Free Republic

This is my latest post for NewsReal. I thought I'd post it here, because I'm pretty sure you guys will enjoy it. You would think that someone who writes a book called A People’s History of the United States would at the very least believe there is such an entity as the “United States,” wouldn’t you? Well, you’d be mistaken in historian and radical leftist Howard Zinn’s case. In his most famous work, he writes: The pretense is that there really is such a thing as “the United States,” subject to occasional conflicts and quarrels, but fundamentally a community of...

<p>In 1997, Matt Damon played the part of a janitor who turned out to be not only a math wizard, but one of the most brilliant men you could find anywhere. Trying to impress an arrogant Harvard student, who thought he knew everything, Damon’s character quotes from Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. He tells the Harvard kid and a psychiatrist at the hospital he works at that “you’re surrounding yourself with all the wrong fuckin’ books. You wanna read a real history book, read Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States. That book’ll [explitive deleted] you on your [explative].”</p>

It seemed like a good idea -- take an elementary school class on a field trip to a historical plantation. But things turned awkward when the tour guide decided to choose black students to demonstrate how slaves were forced to pick cotton. The incident happened last Wednesday in Charlotte, North Carolina on a visit to the historic Latta Plantation. When the subject turned to slavery, tour guide Ian Campbell, who is black, picked three black students out of the mostly white class to illustrate slaves picking cotton. "I am very enthusiastic about getting kids to think about how people did...

Christopher Columbus' stature in U.S. classrooms has declined somewhat through the years, and many districts will not observe the explorer's namesake holiday on Monday. Although lessons vary, many teachers are trying to present a more balanced perspective of what happened after Columbus reached the Caribbean and the suffering of indigenous populations. "The whole terminology has changed," said James Kracht, executive associate dean for academic affairs in the Texas A&M College of Education and Human Development. "You don't hear people using the world 'discovery' anymore like they used to. 'Columbus discovers America.' Because how could he discover America if there were...

TAMPA, Fla. - Jeffrey Kolowith’s kindergarten students read a poem about Christopher Columbus, take a journey to the New World on three paper ships, and place the explorer’s picture on a timeline through history. Kolowith’s students learn about the explorer’s significance, but they also come away with a more nuanced picture of Columbus than the noble discoverer often portrayed in pop culture and legend. “I talk about the situation where he didn’t even realize where he was,’’ Kolowith said. “And we talked about how he was very, very mean, very bossy.’’ Columbus’s stature in US classrooms has declined somewhat through...

At a time in which US student lag behind their foreign counterparts in reading, writing and arithmetic; and at a time in which 250 years of American history is taught in selective sound bites with little focus on the complexity of the event, Governor Quinn signed into law legislation requiring schools to educate students as to the forceful removal of Mexican migrants during the Great Depression. The law, written by State Senator, Willie Delgado (D), states, "that the teaching of history shall include ...

If you thought Tom Cruise's character in "The Last Samurai" represented a real figure from history, you were wrong. But don't feel ashamed. A new study shows that even students, with facts staring them in the face, tend to substitute Hollywood fiction for historical fact in their minds. "What we found is that there's something really special about watching a film that lets people retain information from that film, even when they had read a contradictory account in the textbook," said Andrew Butler, a psychology researcher at Washington University in St. Louis during the time he and his colleagues conducted...

A generation of teenagers know almost nothing about the history of Britain because schools are sidelining knowledge in favour of trendy topics and generic skills, a university academic has warned. Professor Derek Matthews, an economics lecturer at Cardiff University, was so concerned at his students' lack of historical knowledge that he decided to investigate by setting them five simple questions.

To the pessimists evidence that the field of diplomatic history is on the decline is everywhere. Job openings on the nation’s college campuses are scarce, while bread-and-butter courses like the Origins of War and American Foreign Policy are dropping from history department postings. And now, in what seems an almost gratuitous insult, Diplomatic History, the sole journal devoted to the subject, has proposed changing its title. For many in the field this latest suggestion is emblematic of a broader problem: the shrinking importance not only of diplomatic history but also of traditional specialties like economic, military and constitutional history.

Gray Lady Wakes Up by: Malcolm A. Kline, June 15, 2009 The dearth of history courses in American colleges and universities has become so obvious that even the New York Times has noticed. “In 1975, for example, three-quarters of college history departments employed at least one diplomatic historian; in 2005 fewer than half did,” Patricia Cohen reported in an article that appeared in The New York Times on June 11, 2009. “The number of departments with an economic historian fell to 31.7 percent from 54.7 percent. By contrast the biggest gains were in women’s history, which now has a representative...

