Church, Politics and State Education Systems

[SadisticNature]

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/03/15/texas-textbook-wars-how-conservatives-might-teach-history/

What do people think of this decision?

Do they think the fictional textbook is accurate and supports intelligent discourse and learning?

In general how do people feel about Glorifying McCarthyism.

Do people feel questions that are leading and potentially have a political agenda to them are acceptable in high school textbooks?

[Thorne]

What do people think of this decision?
I think it's criminal for the book publishers to hold the rest of the country down to the standards of Texas. What happens if they don't print the books that Texas wants? Does Texas stop buying books? I doubt it!


Do they think the fictional textbook is accurate and supports intelligent discourse and learning?
I haven't seen a textbook in a long time, so it's hard for me to judge. My feeling is that this fictional excerpt is about as far from the truth as what's out there now, just in the opposite direction. That's what comes of letting politicians decide what to teach children.


In general how do people feel about Glorifying McCarthyism.
McCarthy was right about one thing: there were card-carrying communists in the country. Of course, that didn't make them traitors, just different politicians. What Texas is proposing would open the door to persecuting Democrats in the same manner.


Do people feel questions that are leading and potentially have a political agenda to them are acceptable in high school textbooks?
LOL! I would imagine that there are a lot of people, especially in Texas, who would read that excerpt and say, "What? Not even one mention of Jesus or the Bible? What kind of teaching is that?"

All I can say is I'm glad my kids are out of school now. I think it's time to find a nice secluded mountain valley and build my retirement fortress... I mean "home"!

[steelish]

I think Americans should learn true history, not just the glorified crap they feed in schools nowadays. There were most definitely "card-carrying" communists in the country at that time (http://depts.washington.edu/labhist/cpproject/grijalva.shtml), and I'm sure there are quite a few residing in America now. In fact, I'd be shocked if there weren't. I have no problem with it...no one should. America is not a country that turns people away because of what they think or believe. Everyone has a right to think and feel whatever they want.

History (especially BAD history) will repeat itself unless we learn it and pay attention to the past mistake made by others. I just don't believe history lessons should be skewed towards a specific political party...both sides of every issue should be evenly taught across the board.

[oww-that-hurt]

Thorne and steelish, thanks, as always, for your insight. Really!

My wife and I are agnostic, so anytime some nut case starts to expound their views as being the ONLY views that are legitimate and they MUST include religion, we run back into our (greatly) fortified home and make sure we have a lot of anal lube because more involuntary bent-over activities are about to occur.

What's wrong with card-carrying Communists? Personally, I'm more worried about all of these RELIGIONS that have clergy that seem to be unable to keep their wicks away from boys. Next, after glorifying McCarthyism, the religious nuts may as well re-start the Salem witch hunts.

And these are the type of folks that are trying to slant history to suit their wants. Damn, my grand-kids are in school. When they come to visit us every summer I guess we will have to deprogram them and teach them the real historical truths. At least the actual information is still available. Fahrenheit 451 will soon be the normal practice in society!

Do people feel questions that are leading and potentially have a political agenda to them are acceptable in high school textbooks? (Sorry, don't know how to do a quote at this point in the response.) Totally unacceptable. They should be taught the truth, and then shown how some folks try to twist the facts and try to get these kids to believe their views as truths.

Did anybody see this guy on the news and hear him? Scary to think that publishers actually think the entire country could give a hoot about what he says. Last time I checked I don't live in the State of Montana, in the country of United States of Texas.

Better quit with that.

[TantricSoul]

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/03/15/texas-textbook-wars-how-conservatives-might-teach-history/

What do people think of this decision?

This decision? "The Texas Board of Education voted last Friday to add conservative values and historical interpretations to the statewide social studies curriculum."

I think someone has been injecting the cattle with way too many growth hormones down in Texas. I also think this wont play out as it may seem. The makeup of the Texas Board of Education has changed since this process began and will change further before any actual textbooks are produced. Since said textbooks need to be approved by the board, I expect Texans will be presented with a textbook far less "interpretive" than the imaginary one in the article.

Do they think the fictional textbook is accurate and supports intelligent discourse and learning?

No it is obviously not accurate, however, yes it could be used to support intelligent discourse and learning ... in a Critical Thinking class.

In general how do people feel about Glorifying McCarthyism.

About the same as I feel about glorifying the Salem Witch trials. Oh yes by all means lets put our ignorance and intolerance on display to the world, once again.

Do people feel questions that are leading and potentially have a political agenda to them are acceptable in high school textbooks?

No. However I accept the reality that regardless of how I feel it will be done anyway.

I also accept my responsibility as a parent to teach my children how to think and feel on their own. Nerdy as it may seem, we sometimes play a game where the goal is to identify Logical Fallacies, Propaganda Devices, and "name that os" (as in Pathos, Ethos, and Logos) when watching TV, discussing a paper, article, or reading ...etc.



Religion and Politics when inserted into the educational system harm us all. It really doesn't matter which viewpoints (lib/con, believer/nonbeliever) either. Both organizations are incredibly efficient at reducing and polarizing topics down to two possible viewpoints. There is more than just two possibilities and points of view in this reality. Its saddening that so many people likely will only ever see two, and only one "clearly" (maybe not even that).

