Posted on 02/27/2002 5:12:24 AM PST by Stand Watch Listen
Most students are turned off to History and Social Studies, seeing these subjects as a dry recitation of detached useless information. They might feel differently if they knew of the contentious debate as to what facts or interpretations of them get presented in America's public school classrooms.This dispute is not so much the result of an honest scholarly disagreement as to the chronology of unfolding events or even the nature of their causal origins. There is more at stake than whether old Bill Shakespeare penned his own plays or was simply a front-man for Francis Bacon.
Rather, those seeking to alter the nation's collective memory seek to recast young minds in the mold of the revolutionary academic elite. The extent of this conspiracy came to light in the proposed History standards released by the New Jersey Department of Education.
From these standards, one might conclude a megalomaniac with a time machine had gone back and changed the past since these academic guidelines don't even mention most of the venerable names students have been required to learn for generations. In a manner not unlike Arnold Schwarzenegger in "The Terminator", names such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin have been scrubbed out in order to alter the very nature of the present and the future. And while atrocities against American soldiers are conveniently glossed over, those crafting this curriculum don't mind harping on the issues of slavery or the hardships endured by the Iraqi people (the later of course being the fault of the United States rather than Saddam Hussein according to this revisionist perspective).
Defenders of these standards argue that the stalwart verities of American History do not need to be spelled out as they will be covered by experienced classroom teachers. Don't count on it.
Most teachers wouldn't know their own names unless printed across their paychecks. To such limited minds, these scholastic guidelines are comparable to holy writ. Don't expect textbooks to pick up the slack. In a "20/20" expose, Sam Donaldson noted that one popular history text contained more information on Marilyn Monroe than George Washington. If it's not clearly spelled out, it won't get taught.
This nonsense isn't anything new. The Washington Times' story detailing this issue noted that for thirteen years the New Jersey State Legislature has debated whether or not students there should memorize the preamble to the Declaration of Independence. Must not want students learning that rights and liberties exist apart and above government.
Nor is New Jersey the only place where this kind of nonsense is occurring. The Washington Times noted that neither Virginia nor Indiana recognize the Pilgrims as pilgrims. Wouldn't want pupils realizing that the gratitude for the freedoms and bounties we enjoy as Americans belongs to God rather than bureaucracy.
Often the stalwarts of America's historical pantheon are discredited and ultimately discarded from the academic canon by harping the mantra of their alleged individual inadequacies. Exposing the character flaws of such greats such as Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin has become something of a cottage industry among radical historians and multicultural malcontents. Schools memorializing George Washington have had their names changed simply because Washington owned slaves. So much for the cultural relativism used to justify even greater atrocities in even more backward foreign societies.
Historical integrity demands we acknowledge where those from the past whom we idolize fall short of their professed convictions if history aspires to be a record of how things actually happened rather than how we would have liked them to. Yet it seems those eager to destroy the nation's traditional foundations aren't as gleeful in focusing the lens of criticism as keenly upon those beatified as the saints of the pending pluralistic order. Many of the individuals this movement would have our children admire professed ideas and engaged in behaviors over the course of their respective lives making the most profound faults of the Founding Fathers trifle in comparison.
The City of Hyattsville, Maryland, in league with the First United Methodist Church there, sponsored an essay contest commemorating Black History Month. Students in the seventh and eighth grades were supposed to answer how the works of the following "authors of African descent" had influenced their lives: Alexander Dumas, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Aesop, W.E.B . Dubois, or Alex Hailey.
With the exception of Aesop who probably wasn't even Black, each of the authors listed above either displayed questionable character, furthered the cause of leftwing radicalism, or both.
While his stories such as The Three Musketeers are considered classics, Alexander Dumas — who was just as much White as he was Black — was a sexual libertine, squandering his fortunes on numerous mistresses and fathering a child outside the confines of marriage.
James Baldwin was a homosexual and a socialist.
Langston Hughes was a socialist who traveled to the Soviet Union in the 1930's during the days of Stalinism.
W. E. B. Du Bois was an outright Marxist, apologist for the Soviet Union, member of the American Communist Party, supporter of nuclear disarmament, and advocate of racial separatism when it supported Black interests.
