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.”
-snip-
Exactly.
It's all proven in mathematics, but you're right a to prove out these theories in a lab would require a supercollider that could achieve near Plack Energy Levels (BIG BANG Type Energy)...such a machine doesn't exist, not even in Texas.
However, Astronomers may have the key...looking out into the universe for tell tale signs of quantum occurences that could appear when looking at the universe as a whole. (When looking at something that big, even the twitches within the ultrimicroscopic makeup of space might be visible.)
quantum mechanics: the dreams stuff is made of.
What we have is Orwellian history, where the past is something to be altered at will.
I knew American History was over when the 400 History Professors came to the defense of Bill Clinton--the Chinese Enabler and Chief Pervert.
What if one of the parents is a bigot?
Deconstruction of history.
What would you propose be done?
And why is that worse than having a bigot for a teacher?
My last oddball post aside, I work in the California Parks system. Often, while trying to provide details on history, we often find ourselves having to "adjust" some of our presentations to either lessen the potential for offending certain groups, or to apologize for many of our forefathers' (er, framers) errors committed against these certain groups.
History is history. If errors were made, let's not gloss over them but learn from them. Otherwise we increase our potential to commit these sins again.
It's becomming ever apparent that it is up to parents to teach their childer, pretty much, everything.
I guess, if your teacher was a bigot, there would at least be a bunch of students, not related, that could tell their parents, and maybe something could be done...how do you know if your parent is telling the truth, and who is going to question them? You could have a whole bunch of kids with way differing history info.
review later
No greater example of this is what will be done with Senator Durbins comments. Moral Equating GITMO with the atrocities of Pol Pott and the Nazis.
His statements will be entombed in congressional record.
And then misused by lefty history professors as they saint this guy as a man "Who stood up against everyone for the truth!" Even when it wasn't the truth. Sad
which is exactly why i pick up every copy of an old history text book i can get my hands on. my children will get a proper history education. not to mention i sat at my great-grandmothers knee often growing up, litening to stories of HER greatgrandparents. and will pass these stories onto my children, grandchildren, etc.
Well, I had bigots for teachers, but as long as your bigotry is of the approved variety, there's not much that can be done.
Anyway, my original comment wasn't intended as a proposal, it was a tongue-in-cheek observation. Speaking for myself, society will have to trust me to present history fairly to my kids, which I intend to keep doing.
If it won't trust me, thats just hard cheese.
Nothing better than approved bigotry...isn't that part of the problem with history??
Yep. Often results in being condemned to repeat it...
Always like to put a little information in the great "out there". Sometimes unwanted though. Having got a gift certificate for the Canadian book emporium for Fathers Day, I saw a book mentioned.
Hoodwinked. Author. Jack Cashill.(Nelson Books).
I quote from the er' blurb. "..... targets the biggest names in politics, history, and literature- including John F Kennedy, Alfred Kinsey, Margaret Mead, Alex Haley, Dashiel Hammett and Stephen Ambrose-and proves how their corrosive lies have completely perverted our society, culture, and understanding of the world at large". Just for laughs, this Canadian book emporium has a DVD on gay lesbian life in Los Angeles as their first offer. $87 now reduced to $70. Mr Cashill's book is at about $22 dollars- gonna order it pronto. LOL
KHJ radio in its heyday Bump!
bttt!
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