To the pessimists evidence that the field of diplomatic history is on the decline is everywhere. Job openings on the nation’s college campuses are scarce, while bread-and-butter courses like the Origins of War and American Foreign Policy are dropping from history department postings. And now, in what seems an almost gratuitous insult, Diplomatic History, the sole journal devoted to the subject, has proposed changing its title. For many in the field this latest suggestion is emblematic of a broader problem: the shrinking importance not only of diplomatic history but also of traditional specialties like economic, military and constitutional history. The...

Social Studies curriculum group had tossed out traditional American history to make room for left-leaning agenda The Texas State Board of Education on Wednesday came down with a reprimand on its social studies curriculum working group after a draft proposal of the group’s new curriculum came to light showing a series of far-left changes that education bureaucrats wanted to install in place of the traditional Texas social studies curriculum.

What we know and learn about our country during our lifetime we get from media reports; what happened before we were born we learned through the history books we read in school. Knowing the truth about what goes on in the United States today is difficult because our media is increasingly biased and often dishonest. As it turns out, American history textbooks, both old and new, are inaccurate and biased, too, and some of what we thought we knew is false.

Wampanoag Indians in a History Channel scene, filmed at Plimoth Plantation (AP Photo) (CNSNews.com) – A nine-year-old girl was recently asked to remove her “Indian” costume before entering the Wampanoag Homesite of the Plimoth Plantation, a historical site that allows visitors to experience Plymouth, Mass., as it was in the 17th century. The outdoor museum features a 1627 English village beside a Wampanoag home site. The purpose of the museum is to educate visitors (school-children and adults) about what happened between the Native Americans and the colonists, especially during the first Thanksgiving. The nine-year-old was one of thousands who flock...

CLAREMONT, Calif. (KABC) -- There is a costume controversy in Claremont. The school board changed a decades-long tradition of students dressing up to celebrate Thanksgiving, and some parents are outraged. The tradition involves kindergarten students at Mountain View and Condit elementary schools. The kids usually dress up in costumes. Each school takes turns dressing up as pilgrims and Indians, and then join together for a Thanksgiving feast.This year, however, there is a big change. The school board decided to continue holding the feast, but they are not allowing the students to dress up. The board is concerned the Indian costumes...

Claremont parents clash over kindergarten Thanksgiving costumes Some say having students dress up as pilgrims and Native Americans is 'demeaning.' Their opponents say they are elitists injecting politics into a simple children's celebration. By Seema Mehta November 25, 2008 For decades, Claremont kindergartners have celebrated Thanksgiving by dressing up as pilgrims and Native Americans and sharing a feast. But on Tuesday, when the youngsters meet for their turkey and songs, they won't be wearing their hand-made bonnets, headdresses and fringed vests. Parents in this quiet university town are sharply divided over what these construction-paper symbols represent: A simple child's depiction...

CLAREMONT - Audience members at the school board meeting argued among themselves about whether elementary school students should dress in costume for a Thanksgiving feast. "The Thanksgiving story has been disproved as a myth," parent Diana Linden told the Claremont Unified school board on Thursday night. The board meeting - held for the first time in new district offices at 170 W. San Jose Ave. - was packed with opinionated people on both sides of the issue. The audience cheered loudest for speakers in favor of having the feast in costume. One parent told the school board not to be...

Think the history your kids are being taught in school is fair and balanced? Think again says Larry Schweikart, University of Dayton professor and author of "48 Liberal Lies About American History (That You Probably Learned In School)." Here are four examples from Schweikart's "worst offenders": • "The American Pageant," by Bailey and David Kennedy Schweikart's take: "One of the most long-running and flawed, of these texts, esp. in the Reagan years. On p. 237, I actually have two charts, one from the book, and one reflecting the REAL data (i.e., "real" dollars as a share of GNP — which...

TIPP CITY, Ohio — When 83-year-old Edmund Jackson uses a hand trimmer to clip the grass, one of the 22 pieces of shrapnel in his right arm dances under the skin of his wrist. ---- snip ---- The schoolbook program is designed to spark greater interest in history by giving students an emotional connection to it and showing them it’s made by real people like themselves.

Five years into the war in Iraq, military history seems to be experiencing a golden age. Hollywood has been cranking out war movies. Publishers have been lining bookstore shelves with new battle tomes, which consumers are eagerly lapping up. Even the critics have been enjoying themselves. Two of the last five Pulitzer Prizes in history were awarded to books about the American military. Four of the five Oscar nominees for best documentary this year were about warfare. Business, for military historians, is good.

