Despite a massive crowd and a huge series of protests by area High School students, a suburban district in Colorado has maintained its position that the AP History Course needs revision; apparently, the subjects chosen for coverage in the text focus more on the rocky, less glamorous and less patriotic areas of America's past, and the Board there wants more input into the subjects to be studied. From the article.
"At issue is a new approach to AP History this year that focuses more on examining historical documents and discussing the nation's history, rather than memorizing facts. The course also gives more attention to the period before the arrival of Christopher Columbus as well as slavery and women's roles. Some conservatives say the course was influenced by a movement in academia to de-emphasize the United States' uniqueness and treat it as one nation among many.
The latest move won't satisfy the students and others who packed the hearing room and also watched the meeting on a big screen outside in the parking lot with popcorn. Students, teachers and other critics of the board plan a protest after school Friday. They said they will hold signs and demonstrate on a major street that runs the length of the school district. The students turned in two cardboard boxes of a Moveon.org petition they said was signed by over 40,000 people across the country."
I wonder, because the text is aiming to be more inclusive of the not so flattering aspects of our history, if the text will include mention of the USS Liberty? Probably not. That story never makes it into textbooks....Or what about the Democratic administration of FDR's internment camps for the Japanese? wonder it that will make the cut? I wonder it the history course will make mention of the fact that the Republican Party of the 1850s wanted slavery ended, and pushed for that. and that the Republican party of the 1950s and 1960s was the party that supported civil rights over the objections of Southern Democrats? Will they cover all the non-flattering stuff, or just the non-flattering stuff that does not make them cringe. This will be interesting to watch.
4 comments:
It seems like the powers that be are trying to suppress most forms of protest, opposition or resistance against the way this country is. They need the people as obedient as possible, while the country gets ruined even further. Keep everybody carefree and apathetic, so they won't care about anything important. They don't want people to know how the US treats and treated its own citizens. If the kids know about the past, it may light a fire under them, so the travesties won't happen again.
I don't know about Colorado, but we learned about FDR's internment policy, the role of the Republican party as it relates to race both in the 1800s and more recently, and a whole lot of other flattering and unflattering portions of US History at Washington High School 20 years ago. The big problem appears to be the push by those in TX to re-write history textbooks so that those unflattering portions are removed. I assume that is now spreading to CO because the public school system in TX is so large that it can greatly influence the textbooks that show up in other states.
I'd just hate to see a liberal hijacking of the story of America, e.g. a seven page dissertation about everything "Great" Jimmy Carter did contrasted with one paragraph about Ronald Reagan, with a picture of him riding a horse with the caption "Ronald Reagan was an actor, in 1980 he became President" followed by 9 pages about everything "Great" Bill Clinton did (with no mention of Lewinski or the impeachment) followed by one paragraph about George W. Bush, complete with a picture of him on the aircraft carrier with the mission accomplished sign behind him, with the caption that reads "George W. Bush barely won the Presidency on a technicality, took the country to an unfounded war with Iraq." followed by a 12 page dissertation about everything "Great" Barack Obama has done.....etc. etc. If the puritans want to be even handed, they have to give a complete history, warts and all....and it won't, if honestly done, portray Democrats in a very good light. Warts and all, and I'm in. Selective, pick and choose stuff that makes America look ordinary, and I'm out.
Their trying to spread and doing a very good job of spreading a socialist/communist ideology. Most liberals are socialists, and their idea of freedom is a degradation of society, with everybody freely being decadent and immoral. They want to leave out some important history, and leave in all of the feel good stuff. Their version of freedom is for immoral values to freely flourish; turn everybody into a bunch of immature kids to where their daddy government and Uncle Sam have step in and take control. Kids need to know about how Japanese U.S. citizens were rounded up and confined to prison camps, and how native Americans were almost wiped out. We gotta know the complete history, and that the world is not like the Disney channel.
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