Texas school board changing the curriculum

[Raithe]

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.

 

And one of the driving forces behind it is a woman who doesn't trust the school system, and has educated her own kids at home and in private christian establishments....

 

I think the scary thing about this, is how it could have that roll on effect across America.. Since most states use books published to meet the Texas curriculum...

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/1...ites-us-history

 

Of course, while she's all for asserting the constitution "the way they meant it", is she giving any thought that under "the way they meant it" (re: the Constitution) women don't get to vote/be represented?

[Moose]

I think it would be impossible to drop Newton from school physics, the two are ubiquitous. It would be like teaching chemistry without the periodic table.

[Humodour]

****ing retards.

 

I like how California has moved to block all Texas textbook changes to protect it's own curriculum.

 

See that's the real problem here - it's not that Texas is ****ing with it's own children, it's that because Texas manufactures a lot of the textbooks used around the country, it's also ****ing with America's children as a whole.

[Kaftan Barlast]

In socialist Sweden, the curriculum changes YOU.

[Amentep]

****ing retards.

 

I like how California has moved to block all Texas textbook changes to protect it's own curriculum.

 

See that's the real problem here - it's not that Texas is ****ing with it's own children, it's that because Texas manufactures a lot of the textbooks used around the country, it's also ****ing with America's children as a whole.

 

In this day of computer technology, its possible to mitigate the problems caused by Texas' nonsense by schools that don't want to teach Texas' version of the curriculum. So while still an issue its not the same as it was 20 years ago.

[Walsingham]

This is thunder over nothing. Who the hell actually reads their school textbooks anyway?

[Trenitay]

Yeah, I do.

[Raithe]

And teachers making lesson plans according to the curriculum they're set to teach from... and the books they're told they have to use..

[Wrath of Dagon]

We already had a thread on this, and I would suggest the Guardian is not the most objective source on this kind of subject. For example the "sidelining of Thomas Jefferson" is a lie, he was taken out of one sentence in world (not American) history listing Enlightnment philosophers, since it was argued he wasn't an Enlightnment philosopher himself, but influenced by them.

[Walsingham]

Yeah, I do.

 

And a fine mess it's gotten you into.

[Slowtrain]

Is this really that big a problem? Those in charge always rewrite history to suit their ends. History has been rewritten more often than Wikipedia enteries. It's unlikely than any history that exists beyond living memory is entirely accurate and that even more recent history is all ready is more myth and folktale and blind assumption and guesswork than fact.

[Slowtrain]

We already had a thread on this

 

 

IIRC that thread was more about the science aspect not the history aspect. IMO it's a pretty big difference.

[Hurlshort]

I remember the thread, it was about history, or at least drifted that way. I will repeat that any teacher that is worth a lick won't be troubled by this, as you have a good amount of control over how you present curriculum after you get tenure.

[Monte Carlo]

There is also a suggestion that the anti-communist witch-hunt by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s may have been justified.

 

Which is a perfectly reasonable argument to make, as long as students are allowed to make the counter-argument too.

 

The Un-American Activities Committee might have been unpleasant and left a nasty taste in the mouth, some of it's adherents might also have been pocket Torquemadas... but. But. Stalin's USSR was the evil empire incarnate, the dictatorship of convenience in WW2. America in the 1950's was wise to fear Soviet activities in the USA.

 

And guess what?

 

Nobody was put in prison camps. There was no American gulag. Some liberals had their glittering media careers screwed for a couple of years. Diddums.

[I want teh kotor 3]

This is ****ing bull****. One cannot separate physics from Newton. It doesn't work.

[Monte Carlo]

All hail the spaghetti monster!

[lord of flies]

Which is a perfectly reasonable argument to make, as long as students are allowed to make the counter-argument too.

 

The Un-American Activities Committee might have been unpleasant and left a nasty taste in the mouth, some of it's adherents might also have been pocket Torquemadas... but. But. Stalin's USSR was the evil empire incarnate, the dictatorship of convenience in WW2. America in the 1950's was wise to fear Soviet activities in the USA.

 

And guess what?

 

Nobody was put in prison camps. There was no American gulag. Some liberals had their glittering media careers screwed for a couple of years. Diddums.

*sighs, draws katana*

 

American communists were not Stalin; when they aided the Soviet Union, they were doing so out of a sense of genuine internationalism. Stalin's purges were long done with, and Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov (who had been tied to the whole affair) had been killed. In the Cold War, the number of people that the Soviet Union killed post-1945 is virtually nothing compared to the body count the United States stacked up in Vietnam, Cambodia and Korea and by proxy in countries such as Chile, Brazil, Iran, Greece, Nicaragua, etc.

[Monte Carlo]

:: Yawns ::

[Hiro Protagonist]

This is thunder over nothing. Who the hell actually reads their school textbooks anyway?

 

This is

when you don't read your schoolbooks.

[Thorton_AP]

I do enjoy the look on the woman's face when she is told the United States of America

 

I'll admit I didn't think of it either, but I did think of Uruguay

[Walsingham]

I can't believe LoF actually believes the official communist party line about Yezhov being the sole author of teh purges. It's actually almost cute.

[Moose]

Like a kitten vomitting maybe.

[lord of flies]

I can't believe LoF actually believes the official communist party line about Yezhov being the sole author of teh purges. It's actually almost cute.

My point is that an American communist in 1945-1953, acting on the limited information available to him, would believe that Yezhov was the primary author of the purges and that he had been righteously executed for it.

 

PS: You can easily stack up over two million dead from US involvement in Iraq and Indonesia alone.

[Orogun01]

PS: You can easily stack up over two million dead from US involvement in Iraq and Indonesia alone.

Was it deliberate, like the purges? Answer is no, your argument is invalid.

[I want teh kotor 3]

Not getting myself involved. I've had enough of his trolling. Let him ignore the truth; it'll catch up to him if his beloved Commie scum ever actually take over.