Oklahoma State Rep. Dan Fisher presumably has an array of tough issues to tackle for his state from unemployment to the environment to crime. However, Fisher has decided to take on the ignoble task of banning Advanced Placement history classes in the state because he objects to the inclusion of negative aspects of American history and the omission of material embracing “American exceptionalism.” As an academic, I have previously criticized politicians (here and here and here and here) intervening in our school system to impose their own values or priorities on educators. This however ranks as one of the worst such intrusions that we have seen.
Oklahoma has been one of the states rejecting the Common Core curriculum for K-12 programs. There are valid arguments for states in insisting on control of such curricula as a general matter even if one disagrees with the merits of objections to the common core. However, this is beyond the pale. AP classes are a mainstay of our educational system and allow students to get truly advanced studies in given subjects. I have argued for years that we need to ramp up such courses on civics and history. It is therefore particularly distressing to read Fisher’s bill. It is not only would deprive these students of advanced courses but it would place Oklahoma students at a serious disadvantage in college applications which put great weight on such courses.
Fisher’s primary objection is that the AP history courses, in his view, emphasize the wrongs about America. However, these courses allow students to study not just the triumphs but the mistakes of history so history does not repeat itself. We are not a great nation because we did not commit errors and even crimes in our past. We are a great nation because we overcome such history, recognized our failings, and become a better nation despite such failings. The Trail of Tears, Alien and Sedition Acts, Japanese internment camps, Red Scare and other dark chapters reveal both our succumbing to fears and our transcending them. Part of AP curricula is to train students to read history in a critical and objective way. Converting our history into some Disney tale will teach students little about our country or themselves.
The “exceptionalism” of this country is precisely that we are not perfect but strive to be better.
Pogo, Leaving out exculpatory paragraphs from a cite is dishonest, Alinsky tactics. I would hire you.
.”We agree totally that the US education system is dysfunctional.”
****************************
The US has given the world 252 Nobel Prize winners since the “lefties” took over the education system in roughly 1969. No other country has offered the world more than 115 since the prize was first awarded in 1901. All in all, the “dysfunctional” American education system has had 353 recipients.
Damn dysfunctional I’d say but, then again, looking at the near illiterate comments around here from the usual cast of “claimed” educators, (Imagine a fine day in Don Spinelli’s class learning how to view the world!) I’d have to say you could make out a case for dysfunction among the right-wing wackos.
Mespo727272
I agree with you, I think the Declaration of Independence thing they are doing with the Children right now is really awesome and they can get into it in the 5th grade and get dressed up as Jefferson and do a speech. Great.
But to tell them that the Bill of Rights is being looked over by the Federal Government in the 6th Grade by ??? idk. That is Subversive imo “the government of United States is currently revisiting” the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution.”
Well, hopefully they won’t absorb it because I didn’t at that age. It didn get adult with me until I was 15.
Now, I still think that one book looks more like a Civics/Social Studies Book “A Peoples History” By Howard Zinn. By contrast, I think the other book brought up “The History of America” by Paul Johnson looks like something Teddy Roosevelt would write. All about American exceptionalism and actually a lot of outright fiction imo.
Two things. I had a Mother who was involved all her life in Education and she said that the Public Education system had cycles. When the colleges saw the scores go down, that’s when these programs got scrapped. They are usually 10 year cycles she had said. Now, she passed in 1973 and I don’t know if that is still true.
The other thing – why can’t we have a Nation of Hope built on Truth as the Professor said? “we are not perfect but strive to be better.”
happypappies – the Constitution project is kind of a ripoff of a project designed by a history professor of mine dealing with the Magna Carta. You and your group were given 36 demands and told that Prince John would accept your first 12 demands and consider the next 12 but would discard the last 12. So you and your group of nobles and bishops had to rank your demands in order. Since nobles and bishops sometimes had conflicting needs, it got really interesting. 🙂 I learned a hell of a lot about the Magna Carta from the exercise.
Paul C. Schulte
I am glad to hear that about the constitution project because wingnuts make it sound so awful. That was my question. 6th grade is young though.
You didn’t say anything about the moralist Paul Johnson. The Englishman -.
He is Catholic you know
Q. Everyone is asserting their rights in America. The country is becoming increasingly rights-based. Is this a good thing?