Respectfully,
TS

[Thorne]

Religion and Politics when inserted into the educational system harm us all. It really doesn't matter which viewpoints (lib/con, believer/nonbeliever) either. Both organizations are incredibly efficient at reducing and polarizing topics down to two possible viewpoints. There is more than just two possibilities and points of view in this reality. Its saddening that so many people likely will only ever see two, and only one "clearly" (maybe not even that).

Well said! This just further reinforces the (admittedly idealistic) need to eliminate political parties completely. Let individuals run on their own merits, and live or die (politically speaking) on their own actions.

Yeah, like THAT will ever happen!

[denuseri]

The State of Texas is not unique in finding politically one sided bias of a liberal left to be vehmently entrenched within the education system in America.

In fact the real surprise is that it took a government body this long to come to the realization that there is such a problem and that it needs to be corrected.

I am sure however that it will not be corrected in the manner which the article portrayed. That is obviously a political agenda seeping out of the journalists keyboard plain and simple. But who knows, I wouldn't put it past the Republicans to use the very same tatic the Democrats have used for so long against them.

What would be nice for a change, is if teachers would acctually follow an ethical standard that precluded adherence to any political party.

The US military punnishes its members if they do anything that can be construed as being politically orrientated as support for one party over another. Why not hold teachers to the same standard?

Instead of doing as they currently are allmost universally accross the board, especially in colleges.

At present, in the USA , liberal agenda dominates the classrooms, especially at the college level.

If I only had a dollar for every teacher that proffessed political views openly in classess that I attended (especially classess that have nothing to do with politics, like latin, english lit and algebra etc), then encouraged students to do the same and then graded against said students with differeing political views from their own in all the subjective portions of thier ciriculums. (BTW Blue books = subjectivity 9 times out of ten)

Teachers, like the journalists before them, have joined the ranks of the sophists of old in this regard.

The worst part is that the majority of the tenured educational professionals who embraced the changes incorperated by adoption of the Dewey system over the Clasical model in the early 1900's are to blame.

They not only discarded their own honor piecemeal so that they could promote their own political beliefs through their work when and where they ccould get away with it, all while truing the systen into an excersise in programing, but they taught whole succeeding generations of teachers that it was the "correct" standard operating procedure.

[DuncanONeil]

First of all the "excerpts" are fictional, as is the text from which derived. Hence the assumption in your question that this is a planned text makes little sense.
That being said; "The first of these New Deal laws, the Emergency Banking Act, was approved in two days by a docile Democratic Congress (the vote in the Senate was 73-7) without reading the actual wording of the legislation. The Banking Act gave FDR and the Democrats unprecedented and potentially dangerous control over the national supply of credit " sounds a lot like now, does it not?


http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/03/15/texas-textbook-wars-how-conservatives-might-teach-history/

What do people think of this decision?

Do they think the fictional textbook is accurate and supports intelligent discourse and learning?

In general how do people feel about Glorifying McCarthyism.

Do people feel questions that are leading and potentially have a political agenda to them are acceptable in high school textbooks?

[DuncanONeil]

We all know your biases. Does not mean that only one point of view is correct. Nor should the "approved" point of view be the ONLY one taught!


I think it's criminal for the book publishers to hold the rest of the country down to the standards of Texas. What happens if they don't print the books that Texas wants? Does Texas stop buying books? I doubt it!


I haven't seen a textbook in a long time, so it's hard for me to judge. My feeling is that this fictional excerpt is about as far from the truth as what's out there now, just in the opposite direction. That's what comes of letting politicians decide what to teach children.


McCarthy was right about one thing: there were card-carrying communists in the country. Of course, that didn't make them traitors, just different politicians. What Texas is proposing would open the door to persecuting Democrats in the same manner.


LOL! I would imagine that there are a lot of people, especially in Texas, who would read that excerpt and say, "What? Not even one mention of Jesus or the Bible? What kind of teaching is that?"

All I can say is I'm glad my kids are out of school now. I think it's time to find a nice secluded mountain valley and build my retirement fortress... I mean "home"!

[DuncanONeil]

Hear! Hear!


I think Americans should learn true history, not just the glorified crap they feed in schools nowadays. There were most definitely "card-carrying" communists in the country at that time (http://depts.washington.edu/labhist/cpproject/grijalva.shtml), and I'm sure there are quite a few residing in America now. In fact, I'd be shocked if there weren't. I have no problem with it...no one should. America is not a country that turns people away because of what they think or believe. Everyone has a right to think and feel whatever they want.

History (especially BAD history) will repeat itself unless we learn it and pay attention to the past mistake made by others. I just don't believe history lessons should be skewed towards a specific political party...both sides of every issue should be evenly taught across the board.

[DuncanONeil]

The issue is not about "glorifying McCarthy" But about if democracy has a right to challenge communism.
I do subscribe to you can believe as you will but I also believe that the priniciples of the nation are not compatible with communism.


Religion and Politics when inserted into the educational system harm us all. It really doesn't matter which viewpoints (lib/con, believer/nonbeliever) either. Both organizations are incredibly efficient at reducing and polarizing topics down to two possible viewpoints. There is more than just two possibilities and points of view in this reality. Its saddening that so many people likely will only ever see two, and only one "clearly" (maybe not even that).

Respectfully,
TS

[DuncanONeil]

The US military punnishes its members if they do anything that can be construed as being politically orrientated as support for one party over another. Why not hold teachers to the same standard?

