Posted on 03/07/2010 2:29:35 PM PST by Bodhi1
There is a popular belief that the best way for children to learn is for them to be sent away to a “brick and mortar” school, where highly trained educators will teach them the subjects they need to succeed in the world.
This belief rejects homeschooling, because dedicated mothers and fathers are simply not as good as government school teachers.
For the sake of argument, let’s say they are right. Let’s say that, as a homeschool dad, I’m not as good.
Still, when I teach my children about our nation’s history, I will be teaching from three different texts. The first is The Great Republic : A History of America by Sir Winston Churchill. The others, America: The Last Best Hope: Volumes I and II, are by Dr. William J. Bennett, former secretary of education under President Ronald Reagan.
Both of these authors know America’s history and have created fantastic texts from which to teach it. While I may not be a history major, or a certified teacher, I can read these books, teach from them, and supplement the text with additional curriculum of my choosing.
If my child were in a public school, what would they be learning from?
One of the more popular texts is The People’s History of the United States by the late Howard Zinn, a radical Marxist.
(Excerpt) Read more at pajamasmedia.com ...
ping
Oh,”Feringi” in parts of the old Islamic world is the ultra insulting “N-word” for white Europeans.
In his later days,the late G.Roddenberry was a typical self loathing guilty white liberal at heart.
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School days, school days
Dear old golden rule days
Readin’ and ‘ritin’ and ‘rithmetic
Taught to the tune of the hickory stick
That was the last straw for us. I found Zinn's book and teaching aids in our kids classrooms. So in 1999, we pulled the kids out of school in the Puget Sound area; I quit and cashed out of Microsoft and we moved to the Northwest Inland Empire as folks like to call it around here. At least, the local schools' sins were ones of omission. It's easier to fill in the blanks than it is to correct outright lies.
If you want to read a great book on American history it’s Paul Johnson’s “History of the American People”.
Unfortunately the parent using it to home school will have to create their assignments and tests for it. If I had the time I’d love to create and post online a curriculum for homeschoolers based on the book just to get it used and read more.
My kids are using Harcourt Brace textbook printed in the early 80s with updates
it is not too bad...much much less offensive than I feared
4th grade
the teacher though is a crusader but my 9 year old keeps her straight
Historian and author John Fea of Messiah College states that,
“ Zinn writes well and is quite inspiring, but his book is bad history. In fact, I would not even call it history. A People’s History of the United States is a political tract that uses the past to promote a presentist agenda...Zinn’s book violates virtually every rule of good historical thinking.[1]
Michael Kazin, Professor in the Department of History at Georgetown University states that
A People’s History is bad history, albeit gilded with virtuous intentions. Zinn reduces the past to a Manichean fable”, whose failure to adequately explain why most Americans accepted the legitimacy of the capitalist republic “is grounded in a premise better suited to a conspiracy-monger’s Web site than to a work of scholarship.”[2]
Janie B. Cheaney of World Magazine notes,
From the beginning, critics have pointed out the lack of context, sourcing and footnoting, and objectivity in Zinn’s work. The author countered that his aim was not objective history, but prescriptive history—not studying the past as a means of understanding the past, but of changing the future.
When changing the future, one can’t start too young. The Zinn Education Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to “Teaching A People’s History” maintains a website of educational resources for getting Zinn’s ideas into elementary and even preschool classrooms. A Young People’s History of the United States is already available; next up is the comic-book version. The story always begins with friendly Indians paddling blithely into the clutches of European imperialists. [3] http://conservapedia.com/Howard_Zinn
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