Those of you that know me well know how passionate I am about fighting hatred & racism in our battle to decrease world suck. I also strongly believe in the value of teaching our children the truth about our mistakes as a society in order to prevent them from making the same terrible errors in judgment. With that said I'd like to share a current petition from Change.org with you:
Don't Let Texas Rewrite History
Targeting: Pearson Education, McGraw-Hill , Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, see more…Pearson Education, McGraw-Hill , Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Macmillan
Sponsored by: CREDO ActionLed by far-right ideologues, the Texas State Board of Education recently gave preliminary approval to a plan that would radically change what children across the country learn in history class.
The ultra-conservative majority on the board – none of whom are experts in any academic discipline and many of whom are explicitly anti-science – took the curricula proposed by teachers and made over a hundred changes to "correct" the perceived left-wing bias.
But it gets worse. Since Texas is one of the largest textbook markets in the country, material written to cater to the Texas curricula will find its way into textbooks across the country unless textbook publishers take a stand.
Children who use textbooks conforming to the new standards will not learn anything about the political philosophy of Thomas Jefferson or his thoughts on the separation of church and state. When they learn about the Civil War, they'll have to study Jefferson Davis' inaugural address alongside Abraham Lincoln's. And when they study the civil rights movement they'll have to learn about the "unintended consequences" of Great Society programs, affirmative action and Title IX.
It's outrageous. Education will fail if we can't teach our children history. We can't let these far-right ideologues co-opt our educational system.
Sign the petition to tell the textbook publishers: Don't let Texas rewrite history.
via www.change.org
Sorry, hun. The changes are not just perceived and not just in Texas. They have already been rewritten and they need to be changed back in order to teach the truth, which does not change.
Hi Donna, Thanks very much for commenting! I completely agree the truth needs to be taught and believe me I am not in any way saying the previous version should not be revised. What I am saying is that I do not think it should be up to non-expert politicians to vote on textbook changes by party and their opinions. To get to the truth of the matter it would be quite grand if they were to consult of all people…hmmm…perhaps a few qualified historians!
I agree with Donna…the history has been twisted and turned to meet the agendas of the political idealogues. If I could go back and home school my kids to ensure they did not receive the "global warming" and other one-sided political correctness garbage, I would do so. Fortunately, we spent a great deal of time correcting the misinformation imposed on our children by the educators.
I believe that the only way to be fair to all possible ideas of what is 'correct' history is to tell ALL sides since everything, including
'truth' in history, is influenced by who it is told by and what their opinion of it is. The only 'truths' are dates and names of people and events. People's perceptions of these events will always influence how they are told no matter how honest and good the intent may be. i.e. The truth in ancient history to me is found in "The Holy Bible", yet there are many others who do not believe this way to be the 'true' history of the world. However, I agree with you that there should be others consulted besides just politicians! I don't know how it would be decided fairly but I'm sure there is some way to do so.
Go sista, soul sista….I couldn't agree with your post more. Freaky freaky…and don't get me started on what gets taught in schools..esp public schools. We're NOT giving our children an education. What are we, like 40th worldwide in education now? What we're giving them is an indoctrination….the US is the most powerful fantastic and only freedom loving country on earth (usually to justify 'might makes right' philosophy). Rewriting our history to our children is just a tiny aspect of that. Horrifying. Horrifying. You know kids are STILL taught how friendly pilgrims and indians were to each other? Sheesh. I'm on my way to the petition now. And I'm TOTALLY going to check out NerdFighters! Sounds like my kinda peeps! Ps…thanks so much for the bookworm goodies! As for books, if you're digging Koontz lately, make sure to check out "The Darkest Evening of the Year", and with your reading list I'm guessing you'd really dig the Jeff Lindsay "Darkly Dreaming Dexter" series…that's the one on which the Dexter show (awesome!!!!) on showtime is based.
Toodle-oo, and thanks for giving me a chance to hop on my soap-box! LOL
orachel
orachel54 at yahoo
Yes, I completely it's such a complicated issue with no easy answer and 'truth' is so subjective. What a novel idea we have consulting historians instead of politicians to come to a consensus regarding history LOL!
Thanks for your comments!!! 🙂
And DEFINITELY check out the Nerdfighters…it's such a wonderful community of intelligent, fun loving & good people.
Actually I just picked up a copy of "The Darkest Evening of the Year" a couple days ago! Too funny! I'll be reading it soon and I'll be sure to post!
DFTBA! 😉
Angeltown, I am late to this. But I live in Texas and I have experience homeschooling and with the Public school system. I am with you completely. Texas has undue influence, and it is party idealogues who hold too much sway in the decision making process.