Posted on 08/31/2015 5:42:12 AM PDT by Whenifhow
Students in South Dakota will now graduate from high school without studying early American history, under new teaching guidelines adopted by the state.
After a year of deliberations, the state Board of Education adopted new curriculum standards that no longer require instructors to teach the first 100 years of U.S. history. Such milestone events and developments as the Revolutionary War and the drafting of the U.S. Constitution could be completely ignored.
Cutting out early U.S. history in 11th grade hurts the ability of students to “think historically” when they reach higher education, according to a letter sent to the state Board of Education by Ben Jones, dean of arts and sciences for Dakota State University and educators from the University of South Dakota, South Dakota State University, Northern State University, Augustana College, Presentation College, the University of Sioux Falls, Black Hills State University and other institutions.
“By that, we mean they are unfamiliar with the use of sources, the identification of bias, analysis of information, understanding context and the development and practice of research that aid them both inside and outside the discipline of history,” according to the letter.
That, of course, might be exactly what the Republican-dominated state government has in mind. “It’s disabling their citizenship,” Jones told the Argus Leader.
History Standards Approved for K-12, Despite Concerns (by Patrick Anderson, Argus Leader)
http://www.argusleader.com/story/news/education/2015/08/24/history-standards-approved-despite-concerns/32269645/
Early American History Could be a Thing of the Past (by Tess Hedrick, KSFY)
http://www.ksfy.com/home/headlines/Early-American-History-could-be-a-thing-of-the-past-323022481.html
Koch Brothers Group Boasts…
http://www.allgov.com/news/controversies/koch-brothers-group-boasts-total-control-of-iowa-and-south-dakota-legislatures-131213?news=851906
America hasn’t got a chance with stupidity like this being vomited from its states.
Et tu SoDak? Et tu?
Well since they’ve PC revised it and rewritten it so much the last few years that may mot be such a bad thing...: )
Heaven forbid American students should learn about the founding principles of our nation and Constitution... I can understand one of the coastal states doing this, but South Dakota?
When these 11th year students enter what is laughingly called “higher education”, there is not nearly as much they shall have to “unlearn” to conform to the standards demanded of the indoctrination centers which were once known as universities.
Maybe there is just “too much stuff” for high school graduates to have to know, so the “higher education” institutions must take over for the inadequacies of an unfinished basic education that was not completed by the sixth grade.
But what is going to remedy the inadequacies of this “higher education”?
Our home schooled kids learn history from A Beka curricula. They have learned much more than I did in the public school system. History is really interesting from a Christian perspective. Public school teaches it from a secular perspective.
Typically, US history is divided into two parts: pre-Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction. Since history is a discipline that continues to expand, apparently there’s not enough time to include everything, so something has to go...History isn’t emphasized much anyway, so it’s not like anything will change. Either it’s not being taught, or the students aren’t listening. It’s beyond sad how little Americans know about our own country.
The only way to cover up that The Democratic Party fought a war trying to preserve slavery is to not teach history that far back.
Primary agenda identified.
The “educators” decide not to educate. Great. “for the children”...
The hobos (aka: educators) should be fired for their basic incompetence and failure.
The kids are taught that we are a democracy, and that Washington was the first president, and we went from Declaration to Constitution in a very short time. In addition the Articles of Confederation simply don’t exist, and the federalist Papers are not mentioned or gone into.
Some kids think there has always been an income tax, central bank, and gun control.
“People separated from their history are easily persuaded.” —Karl Marx
Is SD dropping a block of history instruction from their curriculum, or will early American history be replaced with some other history instruction?
First link requires registration.
Woo Hoo! No more references to “alleged” slavery. If the Confederacy never existed, then neither did that other.....what was it we were talking about?
One of the first major acts of the Carnegie Foundation was to decide to change the United States History was taught. They, with the help of the Rockefeller Foundation and the Guggenheim Fellowship, got together a group of PhD candidates at Oxford and trained them in their new approach. Once they received their degrees they sent them back to the US to begin work.
Norman Dodd, the lead investigator of the Reece Commission on tax exempt foundations in 1953 explains this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUYCBfmIcHM&spfreload=10
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
For many kids, history of the US begins with the 1930s New Deal, big government getting bigger to save the country.
If you have no borders, you have no country.
Sounda like the longstanding tug of war in the history biz: those who think history can't be taught without being rooted in the cause and effect narrative, which is inherently fact-heavy vs. those who think all those facts get in the way of critical thinking.
I would like to see us abolish the teachers’ unions, and open up the profession to competition - like virtually almost every other profession. AND allow school vouchers everywhere. If the existing schools can’t compete, they lose.
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