Texas school board is full of morons.

[Oblarg]

Unfortunately, Texas, history doesn't care about your political views.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html

[Gorth]

Heh, what would the next step be... a Chinese style firewall to protect Texas against the damaging influences from the rest of the world?!?

 

Whatever happened to presenting information from different sources and teach the kids critical reading and questioning their sources?

[Oblarg]

Heh, what would the next step be... a Chinese style firewall to protect Texas against the damaging influences from the rest of the world?!?

 

Whatever happened to presenting information from different sources and teach the kids critical reading and questioning their sources?

 

What, you mean not just feeding them information to regurgitate onto horribly designed tests later?

 

Why would you ever do that?

[Slowtrain]

Whatever happened to presenting information from different sources and teach the kids critical reading and questioning their sources?

 

 

We don't support that sort of thing here.

[Trenitay]

Hey, we don't get taught how to think, why should Texas?

[Aram]

Texas school board is full of morons.

Well, obviously.

[GreasyDogMeat]

Oh noes!

 

I'm sure this will have as big a negative effect on America as health care reform!

[Walsingham]

While I find it hard to criticise their affirmation that the Founding Fathers were broadly in favour of religion, I lament their obvious neglect of their equal support for slavery and terrorism.

[HoonDing]

USA is a country started by a bunch of rich kids butthurt over tea. Belgium is a country started by a bunch of rich kids butthurt over a banned opera.

 

I do not know which of the two is worse.

Edited March 25, 2010 by virumor

[Slowtrain]

USA is a country started by a bunch of rich kids butthurt over tea. Belgium is a country started by a bunch of rich kids butthurt over a banned opera.

 

I do not know which of the two is worse.

 

 

Opera is obviously worse than tea.

[Oner]

USA is a country started by a bunch of rich kids butthurt over tea. Belgium is a country started by a bunch of rich kids butthurt over a banned opera.

 

I do not know which of the two is worse.

 

 

Opera is obviously worse than tea.

I have to agree.

[Calax]

I'm guessing there'll be a bit of a backlash against this. And if Californias textbook policy ends up near the other end of the spectrum (which it might given that this state seems to enact stuff simply out of spite) then it'd allow for the more "liberal" books to be published.

 

Also some parents might end up pulling a Dover and suing the school district for this sort of thing (by not consulting experts etc).

 

Also adds to my list of "Get out of the US" reasons.

Edited March 25, 2010 by Calax

[Amentep]

While I find it hard to criticise their affirmation that the Founding Fathers were broadly in favour of religion, I lament their obvious neglect of their equal support for slavery and terrorism.

 

And for revolution!

 

 

[213374U]

Oh noes!

 

I'm sure this will have as big a negative effect on America as health care reform!

 

 

 

Thoughts?

[Amentep]

USA is a country started by a bunch of rich kids butthurt over tea. Belgium is a country started by a bunch of rich kids butthurt over a banned opera.

 

I do not know which of the two is worse.

 

Opera is obviously worse than tea.

 

 

Although you have to admit the historically based (and tragic story) of the over throw of Spanish rule of Naples that ends with the revolutionary leader being poisoned by his former friend, a ruler marching an army into the revolution to save his fiance and a mute girl tossing herself into an exploding volcano is pretty stirring stuff.

[Enoch]

The bit about the changes to the world history curriculum at the end was particularly funny:

Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone.

Why do they hate America?

 

 

In my experience, elected school board positions are one of those offices that people only tend to run for when they have an axe to grind.

[Amentep]

That just had me shaking my head.

 

And '

[Hurlshort]

This means very little to quality teachers.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Nothing wrong with bringing a little balance, education has been skewed to the left for like forever. If someone goes too far in pushing creationism, etc, they tend to lose elections, even in conservative districts. I suspect Dunbar may be in trouble in the next election over Jefferson.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Nothing wrong with bringing a little balance...

 

Except they're not.

