Sloppy Oversite Hurts the Teaching of U.S. History in Virginia

Talking Points Memo and the Washington Post covered a story today about how the elementary history textbook Our America had many errors in it and according to some of the reviewers should be removed immediately from students. Some of these issues involve African Americans fighting for the South during the civil war, the United States entered World War I in 1916, and the first Europeans to explore the continent wore full suits of armor. All of these items are untrue. One historian, Mary Miley Theobald quoted in the Washington Post,  "Any literate person could have opened that book and immediately found a mistake."

Now a question that needed to be asked is how did these textbooks get into the hands of Virginia school children? In Virginia all text books have to go through a set of standards called Standards of Learning. The Standards of Learning are a set of standards indented to give students a full academic experience. These standards are good I have read all of the Third Grade History and Social Science  Standards and United States History to 1865 and they are legitimate. The United States History to 1865 standards reads like a college syllabus. So we can conclude that the standards did not create the problem.

The main problem that occurred came from the elementary textbooks to fulfill the Third Grade History and Social Science Standards. As the Washington Post article points out that all elementary school books are reviewed by elementary school teachers before entering into the class room. With some of the worst errors such as African Americans fighting for the South should have been spotted by the review committee or someone in the Virginia Department of Education. I just read the Wikiapedia article on African Americans in the Civil War and their article stated African Americans did not fight for the South. Simple fact checking should have found that error. The Virginia Department of Education should have had a historian of some degree, a Graduate TA, RA, a Professor, or a member of the Virginia Historical Society, double check the books. They did not and now some Virginia schools are stuck with an inadequate textbook.

Now though we cannot place all the blame on the Virginia Department of Education or the elementary teachers that reviewed the book. The publisher should also have to take the blame Five Ponds Press out of Weston Conn. They are the ones who published the textbooks in question. There are many flaws in their production of the material. A historian did not write the textbooks a random author with no historical authority wrote them. The book was not vetted by an independent historian validating that the text was factual and properly covered the material. An independent historian should have reviewed the text for quality and accuracy. If that did happen, most of these mistakes would have been caught.
As a historian having the facts is a important part of understanding history. Without those false narratives can be created and dueling views of the world can be promoted.  These ideas can be taken to the extreme and create an alternate view  of reality and create hate or misunderstanding that can be used to move an agenda. When history is used to move an agenda, it is more like propaganda than history. It is important for all parties in the production of any historical textbooks to go through them like a fine comb to find all the inaccurate claims.  If everyone works hard together, we as a society can produce texts that we can be proud of and teach our children an accurate version of history.

Texas Board of Education Makes another Controversial Move in its State's Social Studies Curriculum

Today by a 7-6 vote, the Texas Board of Education voted to pass a resolution that stated that the Texas Board of Education would not purchase any social studies textbooks that would give more Islam more space in the textbooks than Christianity. Their move to do this came from the idea that most social studies textbooks have a Pro-Islam slant and an Anti- Christian slant. In a Dallas Morning News Op-Ed, Southern Methodist University Professor Mark Chancey wrote,

[The Resolution in] Its first line complains that "pro-Islamic/anti-Christian bias has tainted some past Texas Social Studies textbooks." It later objects that "pro-Islamic/anti-Christian half-truths, selective disinformation, and false editorial stereotypes still roil some Social Studies textbooks nationwide." In its rhetoric, the terms "pro-Islamic" and "anti-Christian" go hand in hand; whatever is "pro-Islamic" is by definition "anti-Christian."

Pitting religions against each other is not good especially in the political climate that we are in today. The idea that one religion is taking priority over another is bad, but in the way that the Texas Board of Education is doing it is to raise fear and create hate to another religion. This idea that it is right to use education as a religious battleground is unfair to the students of Texas and the students of the United States. By this resolution by the board will change textbooks because Texas is the second largest market for textbooks. U.S. students will already have to suffer to the changes made to the Social Studies Curriculum in March, to see the changes check out Texas Board of Education New Amendments to the Social Science Curriculum Give it a Conservative Spin, now with this change the national Social Studies curriculum will change for all Americans.
We as Americans have to realize that, not all history portrays Americans beliefs and ideals in the positive light. Our history is checkered with massacres  and bad decisions that have shaped the country that we live in today. For example of this 50 years ago students were taught that what happen at Wounded Knee in 1890 was a battle between the Sioux people and the U.S. Army, and today most students learned that it was a massacre of the Sioux people by the U.S. Army. Yes, it does not paint the U.S. Army in a positive light, but it is the truth and the truth hurts some times. We cannot rewrite history to the way we want it because it makes us feel good, because we lose the teachable lesson that history provides us to become a better society. To put this full circle the Texas Board of Education can rewrite history and depict it on how they feel it should be taught, but that teaching of history will never be the truth and never can be accepted as the truth.

