Posted on 08/02/2003 8:54:32 AM PDT by Theodore R.
Teaching History: Fact Or Fiction? by Phyllis Schlafly Posted Aug 1, 2003
In rare moments when Congress isn’t preoccupied with the war, taxes or prescription drugs, Congress is worrying that American students don’t know any American history. Congress is right to worry because this is true, but it doesn’t follow that the federal government is capable of remedying the problem.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the Nation’s Report Card, reported that less than half of high school seniors demonstrate even a basic grasp of history.
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni, in a report called Losing America’s Memory: Historical Illiteracy in the 21st Century, charged that 55 colleges and universities, including the most prestigious, have no American history requirement and only a fifth of colleges require any course in history at all.
On the other hand, some colleges do require courses in "non-Eurocentric culture or society," and that requirement can be filled by courses in human development, sociology, theater, dance or film. Social science requirements can be met by courses in women’s studies.
In 1994, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) gave funds, generously provided by the taxpayers, to professors at the University of California Los Angeles to produce a volume prescribing what U.S. public school students ought to be taught about their country.
When the 271-page book was published, called National Standards for United States History, it was shot through with Multiculturalism, anti-Western bias, and the Politically Correct nonsense that all ethnic and gender groups are victims of white male oppression.
Standards was such an embarrassment that the U.S. Senate denounced it in a vote of 99 to 1, with even Ted Kennedy voting against it.
Longtime American Federation of Teachers CEO Al Shanker said it was the first time a government ever tried to teach children to "feel negative about their own country."
After the public flap, the authors made some cosmetic changes in Standards. But thousands of copies of the original book were already in use by schools and textbook publishers.
Congress should have learned that if we give taxpayers’ money to the current crop of history professors, they will rewrite history to serve liberal dogmas.
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) includes a Civic Education program funded at $28.8 million for FY 2003 to teach the history of the Constitution. In addition to $10 million already provided for history in the NEH budget for next year, legislation is pending to provide another $25 million to NEH to set up state-run workshops to teach teachers of American history.
The easiest way to check out the biases of a history textbook is to look at its treatment of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Standards, for example, which didn’t include a single word about Paul Revere, Thomas Edison, the Wright brothers, Albert Einstein, or Gen. Douglas MacArthur, inflicted 19 unfavorable mentions on McCarthy. Almost everything the current generation "knows" about McCarthy is false.
Students and adults who want to learn the history that has been censored out of their textbooks should read Ann Coulter’s current bestseller, Treason. Her book does an awesome job of describing the widespread infiltration of the Franklin D. Roosevelt and Truman Administrations by a vast network of Soviet spies and agents.
The official release in 1995 of the Venona Papers proves there is no longer any doubt about the massive penetration of important positions by men who served the interests of the Soviet Union.
Coulter shows there is no longer any doubt about the willful, partisan coverup of this treason by the Democrats whose strategy was to target "McCarthyism" as the enemy and thereby deflect blame from FDR, who called Stalin "Uncle Joe," Harry Truman who said "I like old Joe; Joe’s a decent fellow," and Vice President Henry Wallace who was a blatant Soviet apologist.
The second way to check out the biases of social studies textbooks is to look at their treatment of Ronald Reagan. The liberal line is to accuse him of dangerous warmongering for challenging Soviet power with an anti-missile defense and rhetoric such as the "evil empire."
Pulitzer-prize winning historian David McCullough told a Senate committee that "we are raising a generation of people who are historically illiterate." Ann Coulter’s book is a must-read because it’s a necessary antidote to that illiteracy. Mrs. Schlafly is the author of Feminist Fantasies (Spence Publishing Co).
BUMP
You deserve a lot of credit for the good work that you do on behalf of Ann. ;-)
She is a dynamo for good government, values, and freedom.
Her latest effort:
101 Ways to Steal an Election - Phyllis Schlafly is collecting news of actual election frauds for this new book. Please e-mail examples of election fraud that you've witnessed or know about to election@eagleforum.org
It's more like the historical battles of oldAccording to Kagan, Hitler used radio to micromanage WWII battles without ever leaving Germany, Grant used couriers to control Union forces in engagements he couldn't see, Wellington controlled his forces at Waterloo from just outside effective musket range, and Alexander the Great was nearly killed in battle when his lieutenants broke their ladder in their haste to follow him into the enemy fortress.Ann is the one out front slashing away; Phyllis is in this case one of us followers trying to watch her flanks and back.
Slavery is a good example. Groups in the political and educational system obviously do not want the true histoy of slavery taught because it would not allow their political bias to advance.
The Muslims were the first slavers, Africa to the East not Africa to the New World. The Portugese. Dutch, French, and British were responsible for the majority of the slave trade. The United States had a very small part in the slave trade, when the United States was formed abolition had begun at at the behest of the United States. Of the 12 million slave brought to the New World 500,000 were landed in the United States 5% of the total.
History taught in the United States insinuates that slavery was the result of the Uniated States and the United States only---What false-hood and distortion of the true facts.
History taught in the United States insinuates that slavery was the result of the United States and the United States only---What false-hood and distortion of the true facts
And of course nearly all of the 500,000 were brought to North America before the advent of the Constitution of the United States of America.If your numbers are in the ballpark--and the division is pretty rough there, it'd be more like 4% than 5%--that is quite a contrast between propaganda and reality.
History couldn't be taught that way, if the media were not in league with those twisting the statistics.
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