textbooks in Texas…

Posted on Tuesday 16 March 2010


Rewriting History in Texas
editorial
New York Times
March 15, 2010

The Texas Board of Education, notorious for its past efforts to undermine the teaching of evolution in public schools, has now moved to revise the social studies curriculum to portray conservative ideas and movements in a more positive light and emphasize the role of Christianity in the nation’s founding. It was a disturbing intervention by the board’s Republican majority into educational decisions best left to the teachers and scholars who have toiled for almost a year to produce the new curriculum standards.

Since January, the board has passed more than 100 amendments to the proposed standards for what will be taught in history, sociology, government and economics from elementary to high school over the next decade. On Friday, the board gave preliminary approval to the new standards by a 10-to-5 party-line vote. A final vote will be held in May, but it is unlikely to change anything substantial.

Some of the changes sound merely foolish, like replacing the word “capitalism” with the words “free-enterprise system.” One board member explained that the term capitalism has negative connotations, as in “capitalist pig.” Others are very worrisome, like questioning the doctrine of “separation between church and state” and dropping Thomas Jefferson, who coined the phrase, from a list of figures whose writings inspired political revolutions from the 1700s on.

From a practical standpoint, the board has inserted so many conservative figures, groups and concepts that must henceforth be studied that an already-long list of requirements may become unmanageable in the classroom time available. Educators outside of the Lone Star State worry that Texas buys such a large number of textbooks that its requirements influence what publishers include in books that are marketed nationally. That should diminish as digital publishing makes it easier to alter textbooks from state to state. But even that is no comfort to the students in Texas. They deserve to have a curriculum chosen for its educational value, not politics or ideology.
The parodox is striking. We have Tea Party types howling about government intervention and socialism; Glenn Beck predicting that the days of Stalin/Hitler are upon us; and Republicans caricaturing Barry Goldwater’s small government conservatism. On the other hand, we have the government of Texas inserting revisionist history into the Texas textbooks. Government involvement in things is bad unless ‘they’ are doing it.

As upsetting as this crazy conservative trend in American life is, it’s unlikely to have much lasting impact. They claim that they are fighting some organized movement, some attempt by an opposing group of people they loosely define as liberals to take over the country and subvert their children’s minds. I’m unaware of any such movement. The enemy is not who they think it is. They are fighting against a force bigger than any group they might conjure up. They’re fighting history, and people that try to arrest history aren’t very successful.

It’s very hard to define conservatism without mentioning what they oppose.  They are against this and that, but what are they for? They’re for not changing the way we were. But they wouldn’t be talking about it unless the way we are hadn’t already deviated from they way we were. In this case, they are hoping that inserting pieces of history that were not so influential in our movement to the present and removing things that have profoundly influenced our present will alter where we have arrived. But we’re already here.

I suppose the model they are following are the changes in curriculum  like the addition of the history of black or female Americans to our textbooks since I was a child. But those additions didn’t come before societal changes. They were added to give more information about changes that have already occurred. The changes suggested in Texas are attempts to influence our direction by presenting a view that might shape the future. Such attempts were tried extensively by Mao, by the Russian Communists, by Hitler – but they had little influence in the long run. Modern chinese people talk about those textbooks with amusement. I never met a modern German who retains the Aryan gibberish of the Hitler propaganda. I expect that the same thing is true in Russia.

What we’re taught in school only sticks if it’s relevant. Ask anyone who struggled their way through Calculus but went into some non-scientific field to tell you about it. Most people can’t even tell you what Calculus was about, much less recall how to use it. And World History – in one ear and out the other for most. History doesn’t shape the future, it only explains the past…

Update: Go on vacation and you miss all kinds of things! Friend ShrinkRap has been all over this Texas textbook thing for a few weeks:
The people behind these revisions are now "Lame Ducks," recently unelected by their constituents. Good for the people of Texas! They’re doing their damage as a swan song – but it’s unlikely to endure, I would think. These are the strangest of times…
  1.  
    March 17, 2010 | 7:18 AM
     

    Mickey wrote: “As upsetting as this crazy conservative trend in American life is, it’s unlikely to have much lasting impact. ”

    The people of Texas have already acted. The most rabid of these right-wing revisionists was recently defeated in his re-election bid, and another one was forced into a runoff. But it didn’t happen soon enough to prevent this latest attack on the history books — the old guys were still in office. And they still have a majority, just not their forceful, indefatigable leader.

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