Alex Haley collaborated with Malcolm X in writing The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Malcolm X, you may recall, was a prominent spokesman for the Nation of Islam, a virulent ant-White Islamic sect. And while Malcolm X is said to have renounced some of his more racist views upon his pilgrimage to Mecca, he still remained a radical and is still held in high esteem by groups inimical to good American values such as the Socialist Workers Party and the Black Panthers. It must be noted that this tome in question also started traitor John Walker Lindh down the terrorism toe-path through his embrace of Islam.
Thus, the criteria for inclusion in the classroom is not so much the matter of personal virtue as opponents of the Founding Fathers contend but rather the utility of the individual in undermining traditional moral values and in promoting the cause of socialism in the hopes of overthrowing America's system of established liberties.
It has been said that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. It has also been said that the philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next. Therefore the future will belong to those dominate in promoting their version of the past.
FReegards
The charade of education reform
Source: WorldNetDaily.com; Published: February 2, 2002;
Author: Dr. Samuel L. BlumenfeldHigh Schools Fail Thanks To Grade Inflation And Social Promotion
Source: Toogood Reports; Published: December 5, 2001
Author: Vin SuprynowiczWHY AMERICANS CAN’T READ
Source: Accuracy in Media; Published: December 4, 2001
Author: Reed Irvine and Cliff KincaidThe Failing Teacher and the Teachers' Code of Silence
Source: CNSNews.com; Published: December 3, 2001
Author: Glenn SacksTime for outrage! Linda Bowles reports latest results in America's public schools
Source: WorldNetDaily.com; Published: November 27, 2001
Author: Linda BowlesIlliterate in Boston: Samuel Blumenfeld explains U.S.'s ongoing reading problem
Source: WorldNetDaily.com; Published: July 20, 2001
Author:Samuel BlumenfeldNEA - Let our children go!
Source: WorldNet Daily; Published: June 23. 2001
Author: Linda HarveyCOOKING THE BOOKS AT EDUCATION
Source: Accuracy In Media; Published: June 5, 2001;
Author: Cliff KincaidWhy Do Schools Play Games With Students' Minds ?
Source: The Detroit News; Published: April 1, 2001
Author: Thomas SowellThe Public School Nightmare: Why fix a system designed to destroy individual thought?
Source: http://home.talkcity.com/LibraryDr/patt/homeschl.htm
Author: John Taylor GattoDumbing down teachers
Source: USNews.com; Published: February 21, 2001
Author: John LeoFree Republic links to education related articles (thread#8)
Source: Free Republic; Published: 3-20-2001
Author: VariousAre children deliberately 'dumbed down' in school? {YES!!!}
Source: World Net Daily; Published: May 13, 2001
Author: Geoff Metcalf {Interview}New Book Explores America's Education Catastrophe
Source: Christian Citizen USA; Published: April 2000
Author: William H. WildDeliberately dumbing us down (Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt's, "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America"
Source: WorldNetDaily.com; Published: December 2,1999
Author: Samuel L. BlumenfeldCould they really have done it on purpose?
Source: THE LIBERTARIAN; Published: 07/28/2000
Author: Vin SuprynowiczFrom the Littleton Crisis to Government Control Littleton Crisis to Government Control
The UN Plan for Your Mental Health The UN Plan for Your Mental Health
"Remember Allah inspired the angels: I am with you. Give firmness to the believers. I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: you smite them above their necks and smite all their fingertips off of them." (Koran, 8:12)
islam, the religion of peace…
Owl_Eagle
”Guns Before Butter.”
Teacher in America published in 1950; and
The House of Intellect published in 1959.
Powerful, well-written, witty and pithy stuff, a no-compromises, no-prisoners view of just what education ought to be and what it has become.
Correction 15 Aug 2006: Jacques Barzun (1907-), I am happy to report, is still very much among us. As is that other culturally traditionalist historian, and admired friend of Barzun's, the Hungarian-born John Lukacs (1924-), whose works earn their place on like shelves (try CONFESSIONS OF AN ORIGINAL SINNER for an engaging personal introduction).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.