Hopeful Monster wrote:I think I found WWII (like most other people) to be one of the most interesting parts of history class.

Fucking sick and tired of WWII or ‘The History Channel’ and really fucking sick of the sodding Tudors.

Warren Dew wrote:Most of those sound pretty innocuous to me. Removing Lenin and Freud may be questionable - though Freudian theories aren't really considered accurate in psychology any more - but to be honest, Nader is far from an important historical figure and should never have been included.

The curriculum is for all social science subjects and Nader along with Perot were suggested examples in a section on how 3rd party candidates influenced outcomes of recent elections. They are both relevant there and now they are out (the interesting question would be what 3rd party candidate could be put in their stead - Teabaggers?). Freud is still an integral part of the history of psychology. Sure enough modern evolutionary biology has undergone quite a few changes since it started, but a biology curriculum not even mentioning Darwin would be bad. As would a physics curriculum not mentioning Sir Isaak Newton - even though his mechanics are only approximations. And if you have a section on the Russian Revolution in your curriculum, it´d be a good idea to have Lenin in there.

Warren Dew wrote:Could they have made better choices? Sure - Sandra Day O'Conner in place of Schlafly and Clinton would help. Still, some of the stuff they're getting rid of is quite questionable too.

It´s more the whole of the changes than any single particular one. Of course taking out FDR and putting in Goldwater at some particular point in the curriculum isn´t that bad. But when the same type of decision runs through a complete social studies curriculum from kindergarden to senior year high school... I´ve had my share of bollocks in textbooks, but at least it was balances bullshit, from the wacko leftist who wrote my political science textbook and covered all music made by people with short hair under the title of "neo-nazi rock" (his examples were the Ramones, Queen, Crass and the Clash) to the stone cold warriors/halfway revisionists who wrote my "youngest history" textbook, pretty much painting Brandts acceptance of the Oder-Neisse line as treason. Other bits were rather middle-of-the-road. What I ended up with was a notion that there are people who want to spin history and the only way to avoid being manipulated was to read source material and try to make sense of it yourself (which is why I went and read the curriculum rather than just the press coverage).

Hopeful Monster wrote:

Gawdzilla wrote:

Hopeful Monster wrote:This is pretty pathetic. However, in my experience, 95% of high school students don't read their history textbooks anyways. I was just as guilty, but those history books generally sucked anyways. I'd rather get a non PC, bureaucratically uninfluenced history education from someone like Howard Zinn (who is first on my summer reading list). Let's see them try and pass some of his books into the curriculum...

You are just the kind of person who would like the sites I run at UNC.

http://www.ibiblio.org/pha
http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar

Very cool, I particularly like the second link. I think I found WWII (like most other people) to be one of the most interesting parts of history class. It wouldn't surprise me if Texas wants to rewrite that section as well, maybe to say something about Hiroshima etc.?

There are currently more than 750,000 pages of documents at the two sites. Have fun, and make sure someone knows where you're at.

Simon_Gardner wrote:

Hopeful Monster wrote:I think I found WWII (like most other people) to be one of the most interesting parts of history class.

Fucking sick and tired of WWII or ‘The History Channel’ and really fucking sick of the sodding Tudors.

I found the 1960's to be the most fascinating part of history class: miniskirts and "Burn the Bra!". Dammit, I missed all that, I was too young.

Simon_Gardner wrote:In case anybody hadn’t noticed, this has all gone through while I was away yesterday. Is there a legal method to quash Texas Board of Education decision?

No.

Tortured_Genius wrote:

DoctorE wrote:[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdhGK9aYjDY[/youtube]

Well they can say what they like during a church service and belive what they want.

I mean, presumably that was a church service............

Welcome to my world!

susu.exp wrote:

Warren Dew wrote:Most of those sound pretty innocuous to me. Removing Lenin and Freud may be questionable - though Freudian theories aren't really considered accurate in psychology any more - but to be honest, Nader is far from an important historical figure and should never have been included.

