Posted on 06/23/2005 11:47:23 AM PDT by quidnunc
Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.” True enough. Depicting history is, and always has been, a collective enterprise. But our modern, relativistic culture has made separating fact from fancy increasingly difficult, as political correctness often trumps truth. As a result, we are rewriting history.
Nowhere is this more evident than in American classrooms, where our children’s history lessons change with the political winds. Anti-bias guidelines and fears of offending special-interest groups permeate history textbooks, smudging out historical accuracy.
Our Founding Fathers are now referred to as androgynous “framers.” According to a 2004 Washington Times report, word such as “man,” “mankind,” “aged,” and “suffragette” are now banned from textbooks. In 2003, reviewers found 533 factual or interpretive errors in social studies texts submitted for adoption to the Texas State Board of Education. While publishers agreed to 351 revisions, they stated the remaining errors were simply a “misunderstanding” of the textbook.
However, nothing changed to ensure students would not fall victim to the misunderstandings. The result is that millions of American schoolchildren are misinformed about important historical events and documents. In 2002-03, only 55 percent of North Carolina high school students were considered proficient in U.S. history. This is no surprise, given the widespread deficiencies in our history curriculum: The Fordham Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based education organization, gave North Carolina’s Social Studies Curriculum an “F” in a 2002-03 evaluation of state history standards.
Our teachers are unschooled in the fundamentals of American history. Chester Finn, president of the Fordham Foundation, said that only 31 percent of middle school history teachers and 41 percent of high school history teachers actually majored in history as undergraduates. Just like the character in Sam Cooke’s song, “Wonderful World,” our teachers “don’t know much about history.”
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When an historical event is determined by, or a consequence of, a political decision...how do you really know what the truth is?
Public Education System is a POS PING! With the exception of a few teachers...most school districts are hives for disinformation by the lefty loonies that run them.
Education Reform is taking on a whole new meaning.
"Actually according to the laws of quantum mechanics, history is just a set of possible histories with various probabilities of occurring."
Wrong. The past is fixed; no multiverses going backward, only forward. That doesn't mean that those with a political or cultural axe to grind won't keep trying to put their particular spin upon that fixed history, though.
Yes there are multiple quantum states, but according to Schrodinger Cat Theory, once you take action you're quantum state has been decided...even if all states exist at the same time, relative to that decision.
Thus the cat eats the mouse...it tastes good. For that cat the mouse was good, it's history is that the mouse was good tasting. Now for a Cat in a different quantum state where the mouse was bad...his history is the mouse tasted bad.
So relative to the individual, regardless of multiple states, an exact history for that individual can be defined.
On my teaching evaluations I got one of the saddest comments I have ever received. The student said, "I learned more about my rights in this class than during my entire life as a citizen of this country."
According to string theory, there is another dimension only trillionths away from the one we are in and it probably has a different history. Yeah; and there are suppose to be 11 of them....including ours of course.
String theory makes me feel like I can pass a string in one ear and out the other without disturbing anything.
I knew American History was over when Harriet Tubman had greater prominence in American History books than Abraham Lincoln.
How do these regulations affect private school text books?
Yeppers, Brian Greene has a couple of good books out.
Also Lee Smolin's book is good. "Three Roads to Quantum Gravity."
But, it is also a large compliment to your service.
That's why it's good to be a "good" teacher.
Time is fast approaching where true America history lives on only as an oral tradition passed parent to child.
Quantum Physics: The dreams stuff is made of.
History isn't the only subject being trashed. Geography, Ethics, Civics, English Lit and with graphing calculators Math calculation has been reduced to simply following the recipe. Generations of ignoramuses courtesy of public education. What a harvest that will be.
Hiezenberg's uncertianty Principle, "one cannot determing both the position and the velocity of an individual particle...which is loose definition in point particle physics mind you.
But you can determine from wence that particle came and where it has traveled premeasurement...so an ascertainable history can be made.
There are some that beleive the uncertainty principle doesn't apply very well in multi-dimensional physics.
Either way, the mouse is history.
Quantum physics. the stuff dreams are made of? More like the stuff dreamers write science fiction about! NONE of the stuff these guys say is provable!
Now back on topic...
I do talks about the civil war at middle schools. Most of the time the kids are fascinated by it all. But they aren’t taught a THING about what I am talking about. We have lost touch with America in our schools, folks.
If we don’t start teaching what it is to be an American and what it WAS to have BEEN an American, we can kiss it ALL godbye!
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