The above statement is not quite accurate. There is no article in the UCMJ that addresses this issue, at least directly.
But members are bound to avoid partisan political activity, largely because of the color of authority. Same reason the fraternization rules exist, although that is spelled out in the UCMJ, and gambling with subordinates.

[Thorne]

We all know your biases. Does not mean that only one point of view is correct. Nor should the "approved" point of view be the ONLY one taught!
Sometimes I do try to curb my biases. I'm not always successful, but I do try.

And you're right. Only one point of view is not, necessarily, correct. Subjects which teach subjective matter, such as English literature, psychology, etc., should portray multiple points of view. Objective subjects, on the other hand, should be required to teach the "approved" material, with the approval coming from those who have spent their lives studying it.

Would you want to attend an astronomy course with the curriculum determined by a flat-earther? Should a lawyer decide which laws of physics are applicable? (You knew this one was coming;)) Should biblical literalists determine the subject matter of a biology course? I don't believe any of these situations should occur, yet they happen all the time.

And to be fair, I also don't think an atheist would be acceptable laying out religious instruction. Although, I've seen some atheists who are far more informed of some religious belief systems than those who profess to be believers. Maybe a course in comparative religion should be taught by an atheist.

The point it, there are some things which cannot be decided by uninformed individuals. Let the experts determine what is right. Instead of allowing school boards decide what should taught in biology or geology or algebra classes, let the biologists, geologists and mathematicians decide. They are the ones who would know, after all.

[DuncanONeil]

I scanned most of your message but para two actually made me chuckle!!


Sometimes I do try to curb my biases. I'm not always successful, but I do try.

And you're right. Only one point of view is not, necessarily, correct. Subjects which teach subjective matter, such as English literature, psychology, etc., should portray multiple points of view. Objective subjects, on the other hand, should be required to teach the "approved" material, with the approval coming from those who have spent their lives studying it.

Would you want to attend an astronomy course with the curriculum determined by a flat-earther? Should a lawyer decide which laws of physics are applicable? (You knew this one was coming;)) Should biblical literalists determine the subject matter of a biology course? I don't believe any of these situations should occur, yet they happen all the time.

And to be fair, I also don't think an atheist would be acceptable laying out religious instruction. Although, I've seen some atheists who are far more informed of some religious belief systems than those who profess to be believers. Maybe a course in comparative religion should be taught by an atheist.

The point it, there are some things which cannot be decided by uninformed individuals. Let the experts determine what is right. Instead of allowing school boards decide what should taught in biology or geology or algebra classes, let the biologists, geologists and mathematicians decide. They are the ones who would know, after all.

[SadisticNature]

The State of Texas is not unique in finding politically one sided bias of a liberal left to be vehmently entrenched within the education system in America.

In fact the real surprise is that it took a government body this long to come to the realization that there is such a problem and that it needs to be corrected.

I am sure however that it will not be corrected in the manner which the article portrayed. That is obviously a political agenda seeping out of the journalists keyboard plain and simple. But who knows, I wouldn't put it past the Republicans to use the very same tactic the Democrats have used for so long against them.

What would be nice for a change, is if teachers would actually follow an ethical standard that precluded adherence to any political party.

The US military punnishes its members if they do anything that can be construed as being politically orrientated as support for one party over another. Why not hold teachers to the same standard?

Instead of doing as they currently are allmost universally accross the board, especially in colleges.

At present, in the USA , liberal agenda dominates the classrooms, especially at the college level.

If I only had a dollar for every teacher that proffessed political views openly in classess that I attended (especially classess that have nothing to do with politics, like latin, english lit and algebra etc), then encouraged students to do the same and then graded against said students with differeing political views from their own in all the subjective portions of thier ciriculums. (BTW Blue books = subjectivity 9 times out of ten)

Teachers, like the journalists before them, have joined the ranks of the sophists of old in this regard.

The worst part is that the majority of the tenured educational professionals who embraced the changes incorperated by adoption of the Dewey system over the Clasical model in the early 1900's are to blame.

They not only discarded their own honor piecemeal so that they could promote their own political beliefs through their work when and where they ccould get away with it, all while truing the systen into an excersise in programing, but they taught whole succeeding generations of teachers that it was the "correct" standard operating procedure.

I think part of the problem is that the current education system and the salaries it provides tend to select for left-wing ideologists. I don't think the education system is the way it is because of democrats actively pushing a political agenda, I think its actively the way it is because of the teachers pushing their own political agenda (in some cases the teachers unions own political agenda). One can probably test this by tracking student opinion on issues where the democrats and teachers union disagree, I suspect that students will bias towards the teachers union.

Some courses are very hard to make apolitical. History for instance is near impossible. You can't promote make history interesting by teaching numbers and facts without providing a viewpoint or context. And that viewpoint or context is always subjective and open to bias. Something objective like Math or Science however, there is a legitimate argument for making apolitical.

As for holding teachers to the same standard as the military, I think that would be impossible. The soldiers aren't being told "You are required to educate people about these subjective situations in history". Studies have shown that people can't even agree on what neutral coverage is, because their view of what's neutral depends on their own political biases. So even asking teachers to be neutral and having the teachers genuinely try to do so doesn't result in politically unbiased coverage.

Also, trying to reduce history to facts and numbers without a viewpoint or context is never going to connect with students in a way that promotes learning. Much of history at that level these days is about trying to get students to think "What would it be like to be growing up in these times, how is it different/similar to my own life?"

