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Texas schools to get controversial US History Syllabus/Books
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/47898000/jpg/_47898164_009315949-1.jpg Texas' decisions could influence curriculums across the US Quote:
Thoughts? |
I definitely don't like where this could be headed, I see this as a way for republicans to try and eliminate some of the more important liberal ideals that were presented in US History. Plus
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As if I don't get ridiculed enough by people online that assume that just because I graduated from a Texas high school, my education is worth less than theirs. >_>
At least I can say I graduated before this bull passed. XD |
I see this as a double-edged sword of sorts. On the one hand, finally we have a state trying to eliminate the ridiculous liberal bias in government education. On the other hand, there are big opportunities for conservative bias. Being a libertarian, I'd prefer conservative bias to liberal bias, but I'd obviously rather history be left clean. Seriously, how hard is it to present history as it is? Especially swinging from absolutely no religious influence in the founding to complete religious influence... where's the accurate middle-ground?
EDIT: Nevermind, didn't notice the red text in the first post :D |
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I see nothing wrong with this change. Changes in educational content change all the time and reflect the current politics of people holding power. This isn't anymore of a big deal than liberal bias. |
I live in Texas, but this isn't going to affect me because I don't pay attention in Social Studies subjects... well I do but when finals are over I throw most of what I learned away. State Curricula are only for our Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, our "big scary final-exam-like test from the state". Jeje, that easy piece of crap can kiss my... erm... yeah, ranting now.
And why are we still mentioning textbooks? Texas is going to get rid of those things in a matter of years. Which means if you come here without a laptop, you're dead... at least in most organized districts anyways. Sorry stereotypes! |
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And Jefferson was a republican. Why'd the right drop him like a rock? |
Did no one ask if there really is a liberal bias? The liberal bias claim sounds like something that got said over and over again in the hopes that it would sound like a plausible reason to conservative-ize history books and not like the hollow excuse that it is.
As one of my professors told me once: "Facts are important things. There are probably only a million things in the world that are facts. Everything else is interpretation." While I don't know if 'America was firmly established under the idea of a separation of church and state' would count as one of those million facts, it certainly has more basis in history and reality than some modern day conservative's wish that the founding fathers had said 'America will be a Judeo-Christian society now and forever.' |
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>Implying anything in those books is untrue
History is subjective. Simple as that. Just because it's now biased in a different direction as you doesn't give you the right to complain. |
I'm a supporter of keeping the education away from the temporary political leaders, since education plays a great role in the development of the children's mentality and a bias chosen by the (obviously) biased (in any way) political leaders may be definitive. When it comes down to History and Politics, I'd much rather show the kid both views.
You can't say that capitalism is better than communism unless you have throughly studied both. You can't say how Government taxation can harm economical progress because there are instances where that's fake. It's way too subjective. But I can't really blame the Education Officials, after all. It's just natural for human beings to try to show the kids how great their views are. |
UN is a threat. Holding futile meetings with communists and dictators in NYC is the stupidest thing we could've done.
