Originally Posted By Princessjenn5795 " It's important to remember that a large part of learning is due to the TEACHING of the subject. " This is very true...I was incredibly lucky to have an amazing American History teacher in high school. We used the text books rarely. Instead he would get up and tell the story. It wasn't biased, it was simply "this is what happened." There was no prettying up of hard subjects. There were 3 grades; A,C, or F. In order to get a C in the class you only had to pass the test on each section. In order to get an A you had to write an in depth paper on something having to do with the topic at hand. It could be on anything relevant and take any viewpoint as long as it was well researched with all sources listed (and they had to be real sources) and well written. That was it. That class is what made me love history. Farretamos, the problem with the Texas version is that they are flat out trying to gloss over some of the less appealing aspects of our history. Here is a quote from the original article that I posted. The quote is from Cynthia Dunbar, one of the Board members pushing for the changes, "In Texas we have certain statutory obligations to promote patriotism and to promote the free enterprise system. There seems to have been a move away from a patriotic ideology. There seems to be a denial that this was a nation founded under God. We had to go back and make some corrections." Patriotic ideology??? They are not even attempting to hide what their motives behind these changes are.
Originally Posted By Princessjenn5795 I just read the history course outline that skinnerbox posted above. I read all of the US history sections and it looks like California actually has a very comprehensive history curriculum. It covers the good that bad and the ugly in our history and includes historical documents, supreme court decisions, so on. I would have no problem with my kids learning history as outlined by this curriculum. It does not appear to biased in any direction and seems to be a very complete view of events. I think any bias you experienced must have been the teacher's, not the curriculum's.
Originally Posted By Mr X ***There seems to be a denial that this was a nation founded under God*** Yup. I deny that. Vehemently. Were most of the founders religious in one way or another? Sure. But then again, so weren't most PEOPLE back then. How many prominent atheists (the ones they didn't murder as witches, I mean) do we hear about? Even skeptics had to veil their comments carefully into a "pious" style in order to avoid persecution. And EVEN SO, the founding fathers managed to insist upon a separation of church and state (Congress shall pass NO LAW...). So "founded under God"? No. Wrong. Dead wrong. ***We had to go back and make some corrections*** The phrase "who do you think you are?" springs to mind. Or perhaps, "who died and made you chief constitutional scholar?".
Originally Posted By Princessjenn5795 ^^^And who says if you don't like our history you can just change it? It's not like what actually happened changed...and when those students get to college are expected to know what really happened they are going to have a tough time of things.
Originally Posted By Mr X More on this Cynthia Dunbar woman... <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt6HRvOebzU" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...HRvOebzU</a>
Originally Posted By Mr X Oh, and she's an evolution denier, too. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zIyA8JBFBI" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...yA8JBFBI</a> Oh boy.
Originally Posted By Princessjenn5795 Yeah, she is exactly who I would pick to be on a board of education...If I were running a fundamentalist religious school and did not want any of the students to actually get into college. For a public school system, not so much.