The curriculum is for all social science subjects and Nader along with Perot were suggested examples in a section on how 3rd party candidates influenced outcomes of recent elections. They are both relevant there and now they are out (the interesting question would be what 3rd party candidate could be put in their stead - Teabaggers?). Freud is still an integral part of the history of psychology. Sure enough modern evolutionary biology has undergone quite a few changes since it started, but a biology curriculum not even mentioning Darwin would be bad. As would a physics curriculum not mentioning Sir Isaak Newton - even though his mechanics are only approximations. And if you have a section on the Russian Revolution in your curriculum, it´d be a good idea to have Lenin in there.

Warren Dew wrote:Could they have made better choices? Sure - Sandra Day O'Conner in place of Schlafly and Clinton would help. Still, some of the stuff they're getting rid of is quite questionable too.

It´s more the whole of the changes than any single particular one. Of course taking out FDR and putting in Goldwater at some particular point in the curriculum isn´t that bad.

ARE YOU CRAZY?

FDR was President for 14 years through the Great Depression and World War Two. All Goldwater did was run for president and lose 45 states in 1964.

NineOneFour wrote:

Simon_Gardner wrote:In case anybody hadn’t noticed, this has all gone through while I was away yesterday. Is there a legal method to quash Texas Board of Education decision?

No.

It would be perfectly legal to boycott the fucktard textbook publishers that dance to the Texas Board of Education's dumbass tunes.

Are students reading the words off of their textbooks so they only get used once? We don't have to buy this shit.

The_Metatron wrote:

NineOneFour wrote:

Simon_Gardner wrote:In case anybody hadn’t noticed, this has all gone through while I was away yesterday. Is there a legal method to quash Texas Board of Education decision?

No.

It would be perfectly legal to boycott the fucktard textbook publishers that dance to the Texas Board of Education's dumbass tunes.

Yes, but HOW. Textbook decisions are made by boards at the state level.

Are students reading the words off of their textbooks so they only get used once? We don't have to buy this shit.

Agree, but it will be implemented across my state and it makes me so angry I could spit blood.

NineOneFour wrote:

The_Metatron wrote:

NineOneFour wrote:

Simon_Gardner wrote:In case anybody hadn’t noticed, this has all gone through while I was away yesterday. Is there a legal method to quash Texas Board of Education decision?

No.

It would be perfectly legal to boycott the fucktard textbook publishers that dance to the Texas Board of Education's dumbass tunes.

Yes, but HOW. Textbook decisions are made by boards at the state level.

Are students reading the words off of their textbooks so they only get used once? We don't have to buy this shit.

Agree, but it will be implemented across my state and it makes me so angry I could spit blood.

What compels a local school district to buy texts that the state board chooses? I suppose the state links taking state money with using the books they dictate. I say, fuck the state and their money.

If a local school board chooses, they can bloody well dissolve the school system one day, and reopen it as a private school the next, and teach whatever the fuck they want. Of course, I recognize we're talking about Texas here, and there is a distinct danger that a local school district could decide to teach whatever the fuck they want, in a bad way.

Edit to add: Of course, the rest of the country has no compulsion whatsoever to give a flying fuck about the fundtards in the Texas board or the books they choose.

Fuck! History isn't up for discussion. It's, to be obvious, historical fact. People don't get to simply make shit up because they didn't like what happened or who did it.

NineOneFour wrote:ARE YOU CRAZY?

FDR was President for 14 years through the Great Depression and World War Two. All Goldwater did was run for president and lose 45 states in 1964.

Note the "at some particular point". FDR hasn´t been removed from the curriculum, he´s been removed from the quoted section and added to another one. Goldwater was added to that section (and is a new introduction to the curriculum). If this was the only change it´d harly be worth bothering (FDR was moved from the "evaluate the contributions of political leaders" part, but "evaluate the actions of FDR in the great depression" and "evaluate the actions of FDR in WW2" were added to the relevant sections). That there´s a systematic move from looking at social problems in favor of looking at all the good things magnates do (the part where child labour is removed and replaced by the philantropy of industrialists is the most striking examples), that you remove Lenin from a discussion of the russian revolution - that´s the issue. Any single change can possibly be justified (with the exception of altered dates), the total changes can´t IMO.