Who decides what's patriotic? Colorado students walk out over history plan

Disagreement in a Colorado school district over whether the US history curriculum needs to be reviewed to ensure it doesn't "encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law" is at the root of students' and teachers' own demonstration of civil disobedience.

The board's concern over the AP US history course, meanwhile, reflects many conservatives' complaints that the new course, which was designed to give teachers more discretion over what they teach and to emphasize critical thinking skills, no longer teaches American exceptionalism, or gives as much weight to traditional events, and puts some American actions – like Manifest Destiny or the dropping of the atomic bomb in World War II .

Who decides what's patriotic? Colorado students walk out over history plan

From US News

After the College Board released a new framework for Advanced Placement U.S. History courses earlier this summer, conservative activists nationwide were outraged, arguing the framework encouraged the skewing of history. The Republican National Committee passed a resolution during its summer meeting condemning the framework, which it said "reflects a radically revisionist view" of history that emphasizes negative events and figures over positive ones. Activists also fumed that the altered framework is linked to the Common Core State Standards, which they see as heavy-handed government intervention in the classroom.

So how bad is this radically revisionist rewriting of our nations history going to be?
Some of the protesters believe this new softer gentler version would change key historic events like Row Vs. Wade, into the best way to cross a river. Under this new proposal any educational materials found to be the least little bit, unflattering to the school or our great nation would be banned from the classrooms.

Any materials used in the course, the school board continued in its proposal, should not "encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law."

But the committee's oversight would extend to any text and curriculum – not just history. It would be permitted to bring "any objectionable materials" to the school board, which would have the power to take action.

According to the teachers Union this model rejects traditional history in favor of proper obedience to the status quo

"It has an emphasis on race, gender, class, ethnicity, grievance and American-bashing while simultaneously omitting the most basic structural and philosophical elements considered essential to the understanding of American history for generations," Williams said, noting figures such as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and Martin Luther King, Jr. are not explicitly mentioned in the framework.

So the protest is all about the fear that the committee might try to spin historical events, negative information that might paint the PTB in a bad light and instead serve up properly preapproved more patriotic propaganda watered down version of events...

a reply to: HardCorps

Good on those kids sturdy 60 guy. Bumped for stellar content.
If you can't physically protest this in a free country
it isn't free anymore.

For the sole root cause, Charlotte Iserbyt had the three
magic words that explained it all:"communist change agent."
And if you are indeed what you do, these guys are definitely
Fabyan creeps.

Reminds me of Orwell's 1984; in my opinion the constant rewriting of history was a major point of the book.

History is written by the victors

a reply to: HardCorps

Being willfully ignorant is patriotic.
Being willing to exploit humans for profit is patriotic
Being willing to kill anyone/anything for a paycheck is patriotic.

Critical thinking and logic are not taught in primary school in the US. There is a very important reason for that.
If no one was willing to buy into the Team America narrative, for a measly paycheck, the empire would dissolve in a hurry.

That is, until battlebots are rolled out. It will only accelerate human extinction though.

I'm just wondering how many of those children understand what they're protesting. Make no mistake, I agree with History not being edited. I just don't think many kids can think more than a few steps ahead.

originally posted by: InverseLookingGlass
a reply to: HardCorps

Being willfully ignorant is patriotic.
Being willing to exploit humans for profit is patriotic
Being willing to kill anyone/anything for a paycheck is patriotic.

Critical thinking and logic are not taught in primary school in the US. There is a very important reason for that.
If no one was willing to buy into the Team America narrative, for a measly paycheck, the empire would dissolve in a hurry.

That is, until battlebots are rolled out. It will only accelerate human extinction though.

But listen, you need to be successful In order to buy that new house down the street for a lifetime of debt and tax slavery.

a reply to: HardCorps

AP is supposed to be preparing kids for the AP tests.

If the books don't accomplish that then there is issue. Otherwise I don't quite understand public school. At that age, the class focus should be on traditional research and writing papers. Let the teens decide their sources and argue their point. It's a college replacement course anyway, that's what is done in college.

The Ministry of Truth is at it again. The re-writing of history has to be one of the most frightening aspects of government and authority. It's odd how something as absolute as the truth can be so terribly malleable.

It is also interesting to me that in a nation founded by men revered for running around in the woods and shooting at the authorities, there is currently a man running around the Poconos doing the same and being roundly (and as far as I can tell, rightly) condemned. One man's terrorist I suppose...

originally posted by: Iamthatbish
I'm just wondering how many of those children understand what they're protesting. Make no mistake, I agree with History not being edited. I just don't think many kids can think more than a few steps ahead.

