Changes in History Curriculum in Texas

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
41

But that’s the point - any change swill not be made in a dark back room in the vacuum of space - all sides will continue to have influence and input - its just that direction is being given to remove hostility from the true historical perspective of our nation.

Judeo-Christian Principles - what do you think I mean by that?

Again - I was not making the point that all were Christians - you are raising a strawman here because I never even offered that as a point or detail.

I can positively state without any doubt that none of the founding fathers were Muslim. . . . . :slight_smile:

42

Stuff like this will just cause American students to underperform-for all the money we spend-relative to their peers around the world.

44

[quote]Sloth wrote:
Stuff like this will just cause American students to underperform-for all the money we spend-relative to their peers around the world.[/quote]

The wife and I were discussing this issue (education) the other night. We had just watched the commerical where the young lad (I’m assuming in one of the African nations - hope that wasn’t profiling) was talking about how much they learn just from watching TV and the background shot of the classroom is this little one room brick building - no fancy electronics or bulletin boards, no fancy desks or air conditioning - and here are all these children in rapt attention desiring to learn, hungry to learn.

We had a foreign exchange student form Thailand stay with us a few years ago and at 12 years old his dedication to his education was stunning - but in their system you have to earn the right to get a college degree.

Anyway - just a reminniscing post about the fact that education is the art of exposing the student to knowledge with a passion that excites his interest in learning while providing him the necessary tools so that he can educate himself.

In America we spends billions on non-essentials of education knick-knacks and technology and sports and activities and who-knows-what - but we have lost that love of and pride in educating one’s self to be a better human being.

45

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

The problem is that everyone has a different idea of what “objective” means when talking about history.

It’s easy to post that on a message board and make it seem like it solves everything, but in reality if you talked to Howard Zinn and Rush Limbaugh, you’d get a drastically different version of American history from each.[/quote]

This somewhat answers the question you raised about my criticism about where education was headed since the 1960s. The idea that reality is subject to differing interpretations of “objective” is precisely the problem.

Nothing written by Howard Zinn should be anywhere near a history curriculum, and I can’t speak to Limbaugh - he doesn’t write (or claim to write) history. Once someone stops doing the work of being objective (or doing their level best to be), it ain’t history anymore.

One narrative simply isn’t as good as another, and no one should be teaching it as such. I think you can appreciate this by way of reference of something you mentioned earlier - the neo-Confederate view of the Civil War. The revisionist “different version” cooked up by neo-Confederates that the Civil War was really about anger over a tariff isn’t just as good or right as the traditional, non-revisionist version - one is right, one is wrong; one is reliable, the other is nonsense.

It’s not just a matter of “different perspectives”, and no one should validate all versions in the name of “fairness”.

46

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

The problem is that everyone has a different idea of what “objective” means when talking about history.

It’s easy to post that on a message board and make it seem like it solves everything, but in reality if you talked to Howard Zinn and Rush Limbaugh, you’d get a drastically different version of American history from each.[/quote]

This somewhat answers the question you raised about my criticism about where education was headed since the 1960s. The idea that reality is subject to differing interpretations of “objective” is precisely the problem.

Nothing written by Howard Zinn should be anywhere near a history curriculum, and I can’t speak to Limbaugh - he doesn’t write (or claim to write) history. Once someone stops doing the work of being objective (or doing their level best to be), it ain’t history anymore.

One narrative simply isn’t as good as another, and no one should be teaching it as such. I think you can appreciate this by way of reference of something you mentioned earlier - the neo-Confederate view of the Civil War. The revisionist “different version” cooked up by neo-Confederates that the Civil War was really about anger over a tariff isn’t just as good or right as the traditional, non-revisionist version - one is right, one is wrong; one is reliable, the other is nonsense.

It’s not just a matter of “different perspectives”, and no one should validate all versions in the name of “fairness”.[/quote]

Those are certainly fair points, and I was really just using Zinn and Limbaugh as extremes of their perspective sides.

But you know, I’m sure, that even with accepted pieces on the Civil War, there is a discrepancy- how Bruce Catton wrote it isn’t like how Shelby Foote wrote it, and neither are like Douglass Southall Freeman wrote it, although I consider them all within the acceptable realm of “objective.”

But yes, these things are all different than how a neo-confederate would write that history- down to the little things like calling it the “War of Northern Aggression.”

I just don’t want to see these kids actually learn revisionist history as if it were the gospel. Sometimes with Southerners, I think that they learn too much of that at home as it is (maybe to a lesser extent now, but I’d say up until 20 years ago, definitely) and that moving the actual curriculum to express the beliefs of some far-righters is a dangerous thing.

