Who caused the most damage to American History in the schools?

12-11-2013 | Crapgame

[Crapgame]

Freepers, as an adjunct professor of humanities, I am most interested in your opinions on American historiography and education.

[Crapgame]

I teach at a local community college. I teach humanities which is either Ancient and Medieval Cultures, The Modern World from the Renaissance to Today or The American Experience and Constitutional Change. I've been doing this for four years now and in particular, the text I use for The American Experience class has got me down. It completely deconstructs American history. Everything seems to be reduced to race and gender issues. While discussing the Cold War, it paints a picture of the United States as an agitator, threatening the Soviets and later the Chinese. It grates on me when The Zoot Suit Riots are given equal time in the text to the American victory at Midway.

As conservatives I think we can all agree that academia is overrun by the left. We need to fight back on this critical battleground in order to preserve our future generations. Please don't make this a "take your kids out of public school" thread. I am talking about college level courses and I want to know who in your collective opinion did more to destroy the teaching of history at the primary level for American children?

Looking forward to the responses....

[GeronL]

It has been headed this way for a while and “Common Core” has just totalled it. Especially in the lower grades.

History became a series of disconnected episodes- all of them with leftist ‘moral to the stories’ and now they are just teaching things out of context. I read that Common Core, completing this crappy progression, has the Emancipation Proclamation taught without any reference to the Civil War.

In other words history is not being taught any more for all intents and purposes.

[US Navy Vet]

“Jimmy” Carter, he INFLICTED the US Dept of “Education” on us.

[faithhopecharity]

half or more of our local college students are immigrants, mostly from China and Asian countries. they generally seem to know more about American history and constitution and so forth than do many of our American students.
The Chinese usually know all about the Bill of Rights and are surprised when they discover it is not a very operative document anymore these last 4 or 5 years

but they recognize the problem and understand it immediately, I guess their communist dictatorship government experience provides them with the exact frame of reference they require to quickly grasp what’s happened or happening to us here now

[cripplecreek]

I just posted this in the Michigan board

Senate Bill 701: Encourage teaching America’s founding documents
Introduced by Sen. Patrick Colbeck (R) on December 3, 2013, to require public school boards to encourage teachers to read aloud or post in classrooms writings, documents, and records that reflect the founding and history of the United States, including but not limited to the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, the Anti-Federalist Papers, the Bill of Rights and more.
http://www.michiganvotes.org/Legislation.aspx?ID=161411

[Mikey_1962]

Absolutely.
A Department that educates no one. Much as the Department of Agriculture that grows nothing and Transportation who transports no one.

[Flintlock]

What history? They don’t teach it anymore.
IMHO they stopped with my high school class (1963) when the subject became ‘SOCIAL STUDIES’ and it went downhill from there.

[wac3rd]

I would say that when the Progressives began running the textbook companies. Kids used to read about patriotism, good manners, Christian values, and were honest about the low points.

Liberals hate this country, they want us in gulags, dead and starving, for the sake of fairness. The textbook writers share the same views and push the crap onto students.

Reagan - married 2x, actor, Iran Contra....never a good work

Obama - zero achievement, dubious past, Community Organizer, liar, Marxist - the book will rave about how historic he was, yes, historically terrible

[jmacusa]

Liberals destroyed it, who else? Might try explaining to your students what kind of a world it would be right now if America hadn’t won the Battle of Midway or if the Allied forces had all been thrown back into the sea on June 6,1944. “The philosophy taught in the classroom in one generation becomes the policy of the government in the next.’’- Abraham Lincoln.

[faithhopecharity]

ps:
most of our American students cannot tell you even three of the clauses of the BILL of (Their) RIGHTS

which is a big part of the explanation why they don’t really have many of those rights anymore (at least, why the govt can get away with dis-respecting its citizens’ rights)
.... the citizens have been “educated” to not realize they have any rights vis-a-vis their Master (the govt)

[muir_redwoods]

FDR

no actual competition although Wilson deserves a mention.