One of the authors of "Mosaic of Thought" has apologized for mistakenly writing that Spartanburg was the scene of some violent incidents during the desegregation era. Inaccurate college textbook slams Spartanburg Violent integration incidents occurred in another city; errors to be fixed in 2nd edition By Linda Conley Published: Tuesday, April 29, 2008 | Updated: 9:16 am Picture this: A teacher is discussing with her students the violence and unrest that occurred in America when public schools integrated almost 40 years ago. The example she is using from her class textbook is the violence that occurred in Spartanburg County. The...

The New York Times reported Feb. 27 that fewer than half of American teenagers know when the Civil War was fought, and one in four believe Columbus sailed to the New World some time after 1750. About a quarter of the teenagers were unable to correctly identify Hitler as Germany's chancellor in World War II, instead identifying him in a multiple-choice test as a munitions maker or premier of Austria. Why is anyone surprised? The academic curriculum is the "cover," the "front." The real goal is not to ensure, but rather to ensure against successive generations developing a cohesive philosophy...

"I don't want to read anymore of this!" My son angrily threw his history book on the ground. When he cooled down a little, I asked him what was wrong, and he told me in tears about The Trail Of Tears. He couldn't take it. He didn't want to face the fact that our blessed Nation could do something so wrong. He couldn't believe that a lot of our Founding Fathers had been slave owners that had written about freedom while benefitting from the fruits of slave ownership. He was shutting down before my very eyes as to the love...

PARIS (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy, facing a tide of criticism over his call for schoolchildren to "adopt" Jewish child victims of the Holocaust, hit back on Friday saying France had to raise children "with open eyes". In a speech praising faith that also drew fire from secularists, Sarkozy told France's Jewish community on Wednesday that every 10-year-old schoolchild should be "entrusted with the memory of a French child victim of the Holocaust". The proposal unleashed a storm of protest from teachers, psychologists and his political foes who said it would unfairly burden children with the guilt of previous...

My 12 year old son is developing an interest in history. About five years ago, I read a book review of an American History book written by a woman that was considered unbiased, that is it did not blame America for everything that has gone wrong in the world. The book was written for younger students. There may have been more than one book written. What I recall from the review was that it was well written and kept the kids interested (no mean feat for my 12 year). Does anyone know about the book or who the author is.

SEATTLE – A letter from the Seattle School District is raising some eyebrows about Thanksgiving and how it should be handled in the classroom. The letter tells school district staff that the holiday is seen by many Native Americans as a "time of mourning." It all started three years ago when some Native American parents voiced concerns about how Thanksgiving was being observed in Seattle Schools. "In terms of what they were seeing in some of the use of the feathers and those things because those are of spiritual and ceremonial significance to us," said Willard Bill, Seattle Public Schools....

Last month's exercise in democracy in a Pittsfield, Mass., classroom was enlightening in an important way neither the teacher nor students comprehended. Susan Barnes had her fourth-graders at Morningside Community School re-enact America's founding by writing a classroom constitution. As one might expect, with kids running the world, the lesson quickly degenerated into "what's in it for me?" orgy. Their constitution included the right to free computers, the right to extra recess, the right to change desks and the right to eat candy in class. Still, Ms. Barnes seemed satisfied by the outcome: "We explored how what runs our country...

The University of Wisconsin-Madison did relatively well in a 50-college test of how much students learned about history and economics during four years of college, but students in Wisconsin and nationally knew little when they came in and not much more when they left. No college did better than a D-plus on the Civic Literacy Test released Tuesday by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a nonpartisan conservative educational organization that stresses the values of a free society. The national average was F.The test of 14,000 randomly selected students revealed that some of the most expensive Ivy League universities, with the highest-paid...

Seniors at UC Berkeley, the nation's premier public university, got an F in their basic knowledge of American history, government and politics in a new national survey, and students at Stanford University didn't do much better, getting a D. Out of 50 schools surveyed, Cal ranked 49th and Stanford 31st in how well they are increasing student knowledge about American history and civics between the freshman and senior years. And they're not alone among major universities in being fitted for a civics dunce cap. Other poor performers in the study were Yale, Duke, Brown and Cornell universities. Johns Hopkins University...

One of the reasons I decided to home school my kids was to save them from the politically correct indoctrination of the monopolized government-run schools. We selected a highly-rated curriculum from the highly regarded Calvert School which I had hoped would keep the PC crud to a bare minimum. Oh, how I was wrong. Get a load of what’s included in what amounts to the curriculum’s 2nd-grade history/civics course, “Explore Your World II.” The last few daily lessons have been on topics titled, “Good Citizens,” “Determination,” “Citizenship Traits,” “Authority Figures,” “Leadership,” and “Service.” Fine subject material, to be sure. But...

