Texas Hits a New Low, and Where Texas Goes, The Rest Follow.
Texas has decided to remove Helen Keller and Hillary Clinton from history books.
Two teachers from the group of board-nominated volunteers who recommended the changes told the Dallas Morning News that the state required students to learn about so many historical figures “it resulted in rote memorization of dates and names instead of real learning.” To decide whom to eliminate, they ranked “essential” figures by asking questions such as whether the person “triggered a watershed change,” was from an “underrepresented group,” or had an impact that would “stand the test of time.”
They were ranked on a 20-point scale: Clinton got a 5. Keller, a deaf-blind woman who was a political activist and author and graduated from college, got a 7. The group who recommended dropping the activist from the third-grade curriculum, saying she “does not best represent the concept of citizenship,” and instead military and first responders do.
Scrapping Keller will save teachers 40 minutes and Clinton 30 minutes, according to the Dallas Morning News.
Note what I've emphasized in bold: These SOBs want to define citizenship as militaristic and imperialist. I guess this shouldn't be surprising considering The US has always been both.
The Texas State Board of Indoctrination says it's about streamlining the curriculum, but anyone who has followed the situation in Texas and other Christofascist controlled states knows that's an outright lie.
Texas has done everything they can to whitewash history, drag scientific understanding back to a medieval level. This has been going on for many years.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHMZNZTsLTQ]
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQx_2j5nXuc]
Do I think Hillary should be scrapped from history books? No. But then, if we actually had competent history teachers, we likely wouldn't be so bloody ignorant. If nothing else, Hillary (And the rest of the pigs) should be used to show kids just how useless our electoral system really is.
As for Keller, the decision to scrap her pisses me off for many reasons, chief among them the fact that she was a pioneer for people with disabilities and a staunch labor activist and card carrying member of the Industrial Workers of the World, as I have mentioned multiple times before. Of course, our 'educational' system has completely whitewashed Keller in regards to said activism, but even the removal of that shows just how far the far-right are willing to go to sanitize history.
This also drives her point home that education is not the place to go for new ideas, as she said in an interview I've brought up in the past. And given my more recent experiences with college, I agree with her that college is not the place for new ideas.
If we're going to get anywhere as far as presenting new and better ideas, we should follow Australia's lead.
Comments
Sanitizing history indeed
Well stated.
Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.
glorification of the warrior patsy sent abroad
to slaughter and rob on behalf of imperial interests.
minimization of the warrior citizen, challenging authority and government in order to, among other things, end the practice of recruiting warrior patsies and sending them abroad to slaughter and rob on behalf of imperial interests.
i've got no particular gripe with first responders, but it's worth noting that in general (not always) they are being paid, and often paid quite well compared to most of the population. what that has to do with citizenship is a mystery to me.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
I can guarantee you that
I can guarantee you that every single one of the people who enacted this change consider themselves to be staunch "Christians".
WWJD?
Kill, kill, kill!
"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi
"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone
As her is a useless to many,
I wholeheartedly disagree.
She would die without the attention.........so let's cut her off.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
They're all useless, every last one.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't use them as a perfect demonstration of GIGO (Garbage in, garbage out).
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
Pass.
Rather remember them like I do dust.
Not important at all.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
"... School's not a place for smart people, Jerry."
[video:https://youtu.be/6d6qDcPz7Uo]
IIRC, the same Texas Board wanted to drop Thomas Jefferson
and ADD John Calvin because calvin ("the rich are favored by God") has had a much more pivotal role in American thought.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
They may have been on to something...
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
I am thinking about my education in Texas.
It emphasized Dwight Eisenhower because he was born here.
Keller was mentioned.
Women pushing to obtain the right to vote were mentioned.
Women who worked to replace men in factories off to the Great War were mentioned a lot, since they were the school principals that would not have had a job but for war.
Washington's wife, Robert E Lee's wife, and all the Queens were mentioned.
George Washington Carver was emphasized, mostly to glorify peanuts, since all farmers needed to plant them every few years to replenish their soil. We were supposed to go home and tell our daddies about planting peanuts.
And then the Bell Curve.
I have sat in Texas classrooms, 4th grade and 6th grade an 7th grade and heard the lectures, read the Texas textbooks, and have been tested on how anyone with black skin cannot be mentally and intellectually on a par with white skinned people. The school principal/teacher sold the book, door to door.
Aspie, if you think this is the bottom of the barrel, think again.
I deal with my fellow students every day of my life. Most of them did not graduate, or go to college.
They went to the oil field.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
That doesn't surprise me.
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
There is no curing
the Confederacy.
Simple as that.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Moses
I think it should be mentioned that they also added Moses to the list of historical figures. So, they apparently would rather have a likely-fictitious figure who has nothing to do with American history.
Having lost Moses on the Freeway ... anyway.
Loosing Moses on the Freeway
https://www.euronews.com/live
A man who couldn't ask for directions
who led his people in aimless circles in the desert, instead of just finding a road and following it. And ordered the slaughter of anyone they came across. Yea, let's worship him.
Xtian death cultists love him. Real Christians realize he is a myth and move on as quietly as possible. "Out of Egypt and (something something something) promised land." They are still ripping off from the Jewish faith but hey, all myths have to come from somewhere.
It was interesting to read that Moses is an Egyptian name
not a Semitic name. And "Baby came from the Nile" was a euphemism to describe a child without a known father.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Lots of confusion in Biblical time frames.
Months vs years Lunar vs Solar calendars. Ridiculous that someone lived 700 years, but I've already lived over 800 months. That would be a very long time in a culture with an average life span of 30 years (per display at the Smithsonian).
Wandering for 40 years? Or Forty months? Three years to cross the Sinai on foot sounds more reasonable.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Yea, the whole concept of time hadn't been set yet
And translating "years" into months makes sense.
"Forty" is also a euphemism for "a lot," much like we use "millions" today.
Many myths are based on perceived facts; for instance, the flood myth probably stemmed from the end of the last glacial period (aka, Ice Age), though more likely it resulted from Babylon existing in a flood plain.
Native Americans have most poetic origin stories, in my opinion.
Oh, Aspie, I wanted to mention the irony ...
"If we're going to get anywhere as far as presenting new and better ideas, we should follow Australia's lead."
The irony is that Dewey, the "Father of Progressive Education," pushed for the ideas 100 years ago here in the US but the domestic "donor class" squelched the ideas ... while now others outside the US are utilizing the ideas.