Church, Politics and State Education Systems

[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"!

[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"!

[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]

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.