Context and balance often found lacking [ More on the US Textbook Scandal ]

THE WASHINGTON TIMES ^ | March, 28, 2004 | By George Archibald

[TaxRelief]

The latest editions of the most widely used social studies textbooks across the country are full of errors and politically correct bias, reviews show.

Publisher McDougal Littell's high school "World History: Patterns of Interaction" blames explorer Christopher Columbus for "the beginnings of an era of widespread cruelty and bloodshed" in the Americas, but fails to mention Aztec, Mayan and Toltec Indian practices of forced labor and cutting out hearts of opponents while they were still alive.

[LS]

It's college fresh level.

[notpoliticallycorewrecked]

Abeka or Bob Jones are two options.

An excellent option for American History is for them to read Peter Marshall series The Light and the Glory.

[TaxRelief]

Perhaps History at the High School level should not be taught from textbooks, per se.

I was taught World History through research projects and from historical writings, including various important documents relevant to each country and each time period.

[KC_for_Freedom]

At what age should kids be sat down and told the facts about the Marxist, extreme left?

When our son came home from school and proudly proclaimed that capitalism and communism were both out of date. The appropriate economic system according to his teacher was "The Third Way". It involves letting the hard working industrialists work as much as they like. Simply tax their efforts for the money to fund the social programs.

I thought now was the appropriate time to explain socialism, communism, and capitalism. I told my son that he could have that belief but he should realize that with the acheivements he was piling up in school he would be one of the hard working capitalists who was taxed up the ying yang to pay for the socialist's programs. That started him thinking and we have another member of the vast right wing conspiracy in the household.

Off the subject, but when his classmates were discussing the benefits of the Estate Tax, my son pointed out that many of the left leaning kids who supported the tax would find the government gobbling up much of their inheritance when they sell the family home upon their parents death. You see their homes were worth several million each and would easily move the family into the estate tax range should the parents die.

[gcruse]

I took World History as a high school elective in 1958.

When we got to the communism part, I remember commenting to the teacher that, it seemed to me, once you got everyone's standard of living up, communism wouldn't be a bad way to live. She exploded. Nowadays, I'd probably have gotten an A for the year.

Born too soon.

[sdk7x7]

I'm a senior at New Rochelle High School in NY. I can tell you that last year, our American history textbook was one of the most biased (left-wing) things I have ever read. It slammed Republicans for just about everything and had about 3 times as many pages on Clinton as it did on Reagan. I know that this year's American history students were required to buy a supplemental textbook by Howard Zinn. If you're not familiar with this radical, some of the following links may be enlightening, to say the least:
http://www.zmag.org/bios/homepage.cfm?authorID=97

Book excerpt: http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/zinn-chap16.html

Biography:
http://www.brainyencyclopedia.com/encyclopedia/h/ho/howard_zinn.html

I will say, however, that the textbook that we're using in AP U.S. Government & Politics this year was written by two conservative Republicans, one of whom is a prof at UPenn (where I'll be going next year) and one of whom writes frequently in the Wall Street Journal.

-sdk
PS: You can only imagine how objective our teacher is.

[farmer18th]

Homeschooling does NOT solve the problem.

It does for your own children, but I do agree with your broader point that we need to dismantle or reform the public system. For that to happen, I think us limited government types are going to have to start by being a little less afraid of the voucher system. I talk to LOTS of public school teachers who do the passive-agressive thing with the looney left curriculum. They teach what their conscience tells them to teach. If we could start taking back our money in the form of vouchers, we could even pretend we would honor the attached strings, while lieing through our teeth for the sake of righteousness.

[rustbucket]

I took World History as a high school elective in 1958.

In 1956, my high school teachers were visibly upset that the communists were snuffing out freedom in Hungary.

[gcruse]

I remember that when I was in junior high. Not that they were upset, just the event itself. Tears were shed in the sixties over the Czech invasion, though.

[endthematrix]

Now look at modern academia. The teachers are visibly upset that the US and the West are snuffing out Communism.

[TaxRelief]

That is what happened. When, right after the war, the American public, war-weary, seemed to favor demobilization and disarmament, the Truman administration (Roosevelt had died in April 1945) worked to create an atmosphere of crisis and cold war. True, the rivalry with the Soviet Union was real--that country had come out of the war with its economy wrecked and 20 million people dead, but was making an astounding comeback, rebuilding its industry, regaining military strength. The Truman administration, however, presented the Soviet Union as not just a rival but an immediate threat. In a series of moves abroad and at home, it established a climate of fear--a hysteria about Communism--which would steeply escalate the military budget and stimulate the economy with war-related orders. This combination of policies would permit more aggressive actions abroad, more repressive actions at home.

This passage by Howard Zinn, from your link, is completely wrong.

Are you a fan of Zinn (in which case I will explain the errors in this passage); or are you warning us that kids in NY State High Schools are getting a double dose of bad historical writings?

[TaxRelief]

We need to come up with the "Top Ten Reasons to get your Kids out of Public Schools".

Here's some possibilities--

#10: Because public school systems make purchases based on bulk discounts rather than quality, the textbooks are inaccurate, agenda-laced and have very little actual content.

#9: Christianity is not allowed in the school building, is treated like the evil step-sister and is ridiculed openly by students and faculty alike.

#8: Public schools may have been good enough for you when you were a kid, but because everything has now been dumbed down to the lowest common denominator, public schools are not what they were 30 years ago. They are not good enough for any kid. reference

[sdk7x7]

I'm warning that kids in NY are getting the usual dose of liberalism from Zinn that they get from their teachers every day.

[TaxRelief]

Thanks for the heads-up concerning "Zinn".

How does a teenager actually learn history in the face of this blatant misprepresentation of historical events? What would you suggest?