Texas Board of Education; "Rewriting history as we see fit"

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Re: Texas Board of Education; "Rewriting history as we see fit"

Postby theDreamer » 13 Mar 2010, 17:45

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

In this case, a bias for a bias makes the whole world stupid.
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Re: Texas Board of Education; "Rewriting history as we see fit"

Postby Master Gunner » 13 Mar 2010, 18:29

Arius wrote:When I lived in Tennessee, my teacher taught us that the Japanese accidentally bombed Pearl Harbor because they thought it was Germany.


...........
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Re: Texas Board of Education; "Rewriting history as we see fit"

Postby Anatidaephobia » 13 Mar 2010, 18:47

tak197 wrote:RE: Texas, the US in general has a major need to standardize the curriculum

No, that's not the federal government's job. They already do too much as it is.
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Re: Texas Board of Education; "Rewriting history as we see fit"

Postby Arius » 13 Mar 2010, 18:48

Master Gunner wrote:
Arius wrote:When I lived in Tennessee, my teacher taught us that the Japanese accidentally bombed Pearl Harbor because they thought it was Germany.


...........

Yeah. I'm so glad they teach WWII in pretty much every history class, or I might have believed that up to today.
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Re: Texas Board of Education; "Rewriting history as we see fit"

Postby theDreamer » 13 Mar 2010, 18:54

Anatidaephobia wrote:
tak197 wrote:RE: Texas, the US in general has a major need to standardize the curriculum

No, that's not the federal government's job. They already do too much as it is.



I know this is a wee bit off topic, but you're telling me you are ok with a major discrepancy in education between states?
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Re: Texas Board of Education; "Rewriting history as we see fit"

Postby Gordon Fearman » 13 Mar 2010, 19:11

Master Gunner wrote:Just remember it ain't all sunshine and lollipops on this side either. We have people doing stupid things too, especially between Alberta and Quebec.

Also, you guys have a Sex Party (political party). There should be no one over there trying to claim the high ground.
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Re: Texas Board of Education; "Rewriting history as we see fit"

Postby Master Gunner » 13 Mar 2010, 19:14

Arius wrote:
Master Gunner wrote:
Arius wrote:When I lived in Tennessee, my teacher taught us that the Japanese accidentally bombed Pearl Harbor because they thought it was Germany.


...........

Yeah. I'm so glad they teach WWII in pretty much every history class, or I might have believed that up to today.


They really don't, at all. But at least they usually don't say that.

Gordon Fearman wrote:
Master Gunner wrote:Just remember it ain't all sunshine and lollipops on this side either. We have people doing stupid things too, especially between Alberta and Quebec.

Also, you guys have a Sex Party (political party). There should be no one over there trying to claim the high ground.


Only BC has that, and they haven't exactly being very successful. They're basically a glorified lobby group. That said, we do have a long history of political satire actively engaging in politics, such as the Rhinoceros Party.
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Re: Texas Board of Education; "Rewriting history as we see fit"

Postby theDreamer » 13 Mar 2010, 19:18

Is the sex party federal?

I don't recall hearing about it much.
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Re: Texas Board of Education; "Rewriting history as we see fit"

Postby empath » 13 Mar 2010, 19:19

Kaemon wrote:How is this different from my crazy vegan teacher putting their blatant BS liberal slant on everything back when I was in Seattle? Or my english teachers and their always wanting us to do a paper on Global warming, or the economics teacher who believed capitalism was a failure of a system.


Who said this was any different? I said everybody does it, regardless of where they stand.




Yep. I loved the crap shoved on by the teachers in Seattle.

I don't see how evening the score makes this crazy.


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Re: Texas Board of Education; "Rewriting history as we see fit"

Postby Tree-Vor » 13 Mar 2010, 19:21

Wolfwood723 wrote: The budget in Cali is so bad students were striking.