47

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

Rosie, do you think I care if you care or not? Honestly, schoolboy, is this the best retort you could come up with?[/quote]

You’re the one who replies to my posts.

I don’t know if you noticed, but I don’t bother arguing with you because for the thousandth time, I don’t believe you to be that intelligent and you’re not worth my time. You don’t offer much in the way of intellectual discourse.[/quote]

But name calling and irrelevant jokes are totally intelligent!

48

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
Judeo-Christian Principles - what do you think I mean by that?[/quote]

Stuff stolen from other cultures?

49

[quote]Makavali wrote:

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
Judeo-Christian Principles - what do you think I mean by that?[/quote]

Stuff stolen from other cultures?[/quote]

I have been mulling that question over for a while now, and I can’t figure out what is unique about Judeo-Christian values in America. The websites I’ve used to look up its many interpretations have done nothing to show me that it means, really, one thing or another.

American law is not based on the ten commandments. The principles described in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution have far more to do with the Age of Enlightenment than they do with any particular religion, and they certainly don’t put the church in the center of political life- if anything, they do their damndest to make sure it doesn’t influence politics.

Any other principal that judeo-christians have… well, it’s not like they’re valued only by Judeo-christians.

Hard work? Family? A belief in God? These are neither unique to America nor to any particular religion. Thinking of yourselves, or ourselves, as a “chosen people?” That’s heaped in bullshit.

I need to know what the hell we’re talking about before I go further, because this catchphrase used so often is very often left undefined.

50

It was the Judeo-Christian values of the people that made this new, small, limited, and hardly visible Government such a good fit. Family was a good thing to mention, really. Let’s deal with just that. How strong and indivisble were families then? What are they like today? What have been the social consequences if family has been weakened? And how have those consequences changed the role of Government?

Today our government is a nanny state. And it seems to pick up new social obligations with darn near every election. Either through new programs, or the expansion of programs. It’s a nanny state for the feral children of multiple daddies and their single mother. It provides healthcare for their (mommy, too often the daughter) pregnancy, educates their children for them, and sometimes, if their kids managed to make it out high school while not doing hard time locked up, sends them to college. Then, when those children are adults, it supports their elderly mother in her public housing, as the kids have gone off to do who knows what. Of course, in the case of the elderly, who did raise up their children in wealthier household, the promise of shiny expensive things and multiple sex partners in some bustling other place proves too much of a temptation. So, here too, family is abandoned. Hey, the government will handle momma, after all.

So, now here we are. With our feral children and our elderly sitting untop of the wide base of an inverted pyramid. A pyramid tottering on an ever decreasing supply (relatively) of the well-raised-youth needed to keep it (the nanny state) upright. Our government was not meant to establish a religion. But religion was dang sure counted on to make this new kind of governance even possible.

51

[quote]Sloth wrote:
It was the Judeo-Christian values of the people that made this new, small, limited, and hardly visible Government such a good fit. Family was a good thing to mention, really. Let’s deal with just that. How strong and indivisble were families then? What are they like today? What have been the social consequences if family has been weakened? And how have those consequences changed the role of Government?

Today our government is a nanny state. And it seems to pick up new social obligations with darn near every election. Either through new programs, or the expansion of programs. It’s a nanny state for the feral children of multiple daddies and their single mother. It provides healthcare for their (mommy, too often the daughter) pregnancy, educates their children for them, and sometimes, if their kids managed to make it out high school while not doing hard time locked up, sends them to college. Then, when those children are adults, it supports their elderly mother in her public housing, as the kids have gone off to do who knows what. Of course, in the case of the elderly, the kids might have been better off. But here, the greater promise of shiny expensive things and multiple sex partners in some bustling other place proves too much of a temptation. Hey, the government will handle momma, after all.

So, now here we are. With our feral children and our elderly sitting untop of the wide base of an inverted pyramid. A pyramid tottering on an ever decreasing supply (relatively) of the well-raised-youth needed to keep it (the nanny state) upright. Our government was not meant to establish a religion. But religion was dang sure counted on to make this new kind of governance even possible. [/quote]

That whole post really didn’t say a lot besides giving your personal views about the “nanny state.”

You should have expounded on the first sentence instead of going into that predictable diatribe.

53

[quote]phaethon wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:
I wonder how the above list would differ if it had originated from a website not quite so hostile to the TSBE actions.[/quote]

Indeed.

“Board member Don McLeroy even claimed that women and minorities owed thanks to men and â??the majorityâ?? for their rights.”

And it is quotes like this that can be taken out of context. Without a doubt women and minorities wouldn’t have had any rights unless men and “the majority” gave them to them.

Were they are unalienable rights they should have had from the get-go? Of course. Would they have had them unless the white male majority wanted them to? No.

