 |
 |
|||
| After deftly and succinctly touching on religion last week, we figured it was high time we addressed education. If you ask us, education is key to being like, all smart and stuff. It’s true; look it up if you can even read this. That’s why our collective feathers got so ruffled when we read a story about the “different” history that Texas is trying to invent with its new public school textbooks. It seems as though they only want to teach what they like, or believe, or find righteous. Whatever they want to call it, we call it just plain wrong. | No, no, this piece has nothing to do with awful war movies from Brian De Palma. We’re talking about the combining of separate stories and turning them into one cohesive statement. Here’s an example: Say we edited the Bible into one big story and punched it up a bit with some action of our own; it would be The Holy Redaction. As fun as that could be, the threat of things being lost in translation looms large. Surely “pay attention to the details” has its own PowerPoint in the freshman orientation at Redactor State University, right? That’s day one stuff. | |||
| Texas already has a pretty bad image in a lot of educated minds. Between the executions of the slow-of-wit, the “progressive” laws on the books, and that certain he who shall remain unnamed ex-President, the overall track record in Texas is sketchier than a Florida election.
The topics they’re deleting from textbooks are pretty shocking, actually. You know, things like the women’s suffrage movement, the Declaration of the Seneca Falls Convention, John and Abigail Adams’s letters to one another, and any references to Harriet Tubman. Somehow Clara Barton, who founded the Red Cross, and even Helen Keller, who was a freaking socialist, made the cut. Some of the omissions also sound way too um, Texan. Here’s an example: First graders will now have Martin Luther King, Jr. Day replaced by Veterans Day on the list of holidays that students should familiarize themselves with. They’ve also greatly reduced the conversation about slavery, even going so far as to replace mentions of the Atlantic slave trade with “Triangle trade.” Huh? First people start trying to convince us that the Holocaust never happened, and now slavery too? What they’ve done is actually more than just a Texas problem, because as irony would have it, Texas happens to be the largest publisher of textbooks in the country. Do we really want our kids getting their education from from textbooks suggesting that the founding fathers drove Ford trucks and loved them some assault rifles? We didn’t think so. There’s no way to reasonably defend these decisions, but it’s only a matter of time before someone waaaaay over there on the right will make the case for this kind “education.” Here’s the thing though, “pardner.” There ain’t nothin’ right ’bout bein’ wrong! |
The redaction method is pretty widely accepted, of course. The notion of something as big as American history getting the old edit job isn’t exactly breaking news, as the process has been used for centuries. There have naturally been thousands of editors and authors along the way, but until now they’ve agreed on a lot of things. Here are three things we thought were facts until last week:
So how do you know what’s true? These days it’s hard to tell if you’re getting the straight story, or someone else’s version of it, or worse still, someone else’s version of some other peoples’ version. Our access to information has never been greater, but the reliability of that information is beyond inconsistent. But maybe that’s not always such a bad thing. The truth isn’t always so pretty. Sometimes it’s probably for the best that we don’t get the whole story. Suppose every single soldier fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan were suddenly lined up to give you his or her individual tale of war. That would be a bit much, so we rely on edited news reports to get it right. Really we just hope they’re getting it close enough. Some things are just too massive not to be redacted. But when details and facts are omitted altogether in favor of opinion, you get Texas, and we’d prefer to keep the land of Enron at a safe distance. |
|||
Tags: Censorship, Conservatives, Education, Redaction, Slavery, Texas, Textbooks
I heard they were doing this in the Carolinas somewhere too. Deciding to teach American history starting in 1877; a lot later than with our founding fathers. Feeling the recent history was more relevant to today’s students – so they can feel “connected”. Whaaat? How can American history be taught without George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, et al? I am stymied. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/02/03/north-carolina-schools-cut-chunk-history-lessons/ This is completely apolitical. It’s a travesty of the educational system.
Gross. I’ve decided, thanks to Texas, that the women’s movement really never happened. That’s why I just put an “engagement” shackle on the beautiful ankle of my fifth wife! Congratulations to us!