A name is more than a combination of letters. It represents an identity, a belief and, ultimately, a prophecy. So it should be no surprise that Nathan B. Forrest High School in Jacksonville is failing. The school, named for a Confederate army general and prominent Ku Klux Klan participant, is not performing to the academic standard set by the state's educational authorities.

The vast majority of American historians no longer regard American culture as an essential area of study. Instead, what they care about is social history -- the struggles and hard-won accomplishments of women, workers, African Americans, Latinos, Asians and Native Americans in a country often inhospitable to the poor and the powerless.

Colorado Springs - Douglas Bruce is known as a frugal man, not a giver of gifts. But when he tried last spring to give pocket- size copies of the U.S. Constitution to high-school seniors, two Colorado Springs-area districts said "no, thanks." snip Bruce said he made it clear that copies of the Constitution were to be given to seniors, but "I said nothing about giving them at graduation or interfering with the ceremony or my being there. That was a contrived excuse by Lewis-Palmer School District."

A reader emails us the following: So waiting for the Dolphin swim at Discovery Cove in Orlando, my daughter Nikki and I were seated with a Brit family--mom, daughter and son. After small talk about the great value of the pound vs the dollar etc, I mentioned that Churchill was one of my heroes. The son, no more than 16 countered that he really liked Hitler, and his sister Gandhi. I was stunned and sickened. According to him, Hitler was a great leader and did great things for the German people. He brought them out of depression. His quest for...

American students often get the impression from history classes that the British got here first, settling Jamestown, Va., in 1607. They hear about how white Northerners freed the black slaves, how Asians came in the mid-1800s to build Western railroads. The lessons have left out a lot. Forty-two years before Jamestown, Spaniards and American Indians lived in St. Augustine, Fla. At least several thousand Latinos and nearly 200,000 black soldiers fought in the Civil War. And Asian-Americans had been living in California and Louisiana since the 1700s. Now, more of these and other lesser-known facts about American minorities are getting...

Our history curriculum needs a complete makeover, suggests Kevin Donnelly AND you thought the English curriculum was bad enough. Think again. The cultural Left has also sabotaged the Australian history curriculum in schools. In his analysis of the history wars, Stuart Macintyre summarises the various approaches to teaching Australian history that have prevailed during the past century. Macintyre argues, as a result of the cultural revolution of the '60s, that historians questioned more conservative views in favour of a "left-wing" perspective. Historians, he notes, embraced approaches such as: Marxist history, labor history and women's history. Macintyre describes this as "history...

A national group is asking Arizona's public universities to require at least one United States history course of every student before graduation. American History currently isn't a required course at any of the state's major public universities. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni has written letters to Gov. Janet Napolitano and 20 state lawmakers, asking them to pressure college regents and administrators to make the change. "The flag doesn't mean all that much if you don't know how it got there," trustees member Charles Mitchell said. "What use is the Constitution if you don't know how it was written?"...

CANBERRA, July 7, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Australian federal Education Minister Julie Bishop has announced the government’s plan to end the marxist-inspired history curriculum that has been standard fare in Australian schools. Bishop said she will press the states and territories to adopt “traditional Australian history” along the lines of that adopted in New South Wales by former premier Bob Carr. The Australian reports that the government is planning on forcing the issue, saying that refusal would mean the change would be included in the next funding agreement. Bishop said, “I want to work with the states on this. I want...

    Memorial Day was first called Decoration Day, when the women of Columbus, Miss., decorated the graves of fallen Confederate soldiers, many of whom had been killed at nearby Shiloh Church in the first great blood-letting of our Civil War. Union wives and mothers soon followed the example, many to sing of kneeling "Where Our Loves are Sleeping."     For generations schoolchildren learned as a Memorial Day recitation the lines written by Col. John McRae, a Canadian doctor, as he took a break at a field hospital beside a cemetery at the Ypres salient in 1915: "In Flanders fields the poppies blow/between...

Sydney high school history teacher Gregory Haines, in Quadrant magazine, laments the state of his profession ACADEMIC history has been under threat and perhaps in decline for some time. In part, this is due to an overall decline in arts faculties and a consequent search for relevance, funding and position in enterprise universities which are increasingly geared for vocational training rather than broad education. But there are other factors at work. The rise of postmodernism and theory in arts faculties, later in Australia than elsewhere, where the decline has commenced, has discredited what little education there is on offer. Australian...

