Texas Schools Board Rewriting US History

Originally Posted by XavierP Since it is a school's role to teach and to teach how to learn, yes, the school should have some responsibility for showing that you do not have to stick to just one field, it is reasonable to want to learn something of everything. The means are only more useful if the facts are shown. If I rad your paragraph correctly, in order to learn about (for example) gravity, one would first have to rediscover the theory about it? No, schools should explain the result, explain the methodology and then teach about using the methods and reaching the conclusion. At the level the school system works at, it is only useful if you are moving towards a known end - the real experiments should be done at university level. This an anti-science rant? Science says "This is what we know now. If another theory comes along that expands on our knowledge or proves this wrong then we will adjust our thinking". This is the strength of science - to use religion as an example, they know the answer and there is nothing which will change it. Religion is fixed in time - sometime between 2000 and 6000 years ago. No idea what you're banging on about here. Sheep? Alinsky? If it is relevant to the debate, please expand. Seriously? School is the first time a child will come into a strange and unfamiliar and large (and somewhat homogeneous group). Learning how to fit in and to achieve an end within this group is the first and most important life lesson to learn. Or are you advocating home schooling for all?

You snipped the wrong ending of my post.. Wrong because I say so, not because you're actually in the wrong. I did post an unfinished thought.

The relevance of Saul Alinksy is that he is a notorious agitator that came from the early 1900s. He taught lots of people how to walk into a ghetto and organize the lazy slobs into an army of inconvenience for the establishment --

things such as large groups of African Americans going to an airport to spend the day filling up the bathrooms after each flight came in so the passengers would have to seek alternate methods of relieving themselves, such as going back onboard the plane they just got off of in order to use their bathroom ---- delays, y'all ----, and a large group of African Americans eating tons of baked beans, and then going to an orchestra concert to unleash methane-hell on the unwitting establishment.

He is also partly responsible for the development of unions.

But, all of this in the name of self interest and giving groups of hopeless people the power to ruin the worlds of those perceived to be oppressors.

This includes schools, and is how Safe Schools(TM) came about, as well as many other deceptively named programs. Because people learned how to throw mass tantrums until they get what they want.

Saul event stated himself that he bases his operations off of his experience manipulating his own mother.

This is my reason for thinking schools should be politically, religiously, and for the most part - emotionally sterilized.

Originally Posted by Dogs This is my reason for thinking schools should be politically, religiously, and for the most part - emotionally sterilized.

Ah, you live and learn I agree. School should not be a place to preach at students (whether politically, religiously or whatever), it should be a place where the facts are presented and students are given the tools and skills to be able to form their own opinions. Obviously, certain "hard" subjects are exempt - reading and writing and maths, for example.

Originally Posted by XavierP Ah, you live and learn I agree. School should not be a place to preach at students (whether politically, religiously or whatever), it should be a place where the facts are presented and students are given the tools and skills to be able to form their own opinions. Obviously, certain "hard" subjects are exempt - reading and writing and maths, for example.

Right, so essentially what I mean is that schools should have the diseased parts removed. This will be an overwhelming improvement by itself.

We can delegate the distribution of information regarding the diseased subjects that were removed -- to the public, lest the Alinsky followers execute a human DDoS on the stock holders, proxies, and all other resources that can be attacked in order to force the school to behave in the desired manner. (thereby destroying the education system)

Ah, you live and learn I agree. School should not be a place to preach at students (whether politically, religiously or whatever), it should be a place where the facts are presented and students are given the tools and skills to be able to form their own opinions. Obviously, certain "hard" subjects are exempt - reading and writing and maths, for example.

...and therein lies the rub.

Define "fact".

Coming back to the origin of this thread, the reality is that teaching history unavoidably implies a perspective. There is no time (and no capability) to provide ALL the facts of history - to do so would require at least as much time to study as the events themselves took when they occurred, and in many cases the exact facts are not known anyway.

So the best you can do is choose the "salient facts" or the "important facts" and interpret them "appropriately" - and you HAVE TO interpret them; since you can't possibly provide ALL the facts, you MUST provide a context for the facts you do provide.

Now. How do you define what are the important facts? What is an "appropriate" interpretation? What is an accurate context?

The conservatives in Texas want to provide what they consider to be an "appropriate" context. But then, so do the Liberals - who in the past 30 years or so have pretty much had their say. And the conservative's appropriate context is propaganda to the liberal - and vice-versa. And they're both right - from their perspectives.

What is needed (if this is possible) is a dispassionate reading and interpretation of history, that provides a balanced historical perspective. What is balanced? I think I'd know it when I see it, but what I would call balanced you might well call biased, because your perspective is different than mine.

So the debate we are having now will never go away - and it shouldn't. But, at the same time, the degree of polarization that is displayed in both the perspective chosen AND the lack of tolerance for other perspectives is inherently destructive.

Originally Posted by Dogs Right, so essentially what I mean is that schools should have the diseased parts removed.

