NC Board of Education hears debate about American exceptionalism

charoletteobserver.com ^ | Dec. 1, 2014 | T. Keung Hui

[PROCON]

RALEIGH The question of whether high school students should be taught that America’s status is “exceptional” compared with other nations dominated debate Monday over the redesigned Advanced Placement U.S. History course.

Larry Krieger, a retired history teacher and national activist, urged the State Board of Education to demand that the College Board revise the AP U.S. History course because its 70-page framework omits the mention of “American exceptionalism” that was in previous guidelines. Instead of teaching that America is “a force for good in the world” and stands for democracy and freedom, Krieger said, the new course is designed to promote a globalist perspective.

“I call upon the North Carolina Board of Education – an influential board of education – to stand up for America, and call upon the College Board to rectify this situation by revising the framework,” Krieger said.

[PROCON]

“American history, just like every other history, is full of some amazing, exceptional accomplishments and triumphs, and also some very unspeakable failures and wrongdoing,” said Ford, who was named the state’s Teacher of the Year in April. “So with that in mind, isn’t a more balanced approach appropriate?”

I'm sure Mr. Ford is a card carrying Obamabot.

[Ray76]

>> amazing, exceptional accomplishments and triumphs, and also some very unspeakable failures and wrongdoing,

What a fool. It's the principles we are founded upon that are exceptional.

[Secret Agent Man]

not really. the principles allowed exceptional accomplishments. those are the tangible results of american exceptionalism. they are the results of those people employing the principles that make the country great.

it’s good to point to examples as well when discussing the principles.

[BroJoeK]

I never heard that term "American Exceptionalism" in school, at any level, though there was never any doubt about it -- i.e., we did learn "manifest destiny".
Seems to me the first time I heard the term was from William F. Buckley, in a Firing Line show circa 1980.

The idea that America is exceptional should certainly be taught in schools, but with some rather careful attention paid to just what, historically, such exceptionalism meant and now means.
I note with interest that the Communist Party USA was said to be a great champion of the idea.

[Tax-chick]

I mostly remember memorizing all the Presidential elections.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Ping.

[AppyPappy]

One of those failures is the American education system.

Or is it “Exceptional”, Mr Ford?

[LS]

That's not what American exceptionalism means. We give a definition in "A Patriot's History of the Modern World, vol. 1" that seems to cover it:

American exceptionalism is based on four pillars that NO other nation had at the time of its founding (some developed some later, but almost none have all four):

1) A Christian, mostly Protestant religious foundation. (This eliminates all nations right off the bat except England, Canada, and Australia, and England was mostly "Anglican," which traditionally isn't viewed as "Protestant," while Canada had a heavy dose of Catholicism from the beginning.)

2) A heritage of common law, as understood as a system of laws in which God puts the law in the hearts of the people and they elect rulers to enforce what they already know to be right and wrong. Again, with the exceptions above---and England is rapidly losing this with Sharia Law on the one hand and infringements of French Civil Law via the EU on the other---no one else in the world has this.

3) A free market.

4) Private property rights with written titles and deeds.

Again, we are the FIRST nation in the world to have these pillars, and with the exception of Australia---which is not heavily Protestant---the only nation to possess all four from its outset.

[LS]

Well, if you mean by exceptional the notion that we are the only ones to have these principles, no, the French had them in 1789 and many others since.

I think it is other factors that have separated us then and continue to separate us now.

[sport]

At the rate we are going, in 10 years or less all four of the pillars you mentioned will be gone. Each year, the colleges , universities, and even high schools are graduating a class whose goal is to destroy the pillars.

The cancer we allowed to go untreated has became malignant and metastasized .

[LS]

Not so sure. Lenin (more or less) had the Soviet yuts for 60 years and in the end they rejected him. Don’t buy the permanent influence of education-—and I’m a prof.