[SadisticNature]

So for example with McCarthyism we should portray the cold war and its intensity, and the fear about spies leaking criminal information. We should present the view that communism is incompatible with the freedoms of America and that McCarthyism was necessary to prevent that threat. We should also prevent the view that communism is incompatible with American values but McCarthyism was also incompatible with those values. We should talk about how those errors were actually violations of rights, and how McCarthyism was a witch hunt where evidence was often at the level of he said/she said. We should present the Oppenheimer trial in all its gory detail from both sides.

You'd be amazed about how many Americans born well after the fact don't even know about how Oppenheimer (the man who developed the bomb that ended WWII) was treated by the Eisenhower administration due to McCarthyism.


Sometimes I do try to curb my biases. I'm not always successful, but I do try.

And you're right. Only one point of view is not, necessarily, correct. Subjects which teach subjective matter, such as English literature, psychology, etc., should portray multiple points of view. Objective subjects, on the other hand, should be required to teach the "approved" material, with the approval coming from those who have spent their lives studying it.

Would you want to attend an astronomy course with the curriculum determined by a flat-earther? Should a lawyer decide which laws of physics are applicable? (You knew this one was coming;)) Should biblical literalists determine the subject matter of a biology course? I don't believe any of these situations should occur, yet they happen all the time.

And to be fair, I also don't think an atheist would be acceptable laying out religious instruction. Although, I've seen some atheists who are far more informed of some religious belief systems than those who profess to be believers. Maybe a course in comparative religion should be taught by an atheist.

The point it, there are some things which cannot be decided by uninformed individuals. Let the experts determine what is right. Instead of allowing school boards decide what should taught in biology or geology or algebra classes, let the biologists, geologists and mathematicians decide. They are the ones who would know, after all.

[Thorne]

So for example with McCarthyism we should portray the cold war and its intensity, and the fear about spies leaking criminal information. We should present the view that communism is incompatible with the freedoms of America and that McCarthyism was necessary to prevent that threat. We should also prevent the view that communism is incompatible with American values but McCarthyism was also incompatible with those values. We should talk about how those errors were actually violations of rights, and how McCarthyism was a witch hunt where evidence was often at the level of he said/she said. We should present the Oppenheimer trial in all its gory detail from both sides.

You'd be amazed about how many Americans born well after the fact don't even know about how Oppenheimer (the man who developed the bomb that ended WWII) was treated by the Eisenhower administration due to McCarthyism.

I agree with you. As I said in my last post, some subjects simply cannot be defined objectively, and history is certainly one of them. One thing I can recall from my own high school history days is a teacher who gave an assignment to the class to compare the descriptions of the American Revolution as written in the Encyclopedia Americana with that written in the Encyclopedia Brittanica. For the most part the facts were in agreement. The way they were presented, and interpreted, were miles apart much of the time.

But this doesn't mean they cannot be taught in a more neutral manner, without bias. Using a consensus of historians to prepare a history text book rather than an extremely biased local BOE would tend to give a much more realistic view of actual events, while still allowing those events to be presented in context.

[denuseri]

I think part of the problem is that the current education system and the salaries it provides tend to select for left-wing ideologists. I don't think the education system is the way it is because of democrats actively pushing a political agenda, I think its actively the way it is because of the teachers pushing their own political agenda (in some cases the teachers unions own political agenda). One can probably test this by tracking student opinion on issues where the democrats and teachers union disagree, I suspect that students will bias towards the teachers union.

I don't believe its this way from an active agenda on the part of the current democratic party in the usa persay eaither; I never said that it was at any rate. It was an active agenda being pushed when they went from classical to Dewey, though I am sure those responsible felt as if they were improving the system as opposed to opening pandora's box.

Some courses are very hard to make apolitical. History for instance is near impossible. You can't promote make history interesting by teaching numbers and facts without providing a viewpoint or context. And that viewpoint or context is always subjective and open to bias. Something objective like Math or Science however, there is a legitimate argument for making apolitical.

I obviously 100% disagree, I teach history and make it interesting every time without anyone in class having any idea what-so-ever what my political affiliation is; its my humble yet learned opinion in this paticular case that promoting otherwise is just making excuses for those who wish to promote an agenda or not hold themselves to any kind of ethical standard in that regard.

As for holding teachers to the same standard as the military, I think that would be impossible. The soldiers aren't being told "You are required to educate people about these subjective situations in history". Studies have shown that people can't even agree on what neutral coverage is, because their view of what's neutral depends on their own political biases. So even asking teachers to be neutral and having the teachers genuinely try to do so doesn't result in politically unbiased coverage.

Attended any historical lectures given as part of an ROTC program lately or at a military academey? It is not only realisitic, its allready in place and not just recently, its been that way in a number of schools for a long long time.

Also, trying to reduce history to facts and numbers without a viewpoint or context is never going to connect with students in a way that promotes learning. Much of history at that level these days is about trying to get students to think "What would it be like to be growing up in these times, how is it different/similar to my own life?"

No one said anything about reducing anything down to just facts and numbers and one can get their students to think just fine without promoting any political agenda as part of one's lecture or be objective in presenting information while at the same time inspiring ones students to make up their own minds about what was what instead of trying to program them with ones own subjective opinion. In fact you can even get them to actually become active in class and have real thought provoking discussions instead of sitting like drones taking notes in bored tandem as they wonder how many more hoops they have to jump through to get their peerage stamped diploma.