[combat_boots]

3-4 years ago, there was a national ‘crisis’ about what basic college education included. History was part of the crisis.

What’s the date of your book publication? Who are the editors? If we assume that the book takes one year to piece together and look at the background of the editors and publisher, we can get at the culprits.

My bet is that small schools advocates are part of it, which brings in Gates and Ayres. At least 10 years ago, only socialist and communist pieces were taught in K-12. I knew a prof who looked me in the eye and said, “You have to get them young.”

This has been a concerted effort of several powerful people and groups. In other words, the usual suspects.

My 2 cents

[Dr. Sivana]

Thomas Dewey messed up ALL public education, so American History would be swept up in that.

Oliver Wendell Holmes messed up pretty much ALL of the law schools.

[Aevery_Freeman]

Who caused the most damage to American History in the schools?

The same people that gave us children that can't read or do simple arithmetic.

That's why a modern cash register has pictures and tells them how much change to give back.

Oh, and to believe in anthropogenic global warming.

[Madam Theophilus]

Short answer to your question is: John Dewey. He changed the subject of history into that of social science. His reasoning for the switch was that the future of America would be industrial. If citizens were too educated they wouldn’t stand for working in the assembly lines as the nation would require. Therefore, not only was reading instruction delayed and made more complex (sight reading); social science was emphasized which downplayed the role of individuals and political liberty to social classes and economic struggle/causes. This change took place in the early 20’s/30’s and was given new life by the radical 60’s.

The long answer is covered in the book, America Revised: History Schoolbooks in the 20th Century by Frances FitzGerald. Here’s a review at the Underground Grammarian: http://www.sourcetext.com/grammarian/

[MacNaughton]

published 2005

Jonathan Kozol (born September 5, 1936 in Boston, MA) is a non-fiction writer, educator, and activist, best known for his books on public education in the United States. He has been working with children in inner-city schools for more than 40 years. Kozol is the patron saint of today’s powerful liberal educational establishment. While focusing mainly on poor and minority kids, he has preached his version of how kids should be educated, and his influence today is immense. Kozol is a fierce opponent of traditional learning, which he says deadens children’s souls. He believes that education cannot and should not be politically neutral. Indeed, the once outrageous idea that teachers should use their classrooms to espouse liberal/ radical views – i.e., to propagandize – can be traced directly to Jonathan Kozol. His views on the subject are laid out in his influential book, On Being a Teacher, which was written following a visit to Cuba in the mid-70s. Taking as his starting point the crude Marxist view that education in all societies is ‘a system of indoctrination,’ ‘an instrument of the state,’ he worked out a method by which teachers could subvert capitalist America’s bad indoctrination and – cleverly and subtly – substitute some good left-wing indoctrination in its place.” All the book’s model lessons aim to teach little children to withstand America’s state-sponsored brainwashing and to open them up to the self-evident truths of feminism, environmentalism, and the Left’s account of history. What’s so alarming is that, because Jonathan Kozol is so admired in the education establishment, his ideas are put into practice every day in classrooms all across America, from high school all the way down to preschool.

1968 - Jane Elliott, an American schoolteacher, created the famous “blue-eyed/brown-eyed” exercise. The exercise labeled participants as inferior or superior based solely upon the color of their eyes. She 1st conducted the exercise with grade school children. She exposed the students to the experience of being a minority by having them experience prejudice and bigotry. Elliott said she developed this encounter experience in response to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on 4/08/1968. This launched her career in a new direction as an anti-racism/ feminist/ LGBTQ activist and educator. Today she is recognized as 1 of the 1st pioneers of diversity training.

