Modesto Bee Inadvertently Exposes Absurdity of Common Core History Lesson

NewsBusters ^ | August 20, 2014 | P.J. Gladnick

[PJ-Comix]

Did you know that the Declaration of Independence was really a breakup letter due to a "failing relationship."  See, the couple thought they would be "together forever but then things change."  One party thought the other was taking their relationship for granted. So it was time to break up. Alone time was needed .

This was how the Declaration of Independence is presented in a Common Core lesson as reported by Nan Austin of the Modesto Bee in California. The funniest thing about her article is that Ms Austin obviously thought she was presenting Common Core in a good light instead of inadvertently revealing its absurdity including a video of this "relationship" breakup lesson:

[PJ-Comix]

Common Core = DUmbing Down

[Dallas59]

I’m surprised they didn’t compare any of our wars to abortion.

[GeronL]

That is exactly what it is

[Blood of Tyrants]

Common Core is an effort to take over the education of the children and fill them full of liberal propaganda.

[Oratam]

Actually, it sounds like she stole her material from Colin Quinn's very clever one-man play Long Story Short.

I wonder if he can sue her.

[edpc]

So what’s that make the Magna Carta? A prenup?

[Billthedrill]

That is exactly what it is.

Yeah, I really don't have a problem with that characterization.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

[SkyDancer]

Putting it in a context that kids could understand(?) In modern English you could surmise it as a breakup letter.

[lastchance]

What kind of ego maniac wears their doctorate robe in a high school classroom?

[lastchance]

Except that it lacks the “You’re just too good for me” blather that those often contain.

[SkyDancer]

Or - “It’s not you, it’s me”

[Political Junkie Too]

That is exactly what it is

No, it's not.

It's a child declaring to his parents that he's now an emancipated adult and will now stand on his own, following his own rules, and will earn his own keep, no longer living in his parents' house.

A break-up letter implies a relationship between consenting adults. The United States was a child all grown up and moving out of daddy's house.

-PJ

[lastchance]

Yep.

[lastchance]

More like a minor explaining to a judge why they want to be emancipated from a tyrannical parent so they can live and thrive on their own.

[GeronL]

Common Core = DUmbing Down

That is exactly what it

[GeronL]

Common Core = DUmbing Down

That is exactly what it is

[TexasGator]

“That is exactly what it is’

Kids wouldn’t understand breakup letter.

OTOH, break up text might work ...

[Billthedrill]

I understand, and for the most part I agree. Sorry I mistook your meaning, but I'll stand by mine. You have to simplify this document a little for secondary education. It's broad in a way the Constitution is not, with so much history behind it that a cursory examination - and that's all you're going to get with a year's study - simply can't convey what it was the authors were trying to explain to the world. Pick a single item, and there's a whole lecture's worth of history behind it.

As recently as last week I was trying to explain to a young friend where the 3d Amendment came from. It's that "For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us" item in the Declaration, but why the Brits did that, and why it was an outdated military practice, goes back through the Seven Years' War, Frederick the Great and his father, who invented the barracks system, and the negative consequences of quartering troops learned all the way back in the Thirty Years' War. Poor kid's eyes were rolling in his head, and I can't blame him, but if you want to understand what Jefferson was writing about you have to go there. Jefferson certainly understood it.

Writing and teaching history is hard because of this. I do not blame the authors of Common Core for attempting to couch this in terms that might make sense to a high-schooler; I do not forgive them for couching it in terms that are too trendy and superficial to be remotely relevant - see Howard Zinn there.

A shameless plug here for LS's A Patriot's History of the United States, which found, I think, the correct balance.

[Verginius Rufus]

The next-to-last paragraph of the Declaration speaks of our “common Kindred” with the British, and our “Consanguinity.” That is a watered-down version—Jefferson’s original draft was longer and more emotional about the break-up.

[Political Junkie Too]

It makes one wonder whether Common Core was intended to dumb down the learning for the children, or dumb down to content so today's teachers can teach it.

Maybe it's the teachers who are dumb and need the watered down curriculum?

-PJ