Yesterday on a local conservative radio program, I heard discussion about the Texas American history text book controversy. In Texas, conservatives have taken control of the Texas State School Board, and are trying to order text books that put a different slant on U.S. history...specifically a conservative one. This is important because Texas orders more school text books than any other state, so as Texas goes, so goes the nation.
To his credit, the conservative host was against this mostly. While he agreed that some balance is needed in the history curriculum in this country and even applauded some of the suggested changes, he said the conservatives should run this organization with more class than the liberals who have run education in this country for years. And, to the Texas State school board's credit, some of their suggested changes do make a lot of sense...I was unaware that many American history curriculms are now glossing over the fact that this country was founded on religious principles.
Here's my thought...teach what happened!!! It's history, it's already happened, and we know what happened. Teach that! Don't slant it to emphasize anything...tell these kids what happened, good and bad, and let the kids figure it out for themselves.
For example, we should be teaching that this country was founded by people seeking religious freedom, and it was founded on a religious code...specifically the 10 commandments. That is fact! For some reason, liberals have seen fit to de-emphasize this, and the conservatives want to put that back in. We should also teach about slavery and the civil rights movement. The conservatives want to lessen the emphasis on that. We need to teach both!
These conservatives in Texas should be ashamed of themselves. Some have suggested they are doing this to prove a point to the liberals, and will come back to a more reasoned stance, and I hope that is right. As conservatives, we need to be better than the liberals, and we need to trust that our children will make the correct choices when given all the facts.
Our education system is failing our children for many reasons, but this is one of them. The education system should not be a tool used to breed a certain type of political thinking. Instead, it should be used to teach our children the skills they need to survive in this world, and a strong knowledge of history, all history, is important. If we don't understand our history, we are doomed to repeat it.
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4 comments:
Interesting points.
As a teacher I try to be as unbiased as possible. I say again, I know I'm doing my job well when my students have to ask me what political party I belong to. My response to them is the same, "It doesn’t matter. I'm here to teach you how to think... not what to think."
History is a different animal. You want to teach what happened, I totally agree. But from whose point of view? That is the problem. You give an example of the founding of the country. I would argue that it was established for religious freedom, but not with the 10 commandments as a base. I would say that the founding fathers used more information from Locke, Hobbs and Rousseau, rather then the Bible. Was the Bible important to the founding father, unequivocally yes. However, so was religious freedom, therefore they deliberately did not use the Bible as the foundation for the country. If I’m right, the word God does not appear in the US Constitution, most likely Franklins doing. Franklin looked at things in a much more scientific manner and changed some of the wording away from the Christian religious context. For example, in the Declaration of Independence he changed God to Creator. "We hold these truths to be self evident..." you know the rest. Indeed, it was Lock's Social Contract theory that was used in the Declaration of Independence as a sign of enforcing Democracy not anything from the Bible. So, I don't see this country as being founded on a strictly religious code. It all depends what lens you are looking through. You are a much more religious man than I, hands down. So you see through a religious lens and I see it through a philosophical lens. The problem is, what do you teach? How do you teach it? Both points could be considered historically accurate.
You can change any event in history to fit into a world view or personal perspective. I would give you all of Dan Brown’s novels as example. Brown calls them fiction; yet look at the firestorm they create. Some people see them as truth, when they are far from. Again, it all depends what lens you view things through.
Have you ever asked anybody born and raised in the south to describe the Civil War? You will get a completely different take on it then we did in school. They will tell it through their point of view and what was passed down to them, most of it historically accurate but with completely different context.
Here is my take. We both went to the same Jr. High and High School. Both of us turned out well rounded men- well, you did at least. Look at why that is- not at what is in the text books. You could have complete hogwash in text books- it doesn’t really matter as long as you get the students interested in learning. Tell them that Neil Armstrong got to the moon via a 1969 Ford Mustang… I don’t care… as long as that kid is looking up at the moon at night going, “I bet there is a better way to get to the moon than a Mustang.”
I think I could have had a better ending there… but you get my point (I hope).
MCD
I think you are in the majoriy of teachers. However, I can remember some of my teachers, at both the high school and college level expressing their political views.
What you say is true. What I don't like is the idea of any political spin being put on text books. I think it's ridiculous that this is even a topic. I think we should teach as much of history as we possibly can. We shouldn't hide anything, or emphasize anything, based on a certain political point of view. History should be a record of events...that's it.
For example, we should teach everything FDR did as president. Then, by completing other studies, such as economics classes, maybe social studies, you will draw your own conclusions about the effects of what FDR did as President.
I think we have a problem in our current society in that we don't understand our history. We don't know what happened because so much has been glossed over or taken out entirely. The way to fix that is to tell the entire truth of our great country...the good and the bad.
My father's generation has a much better grasp of history than mine...some of that is because they are older, but some of that is because there are things we were never taught. There were many times when I would come home from school, and tell my dad what I learned about history, and then he would fill in the holes. In fact, I got in trouble in 4th grade because I took my fill-in data from my dad back to school and told the teacher...she was embarrassed and made me stay after school.
That was a different lesson. Anyway, I think we agree, maybe...unless you are advocating putting a political ideological spin on history...then we don't agree.
Oh yeah, if we can convince kids that we got to the moon in a Mustang, then we have a serious problem with our math and science curriculum.
Nice ending though. :-P
No... no political spin at all. We agree. Man, that is nice to type. Haven't done that in years! :-)
I think Mustangs are capable of a lot of things! American engineering... if you put rocket fuel in them, who knows. :-)
MCD
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