Sat Aug 8, 2015, 10:11 AM

Republicans To History Teachers: “You Can Only Say America Is #1”

Published on Aug 6, 2015

The Republican attack on education will never end, and they refuse to allow any American student to think that U.S. history is nothing less than grand and perfect. And now, after things were actually looking a little brighter for A.P. History courses, the College Board is giving in to the attack by dumbing down their course outlines.

Ring of Fire’s Mike Papantonio and Farron Cousins discuss this.

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After Facing Backlash, AP U.S. History Course Revised To Emphasize American Ideals

Conservatives thought the last update didn't paint a positive enough picture of the country.
Rebecca Klein
Education Editor, The Huffington Post
Posted: 07/30/2015 11:18 AM EDT | Edited: 07/31/2015 10:18 AM EDT

After facing months of intense scrutiny over a new Advanced Placement U.S. History (APUSH) course outline that some conservatives perceived as containing anti-American biases, the College Board released a new framework for the class Thursday morning. This structure places more of an emphasis on concepts surrounding American national identity, the country's founding leaders and documents and the effective role of free enterprise in U.S. history.

The College Board, the company that created and runs the Advanced Placement program, said the updated course framework reflects feedback it received from educators and historians during a public review period. The changes make it so "statements [in the framework] are clearer and more historically precise, and less open to misinterpretation or perceptions of imbalance" and so that specific important individuals and documents are clearly included, according to the group's website.

After deciding to redesign the course in 2006, the College Board released a new course outline last year that hit classrooms in the fall. It was designed by a committee of professors and teachers, and generated controversy from critics who said it took an overly critical approach to teaching American history.

In August 2014, the Republican National Committee adopted a resolution criticizing the framework for "radically revisionist view of American history that emphasizes negative aspects of our nation's history while omitting or minimizing positive aspects." In October, the framework triggered weeks of protests in Jefferson County, Colorado, after members of the local school board pushed for the creation of a committee to review the course and ensure it presented America positively. In February, the Oklahoma legislature took steps to try to ban the course from state classrooms.
MORE:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ap-us-history-framework_55ba1f15e4b0af35367a538d

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8 replies	Author	Time	Post
Republicans To History Teachers: “You Can Only Say America Is #1” (Original post)	mother earth	Aug 2015	OP
What a cowardly, pathetic country to let this stand. One more way to teach the kids hate.	jtuck004	Aug 2015	#1
We are actually preventing education, we are lying by omission & promoting a false history.	mother earth	Aug 2015	#2
K through 12 is hopeless	HassleCat	Aug 2015	#3
We're certainly not #1 in education, and never have been.	eppur_se_muova	Aug 2015	#4
Americana....	V0ltairesGh0st	Aug 2015	#5
The fundamental problem with this is that history is what actually happened.	PatrickforO	Aug 2015	#6
"radically revisionist view of American history"	annabanana	Aug 2015	#7
Ultimately the Republicans are trying to kill critical thinking and this is just part of the program	Uncle Joe	Aug 2015	#8

Response to mother earth (Original post)

Sat Aug 8, 2015, 10:17 AM

jtuck004 (15,882 posts)

1. What a cowardly, pathetic country to let this stand. One more way to teach the kids hate.

Hope when those kids go home anyone teaching this knows, deep in their heart, they students will know them as a liar.

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Response to jtuck004 (Reply #1)

Sat Aug 8, 2015, 10:23 AM

mother earth (6,002 posts)

2. We are actually preventing education, we are lying by omission & promoting a false history.

Where is our exceptionalism in learning from mistakes of the past, lest history repeat itself?

I will never understand WHY we must play cheerleader to anything when clearly all of us are a work in progress. I've always felt no person is perfect, no nation is perfect, we either continually learn to better ourselves, or we decay in ignorance. Stagnation and self-congratulations are for the pompous and is just plain lazy. I don't understand that way of thinking, and I hope I never do.

It's a self-defeating and backwards philosophy, IMHO.

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Response to mother earth (Original post)

Sat Aug 8, 2015, 10:41 AM

HassleCat (6,409 posts)

3. K through 12 is hopeless

I remember the hyper patriotism and absolute BS, then going to college and discovering what a load of shameless propaganda it had been in high school.

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Response to mother earth (Original post)

Sat Aug 8, 2015, 11:00 AM

eppur_se_muova (35,172 posts)

4. We're certainly not #1 in education, and never have been.

It's all part of the right-wing mythical Golden Age, before the little people started gettin' uppity. EVERYTHING was better before those durned lib'rals screwed it up. We need to TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK ![sup]™[/sup] And we start by having the Ministry of Truth force Newspeak on the next generation.

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Response to mother earth (Original post)

Sat Aug 8, 2015, 02:50 PM

V0ltairesGh0st (306 posts)

5. Americana....

"No Shelter"

The main attraction - distraction
got ya number than nnumber than numb
Empty ya pockets son; they got you thinkin that
What ya need is what they sellin
Make you think that buyin is rebellin
From the theaters to malls on every shore
Tha thin line between entertainment and war
The frontline is everywhere, there be no shelter here
Speilberg the nightmare works so push it far
Amistad was a whip, the truth was feathered and tarred
Memory erased, burned and scarred
Trade in ya history for a VCR

Cinema, simulated life, ill drama
Fourth Reich culture - Americana
Chained to the dream they got ya searchin for
Tha thin line between entertainment and war

There be no shelter here
Tha frontline is everywhere

Hospitals not profit full
Yet market bulls got pockets full
To advertise some hip disguise
View tha world from American eyes
Tha poor adore keep fiendin for more
Tha thin line between entertainment and war
They fix the need, develop the taste
Buy their products or get laid to waste
Coca-Cola is back in the veins of Saigon
And Rambo too, he got a dope pair of Nikes on
And Godzilla pure muthafuckin filler
To keep ya eyes off the real killer

Cinema, simulated life, ill drama
Fourth Reich culture - Americana
Chained to the dream they got ya searchin for
Tha thin line between entertainment and war

American eyes, American eyes....
View the world from American eyes
Bury the past, rob us blind
And leave nothin behind

Just stare
Relive the nightmare.

Rage Against The Machine

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Response to mother earth (Original post)

Sat Aug 8, 2015, 03:43 PM

PatrickforO (13,909 posts)

6. The fundamental problem with this is that history is what actually happened.

To try and 'revise' it by omitting things that are 'negative' and emphasizing things that are 'positive' creates all sorts of problems.

First, who is the arbiter of what is positive and what is negative? Second, if we begin taking things out, where do we stop?

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Response to mother earth (Original post)

Sat Aug 8, 2015, 04:52 PM

annabanana (52,791 posts)

7. "radically revisionist view of American history"

Is what we were taught in Social Studies back in the 50's

More 50's nostalgia from the troglodytes...

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Response to mother earth (Original post)

Sat Aug 8, 2015, 06:58 PM

Uncle Joe (54,872 posts)

8. Ultimately the Republicans are trying to kill critical thinking and this is just part of the program

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking

Critical thinking is clear, reasoned thinking involving critique. Its details vary amongst those who define it. According to Beyer (1995), critical thinking means making clear, reasoned judgments. During the process of critical thinking, ideas should be reasoned and well thought out/judged.[1] The National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking[2] defines critical thinking as the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.'[3]

In the term critical thinking, the word critical, (Grk. κριτικός = kritikos = "critic" derives from the word critic and implies a critique; it identifies the intellectual capacity and the means "of judging", "of judgement", "for judging", and of being "able to discern".[4]

Thanks for the thread, mother earth.

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