Which us back to the main difference in perspectives between the "Dewey" way and its much harder to implement, but better overall results achieving "Classical" predessesor.

One tuaght students what and how they should think.

It says their is no way to be objective so lets not bother.

The other, tuaght students how to think for themselves.

It says a teacher can be objective if they are disiplined enough to put thier students needs before their own.

[denuseri]

Purely FYI as a side bar but still releveant to the discussion imho.



The above statement is not quite accurate. There is no article in the UCMJ that addresses this issue, at least directly.
But members are bound to avoid partisan political activity, largely because of the color of authority. Same reason the fraternization rules exist, although that is spelled out in the UCMJ, and gambling with subordinates.

I didnt say a word about the UCMJ Duncan. But them the UCMJ isnt the only authority of reference in these matters.

I am however refering directly to Federal Law (Titles 10, 2, and 18,) and, Department of Defense (DOD) Directives, not to mention all the specific military regulations which strictly limit a military active duty person's participation in partisan political activities as well as clearly spell out recomended punnishments for appropriate actions rangeing from reprimand to Article 15 and or court martial proceedings if nessesary.

At least as it was explained to me by military legal layman like my husband who is active duty AF and the very nice retired Lt Col in charge of the rotc program at my college.

[DuncanONeil]

I can understand reprimand and Article 15s (that is a UCMJ provision btw) but these would likely not be immediate response. But attached to repetitive actions.
As for a court martial, that would necessitate a serious breach. Again just an aside, courts martial are governed by the UCMJ. and this is the prime punishment source for the military. I would call everything else merely discipline.
Yes I took a very limited view but since we were on the subject of punishment it seemed reasonable. I did agree that there is a limit on such activity and it was frowned upon, but usually did not reach as far as serious judicial punishment.


Purely FYI as a side bar but still releveant to the discussion imho.




I didnt say a word about the UCMJ Duncan. But them the UCMJ isnt the only authority of reference in these matters.

I am however refering directly to Federal Law (Titles 10, 2, and 18,) and, Department of Defense (DOD) Directives, not to mention all the specific military regulations which strictly limit a military active duty person's participation in partisan political activities as well as clearly spell out recomended punnishments for appropriate actions rangeing from reprimand to Article 15 and or court martial proceedings if nessesary.

At least as it was explained to me by military legal layman like my husband who is active duty AF and the very nice retired Lt Col in charge of the rotc program at my college.

[steelish]

The separation of church and state had more to do with how political the church became than how religious government became.

When our founding fathers created this new nation, they didn't want a repeat of what happened with the British government. The English had very political churches, which helped "rule" the masses. Church was a form of propaganda for politics. Our founding fathers wanted a new land in which we had religious freedom and politics had no place in religion.

[Thorne]

Our founding fathers wanted a new land in which we had religious freedom and politics had no place in religion.

Now if we could only get the religion out of politics we'd all be better off.

[SadisticNature]

No one said anything about reducing anything down to just facts and numbers and one can get their students to think just fine without promoting any political agenda as part of one's lecture or be objective in presenting information while at the same time inspiring ones students to make up their own minds about what was what instead of trying to program them with ones own subjective opinion. In fact you can even get them to actually become active in class and have real thought provoking discussions instead of sitting like drones taking notes in bored tandem as they wonder how many more hoops they have to jump through to get their peerage stamped diploma.

Which us back to the main difference in perspectives between the "Dewey" way and its much harder to implement, but better overall results achieving "Classical" predessesor.

One tuaght students what and how they should think.

It says their is no way to be objective so lets not bother.

The other, tauight students how to think for themselves.

It says a teacher can be objective if they are disiplined enough to put thier students needs before their own.

To be clear I was not aware you were a history teacher and did not intend any of this as a personal evaluation of you. Furthermore, I wasn't saying one has to promote one's own political agenda or program students in any fashion, I'm just saying its very difficult to comment on some topics without being open to bias.

Take for instance the Abraham Lincoln election. One of the main issues was the issue of government spending on infrastructure. Do we completely avoid that topic because its controversial? Do we say it was an issue and get students to comment on this? How do we select which discussion points the students make to focus on without introducing political bias?

You'd be surprised how often people present this election as being about slavery, despite the fact that Lincoln did not support the abolitionist movement until late in the war, well after the election. But abolishing slavery is far less controversial and far less political.

Even if one decides to teach by presenting certain specific topics in a very neutral manner, and allowing student discussion to control political discourse, the very choice of topics can be politically motivated.

For example consider a 20th century American history course that chooses to divide the century into the following areas: Pre WWI, WWI, The Roaring 20's, The Great Depression, WWII, The Cold War, and the Post-Cold War Period.

Say such a course doesn't cover the war in the Philippines at all during the Pre-WWI period. There is potential bias in choosing to avoid that topic entirely. It's not the fault of the teacher who doesn't cover it. But rather the choice of curriculum. If the selection of which topics are important to teach our youth about involves portraying certain nations, individuals or political parties in favorable or unfavorable ways by selectively covering their finest moments and avoiding their worst then there is bias in the course even if it is taught neutrally.

