet you end up with a lot of spoiled brats who end up believing it’s their God-given right to have whatever they want.
And what Texas is taking out is just as disturbing as the ideology they are putting in.
Several changes include sidelining Thomas Jefferson, who favoured separation of church and state, while introducing a new focus on the “significant contributions” of pro-slavery Confederate leaders during the civil war.
The new curriculum asserts that “the right to keep and bear arms” is an important element of a democratic society. Study of Sir Isaac Newton is dropped in favour of examining scientific advances through military technology.
There is also a suggestion that the anti-communist witch-hunt by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s may have been justified.
The education board has dropped references to the slave trade in favour of calling it the more innocuous “Atlantic triangular trade”, and recasts the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as driven by Islamic fundamentalism.
WTF? Hmmm… how do you take people out of the slave trade? Why, you simply call it the Atlantic triangular trade. See how easy that is? And who needs to learn about Thomas Jefferson or Sir Isaac Newton when they can learn about the “significant contributions” of pro-slavery Confederate leaders during the civil war and scientific advances through military technology? Gravity is so passé.
It gets better…
Conservatives have been accused of an assault on the history of civil rights. One curriculum amendment describes the civil rights movement as creating “unrealistic expectations of equal outcomes” among minorities. Another seeks to place Martin Luther King and the violent Black Panther movement as opposite sides of the same coin.
“We had a big discussion around that,” said Knight, a former teacher. “It was an attempt to taint the civil rights movement. They did the same by almost equating George Wallace [the segregationist governor of Alabama in the mid-1960s] with the civil rights movement and the things Martin Luther King Jr was trying to accomplish, as if Wallace was standing up for white civil rights. That’s how slick they are.
White civil rights. This phrase sums up what is going on in Texas (and other states, like Arizona). It’s about Real Americans – which is code for: Conservative, White Christians.
Meanwhile, those embracing this ideology might just want to pull their children out of science and history classes – there really is no future for them in those fields.
Tags: Education, Republican Crazy, Texas
School boards and textbook publishers need to be alerted. I plan to call my school board members and suggest a ban on any textbooks that comply with the Texas model.
Unfortunately, because the Texas market is so big, whatever is sold there often becomes the model for other states. Publishers and state school boards do not want to go to the expense of developing separate texts. However, this is so grievous that other states need to band together and tell book publishers they will not buy texts that reflect the Texas mentality. That might be the only way to keep this drivel out of our country’s schools.
I wouldn’t worry about it, Mike and Rebecca. The kids aren’t learning what they’re taught anyway.
I wonder why RWR/A.Nony Moose hasn’t chimed in to defend this. What this Board of “Education” has done is criminal. But you have to remember, in 1985-86, Texas was celebrating it’s sesquicentennial – the 150th anniversary of the Union joining Texas
I’ve learned that California has at least as much or more influence than Texas over what textbooks actually get published. So there is an alternative to the Texas template. I’ve also learned that in Delaware the textbook decision is taken at the school district level. See why those school board elections last week were so important?
Still, I like Another Mike’s idea for states to ban together and boycott the Texas Template Textbooks. We surely don’t need them exporting their dogma to the rest of the country. Concealed carry and Fundamentalism indeed. Not in New Castle County if I can help it.
! Leave Texas alone ! , and Britney.
I’ll repeat the challenge that I have made to so many folks who have commented negatively on the Texas standards — HAVE YOU READ THEM?
Want to read them? I’ve got links to them at my site. — http://rhymeswithright.mu.nu/archives/300621.php
By the way, I also posted the comments that I sent to the SBOE on my website. I only commented on six courses, the ones that I have either taught or which I feel I have sufficient familiarity with to make a well-reasoned contribution to the process. You can get to them from this omnibus post which links the six posts in question.
http://rhymeswithright.mu.nu/archives/301400.php
By the way — each of the six links in that post includes the entire set of proposed standards for the course following my commentary submitted to the SBOE.
By the way — if you want to look at the two most controversial sets of standards, please check out the World History and US History since 1877 standards.
Well, A. Nony, for example the grade 6 segment on Economics and the emphasis on “free market capitalism”. I don’t see any reason to suppose the question of whether the US practices “free market capitalism” is going to be addressed. Based on other segments (differences between socialist, communist and free enterprise economies, as represented by the US.) I don’t suppose they will. What reputable authority would suggest the US practices “free market capitalism?” In Texas alone, even under the Republic, extensive tariffs were set. This “free market capitalism” business is straight fiction.
Similarly for the oppression of Christians in Sudan, another topic they require.
Christians? You’re kidding me. The people of Darfur are predominantly Muslim. How are you going to teach anything about Sudan while framing it as anti-Christian? It’s psychotic.
And finally, and maybe my favorite point, is 25 “major” countries are named, in the whole world. Three of them are… wait for it, Norway, Sweden, and Taiwan. NONE from South America or the Caribbean , just a long walk from these students. That’s right, you’re going to teach ‘people, places and societies of the contemporary world’ without Brazil, Argentina, Haiti, The Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Venezuela, Chile…
Here’s the list: “(F) identify the location of major world countries such as Canada, Mexico, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Russia, South Africa, Nigeria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Iran, India, Pakistan, the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of China (Taiwan), Japan, North and South Korea, Indonesia, and Australia.”
That’s not a list of important countries. That’s NATO and the last few places we invaded. Apparently the committee learned everything they need to know about the world from the jump seat in a Humvee.
Truly sad. Most parents aspire to more for their children.
You may have noted, though, my suggestion for the complete elimination of that particular course and the reorganization of the state social studies curriculum was the major topic which I dealt with.
As for Darfur, though, it is the Christian population which is being enslaved. You DO oppose slavery, don’t you?
Also, I elsewhere in my suggestion stated that a return to the term “capitalism” should happen throughout the curriculum.
Darfur is an ethnic rather than a religious issue. While there are more Christians in the Darfur area than elsewhere, the primary divide is between Arab and Black Sudanese. However, many of the black Sudanese are also Muslim.
The textbooks were filled with inaccurate liberal crap. Texas asks for some balance to be taught and they are they ones causing trouble. It shows who really has an agenda. Texas should get some guts and take bids from conservative textbook publishers. If they are going to take the heat anyway, they may as well do it right.
You ignore the fact that Black Sudanese are accepted if they show they are Moslem or convert (often at the end of a whip).
David – you can’t be serious about the schoolbooks? Oh wait, that must have been Crackpipe David writing. Due, your mind is seriously warped.
A. Nony, if I object to invading Pakistan, but we still invade Pakistan, you won’t find me saying our foreign policy goals are dandy. I don’t know how you can say, “These standards are going to be fine, except that I don’t think we should teach this course at all.” That seems a contradiction, to me. If it’s not fine to teach the course as written, then there’s something wrong with the standards, kwim?
Brooke — if you remember, my reason for wanting to do away with the course had to do with creating a more flowing curriculum that put courses in a more logical sequence — and would ultimately have take “World Cultures” and made it into a more rigorous “World History Part I” course to avoid repetition with the current world history course.
I recall, and I don’t really have the experience with your current order to evaluate that. Myself, I teach geometry to some kids years before the order usually calls for it, partly because I think an emphasis on numeracy for so many years contributes to discouraging spacial learners in math.
I have issues with the recommended content in TX new guidelines, and, so far, haven’t seen those concerns effectively addressed.