Those strikes pissed me the fuck off they basically were protesting the increase in tuition and budget cuts by trying to prevent students from making it to class and faculty from making it to work. Hurting the people who were already being hurt by the cuts and tuition increases. My girlfriend ended up with $65.00 ticket because of them.
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Re: Texas Board of Education; "Rewriting history as we see fit"

Postby Cybren » 13 Mar 2010, 19:28

Not that there's no issue that congress won't throw the commerce clause at, but barring constitutional amendment the federal government isn't empowered to be overseeing a standardized curriculum.
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Re: Texas Board of Education; "Rewriting history as we see fit"

Postby Anatidaephobia » 13 Mar 2010, 19:51

theDreamer wrote:I know this is a wee bit off topic, but you're telling me you are ok with a major discrepancy in education between states?

I'm against socialized education too. Ever wonder why the kids coming out of high school missed some important things, but we also have the best universities in the world? Think about that.
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Re: Texas Board of Education; "Rewriting history as we see fit"

Postby Arius » 13 Mar 2010, 20:17

Master Gunner wrote:They really don't, at all. But at least they usually don't say that.

The schools I went to managed to put WWII into every class. It was interesting because depending on the teacher's views, the entire war went different ways.

You had the "America! Fuck yeah!" teachers who basically say the United States won the wars single handedly.

You had the "You can't hug with nuclear arms." teachers who spent the most time on the A-bombs and aftermath.

The "America can do no wrong." teachers who completely skipped the pages talking about Japanese internment and completely left out the hostilities between the US and Japan before Pearl Harbor.

And of course, the boring honest teacher who just made us read the chapters and take our own notes.

---

As an aside, I think I was only taught about Vietnam once.
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Re: Texas Board of Education; "Rewriting history as we see fit"

Postby sdhonda » 13 Mar 2010, 20:36

theDreamer wrote:
Anatidaephobia wrote:
tak197 wrote:RE: Texas, the US in general has a major need to standardize the curriculum

No, that's not the federal government's job. They already do too much as it is.



I know this is a wee bit off topic, but you're telling me you are ok with a major discrepancy in education between states?


Perhaps he does, but he's right: it's not the federal government's job.

In anycase, consider this: if they tried this at the federal level, EVERY state would be affected, and very handily.
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Re: Texas Board of Education; "Rewriting history as we see fit"

Postby Master Gunner » 13 Mar 2010, 21:27

Arius wrote:
Master Gunner wrote:They really don't, at all. But at least they usually don't say that.

The schools I went to managed to put WWII into every class. It was interesting because depending on the teacher's views, the entire war went different ways.

You had the "America! Fuck yeah!" teachers who basically say the United States won the wars single handedly.

You had the "You can't hug with nuclear arms." teachers who spent the most time on the A-bombs and aftermath.

The "America can do no wrong." teachers who completely skipped the pages talking about Japanese internment and completely left out the hostilities between the US and Japan before Pearl Harbor.

And of course, the boring honest teacher who just made us read the chapters and take our own notes.

---

As an aside, I think I was only taught about Vietnam once.


And how many teachers talked about how the war was going on for a long time before the US got involved, or how the USSR was actually a bigger factor in an Allied victory? In the European theater, at least, the US's biggest contribution was merely a fresh influx of troops to speed along the already-decided outcome, and I doubt any teacher mentioned that.

Not that it's any different up here, I was mostly taught about Britain's (and thus Canada's) involvement in the World Wars, along with some cursory reasons for why the other countries got involved. WWI was stressed far more than WWII though.
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Re: Texas Board of Education; "Rewriting history as we see fit"

Postby Genghis Ares » 13 Mar 2010, 21:31

Where does the Quote in this topic's title come from? It's not in the article.
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Re: Texas Board of Education; "Rewriting history as we see fit"

Postby Arius » 13 Mar 2010, 21:31

Nah, some teachers were at least somewhat honest, but most went with making it seem like the US came in and turned the whole thing around.

I don't think any of my classes actually taught us about WWI.
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Re: Texas Board of Education; "Rewriting history as we see fit"

Postby Master Gunner » 13 Mar 2010, 21:39

Genghis Ares wrote:Where does the Quote in this topic's title come from? It's not in the article.


I believe that was from Smeghead.