The whole separation of church and state, I'd say you need minimal state involvement in order to make sure people aren't paying through the nose to go, illegal activities are not occurring, and so on. They do that with EVERYTHING else anyway. Free market economies FTW. Finally, some level of common sense in SOME state's curriculum. Free market economy got us into being the top world power, both economicly and militarily. It's also the only way we'll stay that way. American ideals? What's so controversial about American ideals? All our ideals can be condensed into 1 word: freedom. Is that a bad thing? I think not. Personally, since liberalism dominates everything else, I think this is a good sign that at least children might not be indoctrinated from birth. I'd love that curriculum to be in my state. I'm in New York, one of the best showings of extreme leftism's results. Taxes are high, and going up, so people are quite literally leaving the state. That oughta prove at least that taxation is bad for economies, particularly when people would rather move out of state than pay their state's taxes. |
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If you want to teach about Phyllis Schlafly (who, to me, seem totally obscure and totally unimportant to even learn about. At least in a grade school setting, anyway), why take out other figures in progress? Why not have both? You need to learn about the National Rifle Association? Seriously? They're a lobby group. Why not learn about American Council of Life Insurers then? Like, c'mon. It's totally not important. Teaching about the Blank Panthers alongside Dr. King is clearly an attempt to provoke and misrepresent. The Blank Panthers are not what the civil rights movement was about. It's like saying all Muslims are terrorists or all Christians are in the KKK. |
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History itself is not subjective, let me rephrase my words. History classes are subjective. I had a history class where we had to watch Al Gore and Michael Moore films and an anti Fox News and Wal-Mart film. That is certainly biased. We need to teach about Ronald Reagan just as much as we need to teach about Kennedy or Roosevelt. Reagan was a well-loved President. We also need to teach the fact that black civil rights was a product of the Republican Party and Jim Crow segregation (and also slavery) was a product of the Democratic Party. Whenever someone wants to teach that the liberal media goes bananas but when they want to say that the New Deal was a success when in reality it was World War II that ended the Great Depression the media is okay with it. |
I'v also heard rumors that Texas is breaking from the union.......
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So on the subject of the Texas school board's actions, I feel this move is just one of many to come in the future where Conservatism is romanticized. Soon, aesthetic changes like putting Ronald Reagan on your money will gain traction, although that itself is no big deal (Put FDR on money too then!). The decision to remove Thomas Jefferson from the textbooks to me is a big mistake.
Reading this article, I feel there is a sense that the material taught in these books are designed to promote the growth of a new generation of Conservative thinking. With the removal of Jefferson and thus the notion of "separation of church and state," what will happen? Quote:
Renaming the U.S. government form from "democratic" to a "constitutional republic" seems pretty insignificant at first, but is it possible that this is an effort to take away the connotation "democratic" (Democratic Party) may have, and instead replace this connotation with "constitutional republic" (Republican Party), the connotation being that what the form is named is the political party which should "rightfully" be in power? I don't understand the voodoo that Conservatives use to make their decisions, but my guess is that the Texas school board's thinking is something along these lines. |
Wait, does this mean that by not separating the church and education they will be teaching religious views as fact? If that's true then I don't know what to say. Children shouldn't be taught what to believe, they should decide that themselves later on.
As for them teaching that the UN might restrict US freedoms, that's just... bizarre. I mean I know history is "written by the victor", but that is a little too extreme. |
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I've never had a teacher who was told to show anything or teach anything that would be biased. I didn't have one that did anything like that until high school. Now I have my opinions of the world and I'm not influenced by their opinions. One of my teachers showed an inconvenient truth once, but that was because we had nothing left to do in class, and we weren't told that we had to pay attention to it or anything like that. We don't need to learn about Regan just because some people liked him. I did and have learned about him about as much as Kennedy because his overall accomplishments were probably around the same amount. Roosevelt did much more in his three full terms and partial fourth. Dealing with the Great Depression, the New Deal (which did help a lot with relieving the pain of the depression), the second World War (which was the event that kickstarted what the New Deal had started and got us out of the Great Depression), as well as his effect on the term limit of a president. The teaching about the civil rights stuff and who you want them to be credited to is completely unnecessary though. Its just telling students why one side as bad and why the other is good which is a horrible thing to do. Any 'liberal bias' that I've ever experienced is completely the teacher's fault and I've seen none of it actually endorsed by any superior in any way or form. There's just as much conservative biased, like how my brother told me how he was forced to watch a movie which proved to be basically the opposite of An Inconvenient Truth. As for all the separation of church and state and how they don't think it should be, its complete ****. Freedom of Religion is the same as saying Freedom from Religion, as both apply. EDIT: Oh, and technically, we are a representative democracy. |
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The Constitution, as interperted by the Supreme Court, guarantees the American people a republican for of government. It does not guarantee or even suggest that we should have a democratic form of government. |
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Feh, my only opinion at the moment is that history books should record history. Understanding the effects of what would happen, rather than what did happen, seems to be more suitable for discussion time. |
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