These kids know enough to understand that under the new rules the Columbine Shooting, which happened just up the road would be rewritten to make seem like a sporting event, some kind of school wide participation sport.

No, these kids prob do not have a real adult grasp of what's going on.
And in the innocents of youth, always questioning what's being taught... That my friend is a good thing!

History has been taught the wrong way for as long as I remember.
You don't learn your a b c's in high school. So why does a high school history book have pilgrims in it?
You should learn that in first grade.
You should learn the industrial revolution by 5th.
World War 1 as a freshman
Mlk Jr as a junior and modern government as a senior.
You would be able to see history how it really was if it was taught that way.

a reply to: HardCorps

"designed to give teachers more discretion over what they teach and to emphasize critical thinking skills"

you need "critical thinking skills" for history?

personally, I think history is 99% memorization..

a reply to: acacko

A good college level history class is primarily research and writing papers. The focus is on teaching the students how to research events themselves, in essence acting as the historian. History is 99 percent research if you are doing it correctly.

They should be teaching tax code Wall Street and law in high school to prepare them for traffic tickets, drunk in publics during college, 1099 for running a business, mortgaging your house and investing money when you make money.

I mean come on how about some real life skills I stead of the complete bull# they teach now that's forgotten about and use,es by 25.

progressives have been doing this since the 60s if not before......so this is not unique

It doesnt make it right tho......whatever paradigm its coming from

Im for the most brutally honest depiction of events in history as we can get.........

If you ask certain historians how the Native Americans were treated upon westward expansion, they might have a considerably softer version then what my ancestors would tell you......

Unfortunately like someone else said, history is written by the victors, which doesnt always make it accurate.......

a reply to: HardCorps

It is utterly impossible to teach the history of a nation while omitting civil disobedience, and unrest. It is a governments job to ensure that it does not behave in such a way as to give the people a righteous cause to rally behind in protest, to ensure that it operates in all things in a manner so exemplary that no mass of people from any background, could possibly have a reason to march, to walk out of work or school, to riot or cause trouble.

Civil unrest is a key factor in the history of nearly all nations. There is no realm, nor any tribe of mankind, which has not been fractured by conflict from within itself at some point in its history, and for that reason, removing it from the curriculum will render any child educated using that modified curriculum unable to make proper judgements about how they must proceed in future.

The only reason to learn history, is to learn from the past mistakes of human kind, to avoid their unnecessary repetition, and this nonsense from the Colorado schools administration is just the sort of thing which prevents a proper education in history, and thereby the transfer of past wisdom to new generations will suffer also.

It is worth remembering, that particularly in the case of the United States of America, but also on the part of many other nations, that the shape of the nation, its founding documents, the construction of its laws, relate to events which came to light after moments of civil unrest, and so to brush them aside, automatically renders the pupil unable to connect with the history of that nation, and the cultural identity which comes from citizenship there.

To summarise my opinion of all this, it bloody well stinks, and it makes no sense!

a reply to: OrphanApology

Yes, but under the new rules the only materials available for research would have to first be preapproved to fit this warm and fuzzy version.

"If you have a committee of citizens who are not educators, not historians - who look at, say, an English literature curriculum and decide they don't like Huckleberry Finn - they can recommend to the board of education that Huckleberry Finn be removed from English literature curriculum," says Michele Patterson, president of the Jefferson County PTA. "This committee really opens the door to all kinds of potential censorship."

Since I'm not fond of history telling the world that Lee Harvey Oswald was an ex Marine...casting a stain on my beloved Corps... why don't we just rewrite at all and teach the kids that JFK got a really bad boo-boo...

a reply to: ManBehindTheMask

Hell, even before that!

Brainwashing the youth through curriculum is one of the oldest tricks in the book, no pun intended.

originally posted by: OrphanApology
a reply to: ManBehindTheMask

Hell, even before that!

Brainwashing the youth through curriculum is one of the oldest tricks in the book, no pun intended.

Agreed and every political ideology has done it !

a reply to: TrueBrit

Civil unrest are the founding tenants of our Nation.
from religious persecution of the Pilgrims to the Revolutionary war. To MLK and his fight for equal rights.
how do that spin that so as not to "encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law." ?

From the US News source:

In Jefferson County, Colo., the school board wants to create a curriculum review committee that would adjust the new AP History framework to address conservatives' objections. The board, in a proposal to create the committee, said materials for the class should promote "citizenship, patriotism, essentials and benefits of the free enterprise system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights."

Wait what? Shouldn't a history class be about promoting accurate knowledge of history? Sounds like they're proposing a whole new class — AP Neoliberal Indoctrination!