Tales of Iraq Soldier brings treasures, history to school By JOHN MOLSEED Messenger staff writer Fair Oaks Middle School sixth-graders learning about Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization, had a special guest Friday — someone who had been there. Sgt. Tony Echevarria shared his experiences and visits to historic sites while stationed in Iraq with the students — one of them his son, Zak Echevarria. ‘‘This is believed to be the birthplace of Abraham,’’ Sgt. Echevarria said describing a Powerpoint slide showing the ancient brick structure. ‘‘He is the father of Judeo-Christian belief that we have today.’’ Echevarria has spent eight...

How Should Textbooks Treat the Clinton Scandal? by Larry Schweikart, University of Dayton Almost any student who has ever sat through a history class in high school or college will nod with familiarity when I discuss how many teachers cover the last 20 years of history: “well, of course, you know what happened next.” For me, the history that inevitably was left out was the late 1950s or the Kennedy/Nixon years. As I entered the history profession, I found most students had never “gotten up to” the Vietnam War. If the past is any guide, the likelihood of survey classes...

History lessons for British teenagers place too much focus on Adolf Hitler, according to a new report produced by the government’s curriculum watchdog. The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority annual report found that as a result pupils aged 14 and over were not getting a proper overview of history. The report stated: “There has been a gradual narrowing and ‘Hitlerisation’ of post-14 history. The option choices made by schools and colleges in GCSE and AS/A level mean that the content of post-14 history continues to be dominated by topics such as the Tudors and the 20th century dictatorships.” QCA Chief Executive...

The Associated Press's Ben Feller has written an article entitled "School Textbooks Tackle the Clinton Impeachment." For people who think of tackling as the kind of head-on tackling seen at football games, tackling is the wrong word. Mr. Feller's article indicates that the school textbooks are obfuscating (making obscure or confusing) instead of "tackling." The kind of contribution to the Hillary in 2008 campaign that will not be officially reported, because it is not money or property, but will be appreciated by the Clintons, each of whom indisputably misled the American people. One more scandal involving the Clintons. (If Hillary...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The impeachment of former President Bill Clinton is in a gray area of history, too long ago to be a current event, too recent to be judged in perspective. Yet history is already judging Clinton in the place where millions of students get their information about him - textbooks. Seven years after he was impeached in a scandal of sex, perjury and bitter politics, Clinton has become a fixture in major high school texts. The impeachment is portrayed in the context of his two-term tenure, a milestone event, but not one that overshadows how Clinton handled the...

Looks like I'll be on with Bridget Quinn and John Scott "debating" Alan Lichtman over the place of the Clinton impeachment in textbooks. Among other things, I'll demand fairness, that as the second impeached president he gets every bit as much attention as the first---Andrew Johnson. I'll also insist that he was acquitted only because the Senate refused to do its job. And it was not about sex.

Clinton Scandals are High School Textbook Fixtures The impeachment of former President Clinton is in a gray area of history, too long ago to be a current event, too recent to be judged in perspective. Yet history is already judging Clinton in the place where millions of students get their information about him - textbooks. Seven years after he was impeached in a scandal of sex, perjury and bitter politics, Clinton has become a fixture in major high school texts. The impeachment is portrayed in the context of his two-term tenure, a milestone event, but not one that overshadows how...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The impeachment of former President Clinton is in a gray area of history, too long ago to be a current event, too recent to be judged in perspective. Yet history is already judging Clinton in the place where millions of students get their information about him - textbooks. Seven years after he was impeached in a scandal of sex, perjury and bitter politics, Clinton has become a fixture in major high school texts. The impeachment is portrayed in the context of his two-term tenure, a milestone event, but not one that overshadows how Clinton handled the economy,...

Hi Freepers, I must admit, this story is playing out TO THE TEE of the MSM. As many of you may already know, there is a growing battle for truth in regards to the proper teaching of Pre-Civil War American History in Carson City Nevada. Fix News has been here and I can only assume that they will be back. If you do not already know the story, visit Chuck Muths website www.theengefiles.com To make matters worse, the Neveda Appeal is fighting for THE WRONG SIDE and the reporter is so frustrated with the Blogosphere that she has done something...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2005 – Elementary school students at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va., got a combined current events and history lesson Dec. 13 from the wife of Vice President Dick Cheney. Lynne Cheney spoke to students at W.W. Burrows Elementary School about the election taking place in Iraq on Dec. 15. "What's happening is that the people in Iraq are going to vote for, what is in essence, their Congress, their national assembly," Cheney said. "It's a turning point, one of those things that when you're a grown-up, you will look in your history books and you will see...