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

[Smeghead]

EDIT; Changed the thread title to something that's more topic related

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html

"AUSTIN, Tex. — After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light."

I find this scary if nothing else

[Wolfwood723]

I hate this country. I cannot wait to be able to move back to Canada because there is not a snowballs chance in hell that I would have a child and raise it here.

[Master Gunner]

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.

[epocalypse]

It's times like this that I'm glad I identify as a dual citizen.

[Wolfwood723]

Hahaha, Well I'm either going back to St. Cits or out to Vancouver. And honestly I have spent about equal amounts of time in both countrys and America is just so much worse.

[theDreamer]

Gunner: I think you mean especially Quebec.

And is it fair to judge the WHOLE of the US on Texas?

As Ron White says: "Other states are trying to get rid of the death penalty, mine (texas) is putting in a fast lane!" (I _may_ have messed it up slightly, but still).

[Elomin Sha]

So so stupid.

[Smeghead]

Yes, it's not right to judge the whole country based on a state, it's just that this is sadly the kind of things one would expect to happen in Texas, and it's sad. but also scary as the textbooks aren't just gonna be used in texas

[Wolfwood723]

Well I have lived in 7 states so its not like my hate based of of just FL. I had a textbook that listed Baja as being part of the Soviet Union, I mean wtf. There are good parts to this country but as a whole its terrible especially the education system. The budget in Cali is so bad students were striking.

[Anatidaephobia]

Good, I hope you guys do move out of the country. I wouldn't rather live anywhere else.

[Theremin]

Oh, hush.

[Kara]

Wow, what an embarrassment.

[Arius]

All countries have their Texas.

Canada has Quebec.

Australia has Michael Atkinson (Only one person, because most people that stupid die while trying to hug kangaroos.)

Britain has Wales.

The problem is, the annoying ones are the loudest because they don't know to shut the hell up.

[Wolfwood723]

And of course France has all of France.

[Jillers]

*thunk*
Maaaan the kids that are going to come out of the Texas Public School system are going to be fucked.
Seriously, they cut out Thomas Jefferson. The man was president and wrote the Declaration of Independence! My God!
I feel so much rage!

[Elomin Sha]

I agree fully with you there Arius, Wales is quite backwards in some places.

[Smeghead]

Not sure we have a part of the country that one can define that way, but I can point the finger on the rightwing extremists (but then that might be a bit cheap as that's like saying the sky is blue (don't argue with this point, just a figgure of speach! ))

It's just a frightening thought that textbooks might be writen with a political and religious agenda that may push actuall facts aside to help spreading that agenda. And done so fully legally.

[AlexanderDitto]

Guys, this is peanuts compared to the overall problems with the crappy system that churns out textbooks in this country.

If you're really interested in this, read this article, which shows you how the sausage is made (warning, will make you very angry at Texas and California), and then go read Lies my Teacher Told Me, a very good book that reviews all the things modern day history textbooks get wrong, gloss over, or downright lie about. Here, I'll get you started: Helen Keller was a communist, Woodrow Wilson was a slime-bag racist, and Christopher Columbus was a douche.

[theDreamer]

I was going to be all facetious and say something to the effect of "none of that is really important."

And then I realized: none of that is really important.

There are plenty of things that my teachers have been wrong about or didn't know that mattered, those are not them. I think the worst one was when my teacher explained Dualism entirely wrong, so that when I tried holding a philosophical debate with someone else, I ended up sounding like an idiot.

[Lord Chrusher]

All countries have their Texas.

Canada has Quebec.

Australia has Michael Atkinson (Only one person, because most people that stupid die while trying to hug kangaroos.)

Britain has Wales.

The problem is, the annoying ones are the loudest because they don't know to shut the hell up.

No Alberta is Canada's Texas.

[Master Gunner]

Both count as "annoying and/or backwards" places in Canada though. Alberta because of its conservatism (some recent "scandals" in education over the past few years can be traced back to old Alberta Eugenics textbooks), and Quebec due to its incessant Frenchness (by law, English text, if it appears on signs in Quebec, has to be significantly smaller than the French version).

[empath]

Mi'lord's got the crux of it; Alberta is our equivalent.

As for Quebec? Hmmmm...maybe Florida if it kept threatening to secede from the Union; both have significant illicit drug importation industries, both also have significant loony populations.

It's just a frightening thought that textbooks might be writen with a political and religious agenda that may push actuall facts aside to help spreading that agenda. And done so fully legally.

*tries to keep from laughing*

"might"? Dude, that happens ALL THE TIME. "History is written by the victors" exists as an aphorism for a reason.¹ Any text recounting historical events is going to be biased, even when trying to avoid such.


Footnotes:
1. And this is investigated quite well in Lies My Teacher Told Me that Alex" cited. *plug-plug*

[tak197]

RE: France, I just read this article in Time Magazine and I have to say, while it's friggin redonkulous, they are onto something with regard to schooling.

RE: Texas, the US in general has a major need to standardize the curriculum so that you can move state to state within the Union and kids won't miss anything. Personally, on this topic, I moved back to Pennsylvania between 5th and 6th grade. They gave me a math placement test and I had never seen some of the stuff before, but during the course of the year, my math teacher told my parents that despite the stress and worry that I exhibited over the lack of exposure, I was picking things up very well.

[Arius]

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

[Kaemon]

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.

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

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