Johnson: No. A society whose philosophy is based on rights is heading for trouble. A rights-based philosophy doesn’t work because sooner or later there will be a conflict of rights. When there is an ever-increasing demand for rights, there will not be enough justice to go around to satisfy all the rights. There must also be a philosophy of duties. If everyone does their duty then there is enough justice to satisfy all the rights. Although the American Constitution was based on rights, it was also based on the assumption that America was a religious country that taught people their duties from infancy. So it is vital that the Church stress duties as well as rights. Strictly speaking, in a religious society, nobody has any rights — only God has rights. All we have are duties to each other and to God.
oookkkaaaayyyy
http://www.crisismagazine.com/1994/paul-johnson
mespo – are you including the fake Nobel that Obama got?
Pogo w/ a major bust. Great job. She seems more needy than usual the last couple days.
Happy – Common Core is ridiculous in its approach to math. I know parents right now furious over the mathematical methods they’re using now. They’ve made “2 plus 2” hard.
As predicted, there was a violent meltdown at the suggestion of getting Liberal politics out of textbooks, and the classroom in general.
History should be ACCURATE, and should neither gloss over the bad, nor hyper focus on the bad while glossing over the good. It should discuss honestly the good and bad results of various government experiments.
But it seems impossible for teachers and authors to check their politics at the door. Liberals would not appreciate public schools becoming Right Wing indoctrination machines. Public education is taxpayer funded, and shockingly political.
And Aridog is right. Some can no more discuss different points of view in the classroom than we can on this blog.
There are so many instances of Liberal bias in the classroom, ranging from “the US deserved 9/11” to “Republicans don’t want to help the poor.” Students are often prohibited from making conservative arguments to rebut Liberal teachers, where years ago such debate would be encouraged as critical thinking. It’s ridiculous, and that’s not what taxpayers signed up for.
It is also true that school choice would allow parents to vote with their feet on such behavior. Perhaps losing students would finally make a firm statement that public school educators should check their personal politics at the door.
Seriously, why is that even controversial? Isn’t it obvious that parents would not want teachers personal political bias to be taught in school?
Karen S
I know. I have a close friend with the random thing going on. Do you know about random and common core? I refuse to capitalize it. The Random Cube. How many ways can the Random Cube have a 2 be added up in a sequence. Uhhhh. The little Dylan skips around singing about random and Grandma has to figure it out. So, I am on the blog. I already wrote about this once. and she calls me “Whats a random cube?” “lets ask google – and a whole bunch of stuff came up including a di” Ohhhh, I get it.
So, then he has some esoteric way he has to add that up lol 😉 😉
Karen S
Random Cube lmao
Now you can see why I am opposed to your version of history.
Given that it is quite wrong.
“Misnomer, they were not socialist.”
Is that part of AP history now?
Oh, my.
Yes, indeed, leftism is full of anti-Semites.
see the USSR and modern France, for example.
Misnomer, they were not socialist.
Inga – the National Socialist German Party were socialists, hence the name.
Who rewrote German history.
“He was imprisoned by fascists.”
Yes, indeed, but rather more correctly the National Socialists.
Which you knew already.
Who wouldn’t allow jazz of music by Jewish composers.
Inga – ,blockquote>Who wouldn’t allow jazz of music by Jewish composers.Besides this sentence not making any sense, what is the point you are trying to make and give examples. We are talking about testing here.
Who burned books.
“Children can be nurtured and told the truth.”
That’s the debate here, isn’t it?
What is “truth”? Whose truth? Whose facts?
When divulged? How much of it? Why now or later?
What does it mean to ‘nurture and tell the truth’?
Is it a central government’s job to nurture, or to tell the truths of history?
Can small children handle the full truth of things?
You act as if these were a settled matters, when clearly they are not.
He was imprisoned by fascists.
Jesus Pogo. You’re tring very hard. Why is it all or nothing with you? Children can be nurtured and told the truth.
“Bonhoeffer was thinking about people like you when he wrote that.”
Well, no.
He was writing about the fellow-travelers of leftists and socialists in Germany.
It’s from his “Letters and Papers from Prison,” when he was imprisoned by socialists.
Neil Postman
The Disappearance of Childhood
Foreshadowing Obama and AP History.
In what state and school district was that in which they were tearing out certain pages of high school biology books, because they taught what abortion was (IIRC) as part of a human development course?
Pogo,
Bonhoeffer was thinking about people like you when he wrote that. I would bet he wouldv’e wanted the truth of what happened in Germany to be known and not whitewashed. What’s next with you ideological purists, burning books?
Inga – writing curriculum K-12 is a skill and requires layering of information. You have to have a base. Like reading, you have to learn the alphabet first, then small base words before sentences, etc. It is the same with all subjects. There are some warts you don’t get until grad school.