An example of a course I took in my high school where the educator was great and but I considered the course biased was Ancient Civilizations. The furthest we got out of Europe was Egypt and Mesopotamia. We covered Ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome (Rise to Collapse). But we didn't cover other influential civilizations like the Indians, the Chinese, the Mayans, the Incans, the Aztecs, the Rus. This is despite the fact that India had the strongest Economy around for much of the time period we covered, China was the most technologically advanced for much of the time period we covered, and numerous other major factors. Instead it was make sure you know these pagan gods by both their Roman and Greek names, make sure you know these traditions many of which are nearly identical by both their Greek and Roman names, etc. Many would claim the Euro-centric choice of curriculum has bias even if the material is taught neutrally.

[SadisticNature]

First of all the "excerpts" are fictional, as is the text from which derived. Hence the assumption in your question that this is a planned text makes little sense.
That being said; "The first of these New Deal laws, the Emergency Banking Act, was approved in two days by a docile Democratic Congress (the vote in the Senate was 73-7) without reading the actual wording of the legislation. The Banking Act gave FDR and the Democrats unprecedented and potentially dangerous control over the national supply of credit " sounds a lot like now, does it not?

I never said this was a planned text, I'm asking people how they would feel about a text like this.

As for the particular statement in question I think a textbook really ought to examine things like:

(1) The contents of the Emergency Banking Act
(2) The economic arguments for and against it at the time.
(3) Consequences of the Act.

Furthermore I'd suggest that they review the statements in a slightly more neutral fashion:

The bill gave the government control of the banking supply, it happened to be FDR & The Dems at the time, but it certainly passed on to future Republican or Democrat leaderships.

So if you want a point for discussion to be:

(1) The bill gave the government further control of the money supply? In what ways was this a good thing? In what ways was this a bad thing? On the whole do you think the Act was a positive or negative influence on America and the problems it faced in the 1930's?

This would be the difference between a textbook saying:

Bush and the Republicans committed the Americans to an unpopular, expensive and futile war in Iraq, without any international support to the great detriment of the country.

Or giving a bunch of data and information and then asking:

The government elected to go to war in Iraq without UN support. In what ways does this complicate things for the US? What is a situation in which you would support such an action? What is a situation in which you would oppose such an action? On the whole do you think this action was justified? What do you feel the consequences were on the US?

Or even:

(1) Compare and Contrast the Vietnam War and the Iraq War.

[denuseri]

To be clear I was not aware you were a history teacher and did not intend any of this as a personal evaluation of you.

It's perfectly ok, I am not taking any of it personally and besides my profession and or chosen career path is quite irrelevant to the discussion.

Furthermore, I wasn't saying one has to promote one's own political agenda or program students in any fashion, I'm just saying its very difficult to comment on some topics without being open to bias.

Yes it can be difficult, but is not impossible.


To be as objective as possible a teacher needs to address contemporay subjective bias, and its ussually not done by simpley setting aside whatever misconseptions one may have on these issues so that they will not cloud our judgment of the past but directly addressing the bias and such things for what they are up front.

Take for instance the Abraham Lincoln election.

Ok I will:

You yourself have brought up two very commonly held misconseptions that are propogated by the Dewy system. "Was Lincoln an abolishionist and was the war about slavery or not?" Some say yes, others no depending upon which Dewist you go with. Many people wish to make the civil war about anything but slavery and others wish to make it about slavery alone. Whats the right way to look at it? The truth is most wars have more than one single thing at issue.

Becuase Lincoln was the first elected "Republican" President the whole issue of the Civil War and his personal views has been brought into contention by not only current political trends in partisanship but also nationalisit political attempts to eaither glorify his administration or defame him and or America in general, not to mention white southerners wishing to distance themselves from the slavery issue while white northerners and blacks of both regions have a tendencey to focus on it alone.

But if one looks at what was actually written back then, as opposed to reliance completely in total or in part with what contemporary historians have written as their "opinions" about the era, one will find things are a lot different than the way they are currently presented in our schools.

The key when presenting such material with so much current bias tied to it is to be out in the open, in the forefront if you will, with it and allow the students to decide for themselves by the end of the course based on the actual evidence available, all of which btw on the Civil War is well documented), what they think. This requires presenting multiple points of view of course from a variety of scources from that actual time period as well as not being biased in selction of information to be presented simply becuase it refutes your own contemporary misconseptions.

Its also of paramont importance to teach the students how to recognigze subjective bias when they find it in a historical text as well as how to tell the difference between actual evidence and a historians subjective written opinion on the evidence that they are presenting and or witholding.

I agree that with sensitive material it is all too easy for a teacher wishing to promote eaither a political agenda, or a cultural one to fudge the details. (Democratic vs Republican, or North vs South etc) But is is in fact not all that hard to accomplish with a little effort if one "wants" to do it and holds to well to some "ethical standards".

Mentioning only one side of it as your first example does is one example of the kind of bias that is quite contemporary and controversial and well worth discussion in any class.

It is a prime example of a propogated misconseption designed by contemporary historians to dis-credit him becuase of his party affiliation as well as cultural bias expressed by not only white historians of southern decent who wish to distance themselves from it as a cuase for the war.

Did you know? :

Lincoln actually spoke against the institution of slavery several times prior to running for the office, sometimes in very public speeches.