[Oblarg]

Oh noes!

 

I'm sure this will have as big a negative effect on America as health care reform!

 

 

 

Thoughts?

 

I admit, I lol'd.

 

I would have preferred a picture of a red herring, though.

 

Nothing wrong with bringing a little balance, education has been skewed to the left for like forever. If someone goes too far in pushing creationism, etc, they tend to lose elections, even in conservative districts. I suspect Dunbar may be in trouble in the next election over Jefferson.

 

The reason get a lot of flak if they go too far in pushing creationism (or push it at all, for that matter) is because you have to be a complete and utter idiot to literally believe the bible creation story. It's not because "education is skewed to the left," it's because education is supposed to be teaching kids, to the best of our ability, truth. Anyone with half a brain knows that the bible creation story (or its renamed counterpart, "Intelligent Design") is scientific bull****. The only reason creationists get any recognition at all is because they tend to be very loud and obnoxious, and enjoy pushing their nonsensical beliefs on people who are actually interesting in learning how the world works.

Edited March 25, 2010 by Oblarg

[Slowtrain]

The reason get a lot of flak if they go too far in pushing creationism (or push it at all, for that matter) is because you have to be a complete and utter idiot to literally believe the bible creation story. It's not because "education is skewed to the left," it's because education is supposed to be teaching kids, to the best of our ability, truth. Anyone with half a brain knows that the bible creation story (or its renamed counterpart, "Intelligent Design") is scientific bull****. The only reason creationists get any recognition at all is because they tend to be very loud and obnoxious, and enjoy pushing their nonsensical beliefs on people who are actually interesting in learning how the world works.

 

 

That's a bit harsh, I think.

[Hurlshort]

I'm not sure what this really has to do with the creationism argument, this is history curriculum. I don't know any history teachers that stick strictly to the textbook. History is about looking at as many sources of information as you can gather and then thinking critically about them.

 

There were no historians, sociologists or economists consulted at the meetings, though some members of the conservative bloc held themselves out as experts on certain topics.

 

To be honest, this is the type of stuff we deal with in every state when it comes to textbook creation. That is why all decent teachers supplement lessons heavily with different sources. Textbooks are mediocre compendiums of curriculum, they help create a skeleton for a teacher to follow, but the teacher has to flesh it out themselves.

[Oblarg]

The reason get a lot of flak if they go too far in pushing creationism (or push it at all, for that matter) is because you have to be a complete and utter idiot to literally believe the bible creation story. It's not because "education is skewed to the left," it's because education is supposed to be teaching kids, to the best of our ability, truth. Anyone with half a brain knows that the bible creation story (or its renamed counterpart, "Intelligent Design") is scientific bull****. The only reason creationists get any recognition at all is because they tend to be very loud and obnoxious, and enjoy pushing their nonsensical beliefs on people who are actually interesting in learning how the world works.

 

 

That's a bit harsh, I think.

 

The truth is harsh.

 

People who honestly believe that god created the world and all the animals exactly how they are and nothing in the natural world changes by means of evolution have no right to be on a board of education. Ever. In order to have that belief, you have to actively disregard a *very* large chunk of well-established scientific knowledge.

[Calax]

The reason creationism isn't taught in science is because it's religious and doesn't have any real scientific backing to it (How can you scientifically prove that there is a diety that creates the universe, but by definition you can't detect it?).

 

As to the Textbook issue, Hurl, as much as I wanna say you're right, I'm guessing that if a teacher deviates to much from the text they get yelled at by the district. Personally if I ever taught school (and I might being a physics major) I'd probably end up not really using the text that much, at least in classes that weren't really mathmatics. Also, as much as there are good teachers that don't really follow the book, there's probably a dozen who use the text because they're out of their league (I've had several, including one who was boggled when students started yelling about the fact that their project was worth more than anything else in the gradebook when they had been told it was only 15% of their grade because she weighted the grades but didn't put in a representation of the weight).