"Diseased" according to whom? The scientific method IS the scientific method. It is applied to a particular area of inquiry and the results are what they are. There is no "disease" there unless you want to say that the scientific method is, itself, flawed. Is that what you want?

Be careful, because if you say "Yes," then I get to remove the "diseased" religions -- i.e., any religion that doesn't agree with me or mine. Is that what you mean?

Originally Posted by moxieman99 "Diseased" according to whom? The scientific method IS the scientific method. It is applied to a particular area of inquiry and the results are what they are. There is no "disease" there unless you want to say that the scientific method is, itself, flawed. Is that what you want? Be careful, because if you say "Yes," then I get to remove the "diseased" religions -- i.e., any religion that doesn't agree with me or mine. Is that what you mean?

Indeed my meaning in the word diseased is quite literal.. A part that is not functioning properly, for some reason.

I don't understand what you're trying to suggest by saying I'm against the scientific method. Indeed, I am not as disciplined as I should be in its use, but I do have a large respect for the work that went into its development.

So, the scientific method has nothing to do with politics, religion, sex, or history of the world, and everything to do with human innovation. Nothing wrong with teaching innovation in school. Lots wrong with teaching ideologies.

To a lesser degree I am insinuating that no schools ANYWHERE should contribute DIRECTLY to the growth of the INDIVIDUAL. That stuff comes with age and experience, not from someone else. Less emphasis on all of the nonsensical things generally associated with school should be beneficial to the students.

As it is, though, schools are mostly a place where kids go while their parents are at work, and where they learn about some things, get experimented on, and waste lots of time.

Originally Posted by XavierP Don't blame them - this sort of story makes average Texans look like backwards people. But then, if the people of Texas do not agree with these people, they are in the ideal place to do something about it. If it does not have widespread support the Texans should be writing to the Governor and to their local politicians to say "either do something about this or get a real job when the next elections come up".

It's actually not a bad idea, that the people of Texas get to review what goes into the books. It's a review process that takes place every 10 years (I think it's 10 years). The problem is that every time it comes up, all the special interests and whackos come out. There are plenty of people that are perfectly credible, intelligent and knowledgeable about the actual subjects speaking out in the hearings.....but as usual sane people don't make the news, especially the news that makes it halfway around the world. So I'd go ahead and ask everyone to take the reports with skeptical eye. Or not. I'd still rather be from Texas than anywhere else I've ever been.

The problem, for everyone - not just Texans, is that successive governments have experimented on kids. This is not a recent thing. A new educational idea is developed and the schools are the places where these things are tested. Which means that my school experience is entirely different to kids today and was different to that of my parents.

What needs to happen is the SBOE needs balance. By renaming "slavery" to the "triangular trade" they are dishonestly trying to hide it. They may be the same thing, but words have power. As well, how can a kid who learns that phrase have a meaningful discussion about slavery with one of us? We wouldn't even be using the same language.

While I accept that we cannot just throw all the facts out there and have to pick and choose the focus - for example, I learned a fair bit about Canadian WWI and WWII activities yesterday - the weaselly hiding of real information needs to stop. We all accept that slavery happened and by hiding it behind rephrasing we simply set up a system where it could happen again.

While I accept that we cannot just throw all the facts out there and have to pick and choose the focus - for example, I learned a fair bit about Canadian WWI and WWII activities yesterday - the weaselly hiding of real information needs to stop. We all accept that slavery happened and by hiding it behind rephrasing we simply set up a system where it could happen again.

Ahhh!

Slavery, at least in its historical form, won't be coming back. The reasons for slavery were technological and economic - and, as much as we revile slavery today, it is an institution that enabled the social and technological progress that ultimately made it uneconomic and unnecessary.

Slavery, which was practiced by pretty much all societies until well into the industrial revolution (and is still practiced in those few areas of the globe where the industrial revolution has never penetrated) was the institution that allowed the formation of a leisure class - a group of people who were freed from the need to spend their time in the activities needed to survive - and all of our social, scientific, and technological progress - every bit of it - has come from this class.

We still have our slaves. But we build them in factories.

This is what I mean about context. We certainly should call slavery what it was and not obscure it. We should most certainly recognize the evil that it did, the lives it destroyed and brutalized. But we should also recognize WHY it existed, and what the ultimate consequences were. After all, slavery as an institution certainly wouldn't have survived for thousands of years if it had not conveyed benefits on the societies that practiced it (all of 'em) that substantially outweighed the disadvantages.

Good point well made. Which is why it's a bad thing to call it by another name. As soon as you hide behind a less harsh term you make it easier to forget is wasn't a good thing to do - so "Executive Action", "Health Adjustment Committee" as euphemisms and ways to hide your actions are just cowardly and a way to rewrite history.

Question - If 6 billion people are slaves, and 200,000 are not, is that still slavery or something else entirely?

Depends. Are the 200,000 the slavemasters? In which case, you have answered your own (rhetorical) question.

Update:

Conservative Textbook Curriculum Passes Final Vote In Texas
http://politics.slashdot.org/story/1...-Vote-In-Texas

I feel the inquisition II and dark ages II are one step closer.