And I think it is important to note this legislation was passed because white males decided that blacks and women were equals. You would think it was obvious but it isn’t to many people.[/quote]

This is profoundly idiotic.

54

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:
It was the Judeo-Christian values of the people that made this new, small, limited, and hardly visible Government such a good fit. Family was a good thing to mention, really. Let’s deal with just that. How strong and indivisble were families then? What are they like today? What have been the social consequences if family has been weakened? And how have those consequences changed the role of Government?

Today our government is a nanny state. And it seems to pick up new social obligations with darn near every election. Either through new programs, or the expansion of programs. It’s a nanny state for the feral children of multiple daddies and their single mother. It provides healthcare for their (mommy, too often the daughter) pregnancy, educates their children for them, and sometimes, if their kids managed to make it out high school while not doing hard time locked up, sends them to college. Then, when those children are adults, it supports their elderly mother in her public housing, as the kids have gone off to do who knows what. Of course, in the case of the elderly, the kids might have been better off. But here, the greater promise of shiny expensive things and multiple sex partners in some bustling other place proves too much of a temptation. Hey, the government will handle momma, after all.

So, now here we are. With our feral children and our elderly sitting untop of the wide base of an inverted pyramid. A pyramid tottering on an ever decreasing supply (relatively) of the well-raised-youth needed to keep it (the nanny state) upright. Our government was not meant to establish a religion. But religion was dang sure counted on to make this new kind of governance even possible. [/quote]

That whole post really didn’t say a lot besides giving your personal views about the “nanny state.”

You should have expounded on the first sentence instead of going into that predictable diatribe.[/quote]

I disagree. The traditional Judaic/Christian family values our American anscestors clung to (Hi, Obama!) made for a good example. What are the divorce rates today? How many of our children come from broken homes today? What are the social consequences? How has the role of government changed in light of those consequences? Government has stepped in to subsidize the resulting mess left from the erosion of those values. Even those of us who still hold those values as necsessary, who don’t contribute to the “if it feels good, do it” morality of our time, are stuck with paying the consequences. We’re stuck with this bloated mutation of what was supposed to be a limited Government.

Do you deny the reality of the broken home, today? Or, that our Government (completely outside of what our Founders intended) fills the resulting void with various entitlements and programs?

Our form of government was meant for a moral people. This Judaic-Christian tradition we’re discussing, well, it provided the people needed.

55

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:
It was the Judeo-Christian values of the people that made this new, small, limited, and hardly visible Government such a good fit. Family was a good thing to mention, really. Let’s deal with just that. How strong and indivisble were families then? What are they like today? What have been the social consequences if family has been weakened? And how have those consequences changed the role of Government?

Today our government is a nanny state. And it seems to pick up new social obligations with darn near every election. Either through new programs, or the expansion of programs. It’s a nanny state for the feral children of multiple daddies and their single mother. It provides healthcare for their (mommy, too often the daughter) pregnancy, educates their children for them, and sometimes, if their kids managed to make it out high school while not doing hard time locked up, sends them to college. Then, when those children are adults, it supports their elderly mother in her public housing, as the kids have gone off to do who knows what. Of course, in the case of the elderly, the kids might have been better off. But here, the greater promise of shiny expensive things and multiple sex partners in some bustling other place proves too much of a temptation. Hey, the government will handle momma, after all.

So, now here we are. With our feral children and our elderly sitting untop of the wide base of an inverted pyramid. A pyramid tottering on an ever decreasing supply (relatively) of the well-raised-youth needed to keep it (the nanny state) upright. Our government was not meant to establish a religion. But religion was dang sure counted on to make this new kind of governance even possible. [/quote]

That whole post really didn’t say a lot besides giving your personal views about the “nanny state.”

You should have expounded on the first sentence instead of going into that predictable diatribe.[/quote]

I disagree. The traditional Judaic/Christian family values our American anscestors clung to (Hi, Obama!) made for a good example. What are the divorce rates today? How many of our children come from broken homes today? What are the social consequences? How has the role of government changed in light of these consequences? Government has stepped in to subsidize the resulting mess left from the erosion of those values. Even those of us who do still hold those values as necsessary, who don’t contribute to the “if it feels good, do it” morality of our time, are stuck with paying the consequence. We’re stuck with this bloated mutation of what was supposed to a limited Government.

Do you deny the reality of the broken home, today? Or, that our Government (completely outside of what our Founders intended) fills that void with various entitlements and programs? [/quote]

The reality is that the broken home is a result of several factors, the two more prominent ones (to me) are bloodsucking divorce lawyers and the laws that enable them, and the state interference into a private matter. New age (read: batshit crazy) feminism doesn’t help either.

And the broken home and it’s increase is a common occurrence around the world, not just the USA.