Texas Board of Education New Amendments to the Social Science Curriculum Give it a Conservative Spin

Friday according to Talking Points Memo the Texas Board of Education voted 10-5 to change their social science curriculum to include a variety of Conservative points. The vote was along party lines some outlets like Fox News have made the argument that this is a war to save our children from evil liberal policies. Other outlets are arguing that what Texas decides shapes the school curriculum for the entire nation.

Major alternations according to the New York Times include works Thomas Jefferson will be limited in talking about the Constitution because he was a strong supporter for the separation between church and state and considered to be a major person in the Enlightenment. He will be replaced with by religious thinker John Calvin the founder of Calvinism.   This only pertains to World History.  Another amendment that is out there is the inclusion of Conservative ideals like Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America," Moral Majority, and the National Rifle Association. Other items lessen with these amendments are the great tragedy of Japanese Internment Camps, the Civil Rights movement will also show the downfalls that it brought to society, and the importance of McCarthyism in the fight against Communism.

The view of history projected by the Texas Board of Education is biased and does not serve a purpose of educating students, but promoted an agenda through the second largest buyer of textbooks. Interesting facts none of the board members are Historians. They do not have any formal training in the subject matter that they are changing. A quote from Mary Helena Berlanga a board member commenting on the amendments, “They are going overboard, they are not experts, they are not historians,” she said. “They are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world.” 

This is an outrage 10 people are holding the history curriculum hostage for their personal beliefs instead of the common good. They are angry that beliefs that they hold have not been criticized by historians and want revenge by altering the textbook for a more favorable view of history.  What they are doing is wrong. History is the way society looks at the past and critiques what went right and what went wrong. By top loading history to benefit one side does not help that side’s argument. History is free flowing and the truth will come out. Unless Texas changes their college, history curriculum the true idea of history will be told.  It is impossible to change history to your liking what the Texas Education Board fails to realize that will history teachers actually teach the lessons that they propose?  What happens when history educators rebel? This attempt by the Republican 10 to alter history textbooks to alter history will not work and will fail.

The Misrepresenting of History

This post is late in the terms of the comment, but it is still important item to bring up. Evangelical Pat Robertson in a comment about Haiti said,

ROBERTSON: [S]omething happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. Napoleon the Third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, “We will serve you if you get us free from the prince.” True story. And so the devil said, “OK, it’s a deal.” They kicked the French out, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free.

But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other, desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It’s cut down the middle, on the one side is Haiti, on the other side is the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island.

They need to have, and we need to pray for them, a great turning to God. And out of this tragedy I’m optimistic something good may come. But right now, we’re helping the suffering people and the suffering is unimaginable.

Robertson does not have any information on his claim. I pulled out my old College World Civilization and Latin American History textbook to find the true story. The Latin American textbook argues that Haitian independence came from the French Revolution. The idea for a people to revolt for independence came from the mother country. The leader of this revolt Toussaint L'Ouverture a mulatto was an ex-slave. Even though L'Ouverture led the revolt it was not him who declared independence, but his lieutenant Jacques Dessalines who declared independence from the French in 1804.

Robertson’s comment on the ruler of Haitian Independence is not Napoleon III, but Napoleon. There were not any pacts with the Devil in Haitian Independence. The hope that people see that an impoverished country needs help and not for the short term. We as Americans need to help people of Haiti instead of coming up with reasons why the disaster happened.

Like always links and cites are at the bottom.

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/01/13/robertson-haiti/

Philip J. Adler, World Civilizations, 3rd ed., (Belmont CA, Wadsworth/Thompson Learning, 2003) 178.
Benjamin Keen, and Keith Haynes, A History of Latin America, 7th ed. (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company,2004) 159.