Arius wrote:I don't think any of my classes actually taught us about WWI.


That's a shame. Also, a problem as WWI and WWII were largely the same war, just with a short break in between. Without knowing how WWI happened (and ended), lessons about WWII lack the proper context to be meaningful.
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Re: Texas Board of Education; "Rewriting history as we see fit"

Postby Angnor » 13 Mar 2010, 21:41

I must have had fairly honest high school teachers... though oddly enough 3 of the four I had teaching the various history classes were Vietnam veterans. Strange that that's the first time I've really thought about that.

That said, on the brighter side there is at least some movement towards open-source textbooks. Online wikipedia type references. [Google it, I can't find the original article I read about it last year, but you get quite a few interesting links...]. While this sort of thing will always be subject to the sort of issues Wikipedia has, (they'll probably try to eliminate LRR references from all their chemistry texts, the bastards), there's hope and potential there.
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Re: Texas Board of Education; "Rewriting history as we see fit"

Postby Genghis Ares » 13 Mar 2010, 21:49

The internet will often be just as biased as anything else, probably more so, as there is no real accountability.
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Re: Texas Board of Education; "Rewriting history as we see fit"

Postby sdhonda » 13 Mar 2010, 21:51

Ah, the Simpsons say it best...

-

*kids storm out of school*

WAIT KIDS, YOU STILL HAVENT LEARNED HOW WW2 ENDED!

*puzzled children*

... WE WON!!!

*children scream loudly chanting USA as they leave*

-

Sorry...
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Re: Texas Board of Education; "Rewriting history as we see fit"

Postby Angnor » 13 Mar 2010, 21:57

Genghis Ares wrote:The internet will often be just as biased as anything else, probably more so, as there is no real accountability.


Ah yes, many is the time I see someone arguing on the internet about whether or not sine's intervention in the cosine-tangent war was really justified...

OK, there are subjects where this has the potential to be an issue or to be abused, but considering things like the official slant being done in Texas, can you really think of anything in Wikipedia that's as biased? It's a problem to be addressed, but certainly not an insurmountable one.

Note: I need to find the old article and some of the things I'd looked up before. I can't recall what QC procedures were in place for this...
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Re: Texas Board of Education; "Rewriting history as we see fit"

Postby Arius » 13 Mar 2010, 22:00

I can't wait until math goes through this treatment.

"How much is this many IIII plus this many III"

"This many IIIIIII"
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Re: Texas Board of Education; "Rewriting history as we see fit"

Postby theo5p » 13 Mar 2010, 22:11

Well technically speaking there is kind of a standard in the US, a good bit of high school curriculum is geared towards getting high scored on the ACT or SAT in addition to whichever standardized tests each state uses (ISAT, IOWA, etc.). These scores have been used to judge how effective a school is and determines weather or not a school is worthy of federal funds. Recently this has lead to teachers having to reapply for their own jobs or even entire school staffs being fired. Granted, if my experience is any indication, this leads teachers teaching less about facts and more about how to beat silly scantron tests.

As dumb as some of the things Texas is doing, I think its no worse than the crap I was taught all throughout my high school career. For example; Columbus was the guy who discovered north america, the civil war was strictly a slavery issue, the pearl harbor attack was a complete surprise, George Washington and the founding fathers were moral gods that did no wrong ever, etc. etc. No matter how factual you try to make it history is just a type of story telling, and like most stories it varies depending on who's doing the telling.

Having said that the general state of education in this country is pretty disgraceful across all subjects. I could fill pages with stories from my high school days about the stupid things that the administration and teachers did.

Don't get me started about how badly math is taught.
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Re: Texas Board of Education; "Rewriting history as we see fit"

Postby Angnor » 13 Mar 2010, 22:17

One of the best things I remember from high school came from my chemistry teacher. He told us that everything we were learning in high school (outside of math) was basically a lie. He went on to say that what we were being taught were simplified models to allow understanding of some basic concepts in all of our subjects, as there really wasn't enough time to learn them properly in the year allowed for each one. Anything we found truly interesting was best explored in depth on our own or in college.
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