56

I’m with Irish on this one. The term ‘Judeo-Christian Values’ is incredibly hard to define, because Christianity is inextricably linked with Western Civilization, another term incredibly difficult to define, and often only done so in opposition to the orient.

Which is weird, because, as a Baha’i, I can point to specific differences in religious values between Baha’is and the Judeo-Christian tradition. Baha’is value unity and consultation, and we abhor backbiting. So does everyone else, but these are specifically emphasised in the Baha’i Faith. So too, does Islam promote the submission of the faithful to the faith and Christianity promotes Love (love they neighbor as thyself, God above all else).

You can build a city on brotherly love, but this can’t be the mythical definition of ‘Judeo-Christian Values’. Becuase whatever the constitution was based on, it surely wasn’t the concept of love.

So… perhaps the resident Christians can supply a more accurate definition of Judeo-Christian Values.

57

[quote]Makavali wrote:

And the broken home and it’s increase is a common occurrence around the world, not just the USA.[/quote]

Oh yes. Especially with the hyper-secularizaiton of the West. A graying, barren population. Which now, ironically, seems to place it’s faith in young workers supplied by the larger families of devoutly religious immigrants. All to keep the nanny state afloat. The same nanny state needed to replace the fractured status of the family among their native population. A suicidal people!

58

[quote]Sloth wrote:

I disagree. The traditional Judaic/Christian family values our American anscestors clung to (Hi, Obama!) made for a good example. What are the divorce rates today? How many of our children come from broken homes today? What are the social consequences? How has the role of government changed in light of those consequences? Government has stepped in to subsidize the resulting mess left from the erosion of those values. Even those of us who still hold those values as necsessary, who don’t contribute to the “if it feels good, do it” morality of our time, are stuck with paying the consequences. We’re stuck with this bloated mutation of what was supposed to be a limited Government.

Do you deny the reality of the broken home, today? Or, that our Government (completely outside of what our Founders intended) fills the resulting void with various entitlements and programs?

Our form of government was meant for a moral people. This Judaic-Christian tradition we’re discussing, well, it provided the people needed. [/quote]

But if ‘Judeo-Christian Values’ becomes all good and moral values, it becomes meaningless. You bring up high divorce rates, presumably in opposition to the Catholic (one sect of Christianity’s) teaching against divorce. So it’s probably fair to say that faithfulness to one’s spouse is a ‘Judeo-Christian Value’. Especially considering divorce is accepted in Judaic and Muslim cultures.

But what about pacifism? I would describe pacifism as a ‘Judeo-Christian Value’, being a value espoused by Jesus a number of times, and one for which he eventually attained martyrdom with. But the United States was not founded on this. Is that becuase it wasn’t included in the big-bag-of-Judeo-Christian-Values, or because the term simply gets made up as it’s propogators go along?

59

[quote]Sloth wrote:

I disagree. The traditional Judaic/Christian family values our American anscestors clung to (Hi, Obama!) made for a good example. What are the divorce rates today? How many of our children come from broken homes today? What are the social consequences? How has the role of government changed in light of those consequences? Government has stepped in to subsidize the resulting mess left from the erosion of those values. Even those of us who still hold those values as necsessary, who don’t contribute to the “if it feels good, do it” morality of our time, are stuck with paying the consequences. We’re stuck with this bloated mutation of what was supposed to be a limited Government.

Do you deny the reality of the broken home, today? Or, that our Government (completely outside of what our Founders intended) fills the resulting void with various entitlements and programs?

Our form of government was meant for a moral people. This Judaic-Christian tradition we’re discussing, well, it provided the people needed. [/quote]

First of all, you still are not telling me what the fuck Judeo-Christian principles are. Is that the only one? No divorce? That’s what all of Judeo-Christian principles are based on?

I really think that you yourself don’t know exactly what you’re talking about when you say that phrase.

And on top of that- while I may admit that people take marriage too lightly when they do it, the other option of having a massive social stigma connected to it is wrong as well.

Your statements don’t really make sense, you seem to just want to amble on and on about the government. Which is fine… except you’ve yet to answer the one thing I’m asking for.

Maybe Thunder can do it. I disagree with him on everything but at least he knows what he’s arguing about.

60

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]Makavali wrote:

And the broken home and it’s increase is a common occurrence around the world, not just the USA.[/quote]

Oh yes. Especially with the hyper-secularizaiton of the West. A graying, barren population. Which now, ironically, seems to place it’s faith in young workers supplied by the larger families of devoutly religious immigrants. All to keep the nanny state afloat. The same nanny state needed to replace the fractured status of the family among their native population. A suicidal people![/quote]

You sound like Headhunter amigo. Get help before you deteriorate further.