Diversity training began in public organizations (military, government, colleges/universities) in the1960s as a reaction to the civil rights movement. The aim of these educational training sessions was to increase understanding and awareness of differences in race. At this time, the use of encounter groups was the primary training method. This encompassed bringing multiracial groups together for an emotional and confrontational discussion about racism. In the 1970s and 1980s diversity training began to include issues of gender differences. Beginning in the 1980s and 1990s, businesses began implementing diversity training to protect against civil rights suits. Also in the 1990s, diversity training expanded to address sexual orientation, age, religion, and national origin.

published 1980

Howard Zinn (August 24, 1922 – January 27, 2010) was an American historian, author, playwright, and social activist. He was a political science professor at Boston University for 24 years and taught history at Spelman College for 7 years. Zinn wrote more than 20 books, including his best-selling and influential A People's History of the United States.[2] He wrote extensively about the civil rights and anti-war movements, and labor history of the United States. Zinn was born to a Jewish immigrant family in Brooklyn. Eager to fight fascism, Zinn joined the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II and was assigned as a bombardier in the 490th Bombardment Group,[7] bombing targets in Berlin, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary.[8] As bombardier, Zinn dropped napalm bombs in April 1945 on Royan, a seaside resort in southwestern France.[9] The anti-war stance Zinn developed later was informed, in part, by his experiences. Zinn described himself as "something of an anarchist, something of a socialist. Maybe a democratic socialist." He suggested looking at socialism in its full historical context as a popular, positive idea that got a bad name from its association with Soviet Communism.

Howard Zinn claimed his eyes were opened to the racist, imperialist horror that is America by writer I.F. Stone, who later was confirmed to be a KGB covert influence agent when the Iron Curtain fell and certain Soviet documents became public.

Quote from the 1997 Hollywood fillm, “Good Will Hunting,” written by native Bostonian and political progressive, Matt Damon in the lead role: “You wanna read a really good American history book? Read Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. It will knock your socks off.”

A sample of his writing in The Progressive. Zinn’s contempt for America and its citizens fairly drips from each word: “The deeply ingrained belief — no, not from birth but from the educational system and from our culture in general that the United States is an especially virtuous nation makes us especially vulnerable to government deception. It starts early, in the first grade, when we are compelled to ‘pledge allegiance’ (before we even know what that means), forced to proclaim that we are a nation with ‘liberty and justice for all. … And then come the countless ceremonies, whether at the ballpark or elsewhere, where we are expected to stand and bow our heads during the singing of the ‘Star Spangled Banner,’ announcing that we are ‘the land of the free and the home of the brave.’ There is also the unofficial national anthem ‘God Bless America,’ and you are looked on with suspicion if you ask why we would expect God to single out this one nation — just 5 percent of the world’s population — for his or her blessing.”

[PGR88]

It completely deconstructs American history. Everything seems to be reduced to race and gender issues.

My daughters' high school textbooks do the same thing. One of my daughters isn't interested in history, so when I often challenge what she is studying, she will say "Dad, I don't care. I just give them the answers they are expecting." Arrgghh. How many children have the same attitude?

To answer your question though - the main culprit? Its a corrupted money supply. You may think it a stretch, but the propagation of various top-down social engineering schemes and the grievance mongering games can only exist if there are benefits to be had by co-opting a massive federal government. And how is this paid for over decades? By a fiat money supply. There is no other way.

Change the US financial system at its root (ie. kill the Federal Reserve) and you change entirely the government's influence on society.

[Madam Theophilus]

P.S. One of the best books on Dewey, IMHO is

John Dewey and the Decline of American Education: How the Patron Saint of Schools Has Corrupted Teaching and Learning by Henry T. Edmondson III.

[Hoffer Rand]

I was at an international education conference about 7-8 years ago. Robert Reich was one of the keynote speakers. He was going on and on about the “failures of the education system” over the past 30 years (since the early 60s). He blamed the failures on NCLB. Amusing rewrite of history, since NCLB didn’t become law until 2001. You should have seen all the sheep nodding along with his diatribe. During his question and answer period, I really wanted to ask him who he believes has been in control of education for the past 30 years. It wasn’t worth my job to take him on so publicly, but it was really tempting. There are so precious few of us in higher education, I chose to walk away from that battle and fight the fight in other ways.

[freerepublicchat]

Public funding is to blame.

People supported by the state generally also support the state.