Also the data from southern papers speaks directly about exactly what southern fears were about and should he be elected they threatened to leave the Union...and the main issue they had with him was their fear that he would abolish slavery. But it wasnt only due to his previously established personal views on it, but also that of a lot of a whole slew of northeran politicians, who had a long history of supporting abolition in the past as a focal point for economic means of controlling the south. Southern plantation owner's fears of their economy's fate were very valid, they knew full well that their profits would fall utterly to pieces without it in place, hence they supported anything that supported the istitution of slavery in the political area and otherwise for so long in the past that it did become synomonous with not only "state's rights" but "racism"; so much so, that slavery became a "racial" issue as opposed to an "economic" issue for the first time in recorded history.

Yet being quite aware of the threats of suscession and despite his own personal views Lincoln quite openly spoke out during the election for the presidencey that he had no intention of abolishing slavery several times as well as distancing himself from the "abolishinists" to attempt and alleviate such fears.

Some of his remarks his deposers love to use out of context to make him sound like a racist himself...when he was in fact far from it.

It is true that later when the general opinion of the public in the north during the War shifted to that of one openinly supporting an abolishisnt position... when it was politically convient for him to do..like with most politicians mindful of public opinion and having givin up all hope of reconcilation...he changed his "official" position to solidify his own place as well as use the moral highground to the union's best advantage in the war.

Yet during the entire war oddley enough amongst the union military rank and file solider's letters home there was allmost by consencesus expressed a belief that they were fighting to end slavery; where as the confederates letters showed they were fighting for their right to a livelyhood (which btw revolved around and owning slaves) and "the soverign rights of their individual states to self determination".

BTW: I am not bringing these things up to refute your veracity in and of itself so much as to make my point about how history can be very objective or subjective depending upon how its presented as in the example you provided. To actual debate the civil war I would sugest as opposed to a side bar here where it may take over or derail the thread we make a new thread if you like.


Even if one decides to teach by presenting certain specific topics in a very neutral manner, and allowing student discussion to control political discourse, the very choice of topics can be politically motivated.

I agree, one should bring up both the good and the bad and not focus upon national favoritism as such promotes political propaganda over truth.

For example consider a 20th century American history course that chooses to divide the century into the following areas: Pre WWI, WWI, The Roaring 20's, The Great Depression, WWII, The Cold War, and the Post-Cold War Period.

Say such a course doesn't cover the war in the Philippines at all during the Pre-WWI period. There is potential bias in choosing to avoid that topic entirely. It's not the fault of the teacher who doesn't cover it. But rather the choice of curriculum. If the selection of which topics are important to teach our youth about involves portraying certain nations, individuals or political parties in favorable or unfavorable ways by selectively covering their finest moments and avoiding their worst then there is bias in the course even if it is taught neutrally.

Only teaching the good about ones own country to ones students is just as bad as focusing only on the bad. However, there are time constraints in some classroom settings (especially in 1st through 12 grade public schools for some reason) some generalization has to be accorded to simply for temporal considerations. But all the main points can be covered without resorting to subjective bias quite easily.

Especially when you give the students something much more important than telling them about a paticular piece of history you have chossen to focus upon during your ciriculum; which is: teaching them up front what the difference is between subjective and objective viewspoints and showing them how to read for both as well as how to find out more for themselves on the areas one couldnt cover due to time constraints.

An example of a course I took in my high school where the educator was great and but I considered the course biased was Ancient Civilizations. The furthest we got out of Europe was Egypt and Mesopotamia. We covered Ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome (Rise to Collapse). But we didn't cover other influential civilizations like the Indians, the Chinese, the Mayans, the Incans, the Aztecs, the Rus. This is despite the fact that India had the strongest Economy around for much of the time period we covered, China was the most technologically advanced for much of the time period we covered, and numerous other major factors. Instead it was make sure you know these pagan gods by both their Roman and Greek names, make sure you know these traditions many of which are nearly identical by both their Greek and Roman names, etc. Many would claim the Euro-centric choice of curriculum has bias even if the material is taught neutrally.

I am right there with you when it comes to picking out Dewey's orignal Euro-centric paragons out of what we commonly call a "Western Civ" course. they tried to do a history of "us all" thing but failed to see the hipocracy in excluding the majority of the "us" in the world didnt they, lol. But thats a matter of course selection that is easily fixed if we can ever get enough of us non-euro-centrics and objectivcists together to topple the current regime.

[SadisticNature]

It's not quoting the nested quotes so I'm just not going to quote at all.

But regarding Lincoln speaking against slavery the contents of those speeches are highly relevant.

There were many different positions in the anti-slavery camp. These ranged from:

(1) Abolitionist

(2) No New Slave States

(3) Don't allow expansion of slave states outside the bounds of a particular treaty.

There are many people of that time period in camp (3) who made anti-slavery speeches, so without providing specific contents of speeches it is hard to place where Lincoln was at a particular period of time along this spectrum.

I think much of the problem is media literacy and the difference between good and bad sources. This is a very tricky subject in the humanities as with the creeping in of postmodernism even the journals are often full of biased opinionated pieces supported by unsound or invalid deductions. For example something as simple as showing evidence for a->b, then showing evidence for not(a) then concluding not(b), when in fact a implies b shows nothing at all about what not(a) implies. The reduced popularity of peer review and standards makes it very tricky to assess the difference between good and bad sources. Basically we often get to the point where in media literacy we teach students "X, Y and Z are not good sources for information because of R1,R2 and R3", then in every high school class we encourage the use of "X,Y and Z" as sources.

