Don't worry y'all, I didn't write this just for my blog...I don't have that much free time ;)
While reading coverage of the recent Texas State Board of Education changes to social studies guidelines, I asked myself, why are these decisions being made by people who have never taught, never even been exposed to the modern-day classroom?
Why aren’t teachers, the ones being forced to teach this, being consulted?
And why aren’t historians (you know, those people with extremely advanced degrees in…history) being asked to confirm the accuracy of the proposed changes?
Instead, lawyers, a dentist, and a newspaperman, among others, held the future of history education in their hands.
I personally would rather call Geek Squad when my computer crashes instead of a florist.
Without change, there can be no progress. However, the kind of change that the politically-minded Texas Board of Education is endorsing cannot be tolerated in public schools today. With Texas continuously ranking in the bottom half of the states in terms of proficiency in math, reading, and writing, the public school system is shirking its responsibility to teach students today what really happened decades or centuries ago. By distorting history, the Education Agency is making a fool out of itself in full view of the nation, which is forced to follow along in the same distorted path because of Texas’s huge textbook market.
For once, I’m not proud to say that everything is bigger in Texas.
Among the most controversial changes was the removal of Thomas Jefferson from a list of important world philosophers who influenced political revolutions after 1750. He was replaced by John Calvin (an “icon” of the religious right – from the 1500s) and St. Thomas Aquinas (a medieval philosopher). Although both of these men deserve to be credited for their innovative ideas, Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, deserves more of a spotlight in the 1750s-an era he actually lived through – and a time full of democratic awakenings rather than religious revivals.
Perhaps if the Republican board members had not so enthusiastically condoned adding in frequent references to American exceptionalism, this could be overlooked. But the logic in stressing the uniqueness of America, but leaving out the man who inspired other nations to declare their freedom and basic human rights escapes me.
However, it is not only the ten conservative board members who seemed to have an agenda to fulfill, but also the five outnumbered Democratic members, whose main purpose was to thrust every possible minority hero, specifically those Tejanos who died at the Alamo, into the revised documents. The purpose of history is not to cater to the particular ethnic group reading the book, but to provide an unbiased and practical summary of events. The popular story of the Alamo is practically all myth; the battle itself was not a decisive factor in the Texas Revolution. We lost. Just as we don’t study the individual names of soldiers in the Battle of Gettysburg, it is impractical to single out a handful of names of men who did not hold major leadership positions, though they were courageous.
Francis Bacon once said, “Truth will sooner come out of error than from confusion.” True history is an error-riddled tragedy. Not a public forum to advance beliefs of any sort, be they conservative or liberal. Without learning true history (which doesn’t include those happy embellishments added to make the current good guy look better), schoolchildren will grow into the same misguided public officials of today, who slide through their banana peel blunders and leave them for the next person to trip over. Mistakes will be repeated. Over and over again. The tragedy will continue. Romeo will continue to drink the poison, and there will be no Prince Charming to save him.
Hopefully, enough people will catch on and this twisting of history will be straightened. And maybe the rest of the educational system, which fails so many students and fails to reward so many teachers, can be fixed as well.
Until then, I quote Mark Twain in saying, “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."
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