[denuseri]

Alas copy and paste is such a nice thing, next time to make it easier I wont type within the brackets when I quote you and I will pull each section seperately so you can formulate a responce better. Ok?

and again:

I am not bringing the above points of my own up about the Civil War/Lincoln Administration's well documanted statements for the pupposes of refuting your veracity in and of itself so much as to make my point about how history can be very objective as opposed to subjective depending upon how its presented as in the examples you and I both have now provided.

In fact I don't believe there exists any subject material that cannot be approached objectively if one is willing to take the time to do so.

To actual debate the purposes of the Civil war or Lincoln's Administration or any other topic that may hold potential for debate or contention not directly related to this threads topic:

I would suggest; as opposed to a side bar here where it may take over or derail the thread, that we make a new thread if you like where we can go into as much detail as you desire or take it up in private message notifications at your liesure.

[SadisticNature]

Alas copy and paste is such a nice thing, next time to make it easier I wont type within the brackets when I quote you and I will pull each section seperately so you can formulate a responce better. Ok?

and again:

I am not bringing the above points of my own up about the Civil War/Lincoln Administration's well documanted statements for the pupposes of refuting your veracity in and of itself so much as to make my point about how history can be very objective as opposed to subjective depending upon how its presented as in the examples you and I both have now provided.

In fact I don't believe there exists any subject material that cannot be approached objectively if one is willing to take the time to do so.

To actual debate the purposes of the Civil war or Lincoln's Administration or any other topic that may hold potential for debate or contention not directly related to this threads topic:

I would suggest; as opposed to a side bar here where it may take over or derail the thread, that we make a new thread if you like where we can go into as much detail as you desire or take it up in private message notifications at your liesure.

This sounds fine.

I still think history has a lot of subjective content that can be made somewhat objective, or taught somewhat objectively, but at the end of the day the conclusions drawn from the material are very subjective for many subjects.

Perhaps coming from the sciences biases me, but my view of an objective subject is a subject where there are clear right and wrong answers based on the material, and any hypothesis can be verified or refuted, through either experiment or application of known rules. Examples would include Mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, computer science and statistics. High school economics and accounting would also qualify as its pretty much a system of rules at that point.

My view of a subjective subject where one can consistently show evidence for a statement and its converse despite having an abundance of information.

[steelish]

Religion and Politics when inserted into the educational system harm us all. It really doesn't matter which viewpoints (lib/con, believer/nonbeliever) either. Both organizations are incredibly efficient at reducing and polarizing topics down to two possible viewpoints. There is more than just two possibilities and points of view in this reality. Its saddening that so many people likely will only ever see two, and only one "clearly" (maybe not even that).

Respectfully,
TS


Actually, separation of the church and state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secularism) was to protect the church from our government...not the other way around. Religion (no matter WHAT religion) was at one time a very large part of the educational system. Not that they taught religion, but they did begin each morning with the pledge of allegience. They did allow kids to pray in school. They did allow ALL kids to observe their own religious beliefs without interferring with the religious beliefs of others.

This has been twisted and twisted into "separation of church and state" until any hint of religion has been banned from the schools and it seems as if it is now out of the government too.

America is a land in which it doesn't matter what religion you are or aren't. Unfortunately, all that is changing. The government is now infiltrating the churches. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYoDymllAwc)

[steelish]

BTW - I really see nothing wrong with adding "conservative values and historical interpretations to the statewide social studies curriculum".

What's wrong is only teaching one side of an issue to children. Isn't that the same as forcing an opinion down someone's throat?

They said they were going to ADD conservative values and interpretations. Not REPLACE what they had with it.


OR are we a nation that's going to sit back and let someone tell us what to think? We can't learn issues from all sides and make our own decision? Or is that too much information for any one single person to handle? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB0Paw-bNSg)

[steelish]

It's not quoting the nested quotes so I'm just not going to quote at all.

But regarding Lincoln speaking against slavery the contents of those speeches are highly relevant.

There were many different positions in the anti-slavery camp. These ranged from:

(1) Abolitionist

(2) No New Slave States

(3) Don't allow expansion of slave states outside the bounds of a particular treaty.

There are many people of that time period in camp (3) who made anti-slavery speeches, so without providing specific contents of speeches it is hard to place where Lincoln was at a particular period of time along this spectrum.

I think much of the problem is media literacy and the difference between good and bad sources. This is a very tricky subject in the humanities as with the creeping in of postmodernism even the journals are often full of biased opinionated pieces supported by unsound or invalid deductions. For example something as simple as showing evidence for a->b, then showing evidence for not(a) then concluding not(b), when in fact a implies b shows nothing at all about what not(a) implies. The reduced popularity of peer review and standards makes it very tricky to assess the difference between good and bad sources. Basically we often get to the point where in media literacy we teach students "X, Y and Z are not good sources for information because of R1,R2 and R3", then in every high school class we encourage the use of "X,Y and Z" as sources.

So very true. It has been found that current history books relate back (use as a reference) a book dating in 1926 or 29 that slandered Thomas Jefferson and printed a lot of untrue things about him. There are no footnotes in the book, and actual (still around today) ORIGINAL writings between him, Washington, Franklin, etc. dispute what is in the book, yet our history books STILL teach the slanderous material.