School was filled with half-truths and other deceptions

[SHRED]

I am talking about 1st-12th grade.

My grade schooling was from 1961-1974 in San Diego County.
We were taught all kinds of derranged viewpoints:

The "Discovers" of the "New Land" just traded some beads for the "New World".
The Catholic Missionaries helped the Native Americans.
The Pilgrims just had a little dinner with the Native Americans.

We made little projects: plaster missions, Pilgrim hats, and reports on benevolent Cortez and Balboa were, etc...

Any of you have similar experiences?

Do you also realize they kept the history of industrial hemp from us?
They didn't want to "confuse us".


What a bunch of bullshit.
Is this nonsense continuing in Public Schooling?
:mad:

[Gabi Hayes]

1. "Lies My Teacher Told Me"

http://www.uvm.edu/~jloewen/

[Warpy]

3. You beat me to it

I know why they teach grammar school children all that jingoistic, racist crap. The wonder is why they don't use Loewen's book to teach college.

Some of us realize by the time we get into high school that we're being taught conformity in school and that if we want an education, we'll have to get one outside it.

The rest turn into Repugs.

[Gabi Hayes]

7. best class I ever took was Social Foundations of Education,

starting with a book called Centuries of Childhood, to Rousseau, to studies of the evolution of public education in the US

what they've ALWAYS wanted here is a herd of unthinking automatons, all set to plop into the industrialized labor mill. those who shaped the fundament of public education would be elated to see how quickly robots are replacing their human counterparts

[unpossibles]

42. I loved that book

and (to a slightly lesser extent) "Lies Across America."

It's amazing, how I even went into it knowing some of the facts, and was still blown away.

Even more amazing is how the Rightwingers are calling things like that "revisionist history" but then nothing is surprising in this Orwellian world any more where up is down and Right is wrong (hm - that would make a good bumpersticker...)

[Toots]

2. You mean George didn't throw a cherry tree across Paul Revere's horse?

I feel completely violated...:shrug:

[acmavm]

4. This is still true for both Catholic and public schools. My daughter

used to yell at me because when my grandson repeated stupid shit that he learned at school and I told him the truth, she'd get upset because she said he'd go to school and say something and it would cause all kinds of trouble. I suppose she was right.

I put my son in a Catholic school for one year. Big mistake. Anyway, when his teacher told the class to tell 'all your parents not to vote for Kerry because he was for abortion', I sent a rather nasty message back to school with him.

Now both kids are back in public school and it's pretty much the same thing. Maybe they've toned history down a little bit, but not much. And they're a little more honest with why certain social movements gained acceptance (communism). But they sure still hurl the crap when it comes to politics and social situations in this country. The things these kids DON'T learn are as important, if not more important, than what they do learn.

And they don't teach these kids how to support themselves once they get out of high school. Not all kids are going to college. And the 'technical' education that schools used to offer is a thing of the past.

[ixion]

5. the truth is only available if you dig

it's amazing what passes for 'knowledge' in K-12.

[StellaBlue]

6. If there are any students in your life, you need to introduce them to

[Dinger]

9. I Have That Book. Wish There Was A Version For Elementary Students

Hey, there could be a whole market for progressive history books written for elementary-aged students?!

[mzteris]

27. Have you looked at Joy Hakim's

history books?

[Dinger]

35. No, Where Do I Look?

Who is Joy Hakin? (I plead ignorance).

[mzteris]

37. Joy Hakim

http://www.joyhakim.com/works.htm

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/historyofus/

[bobbieinok]

33. my bro + his son were furious that Zinn's book was the text in his college

Am history class....also Loewen's book was used. They just mocked and ridiculed that the school 'thought they were teaching history.'

[mzteris]

38. Why?

Are they rw'ers or something?

[Dinger]

8. I Teach In A Public School Near A Native American Reservation In Wisconsin

I don't teach Thanksgiving, or Columbus, or anything about catholic missionaries. I teach 3rd grade, and I teach about the 11 Native American tribes presently in Wisconsin. I get a lot of assistance from the local tribe, and some other tribes that are not too far away. I arrange for speakers from these tribes to come in and talk to the kids, and they do an awesome job. We do a biography project and make our own wigwam village. Also, we have a pow wow in May where all classes attend, and the community is there also. It's a wonderful event for all. So, as to your question, this bullshit has no part in my classroom or my school. Our school is approximately 45% Native American and 55% non-Native. It is a wonderful place to be. We do well on standardized testing, and have received awardsfor our performance. I am hsppy and lucky to be here.

[BlueJazz]

12. Yes! Good for you. It's nice to hear from a Teacher who isn't....

..programmed to "pass on" the same old crap. :)

[LibDemAlways]

10. My daughter's going into 8th grade this

year, and so far the history curriculum has been pretty good. Sixth and seventh grade were devoted to an overview of world history going back to our earliest ancestors and touching on human evolution. The roots of Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity were examined. All religions were treated with respect, but subjects like the Inquisition and the Crusades were not shied away from.

When she was in 4th grade, her class studied California history, and it was presented in such a way that the mistreatment of the natives by the missionaries was not glossed over.

This year she studies U.S. history. I'll be very interested to see if the reality-based education continues. So far, so good.

[Solo_in_MD]

11. ;Secondary School Social Studies is always crap

The crap changes over time to whatever is the politically correct pablum at the time in that school. Critical thinking is severely discouraged at all times.

I used to teach high school science, though I also have a credential for history. It was a good thing they were always short science teachers...

[OneBlueSky]

13. funny . . . I was just thinking about this the other day . . .

finally, at the age of 60, I've come to realize that most everything I've ever been taught about history, politics, and civics is far more myth than reality . . . all part of an "educational" system designed to produce compliant little "citizens" who will just go along with the lies and the myths, not make a ruckus, and learn the regimentation required for life in corporate America . . . robots who will value the symbols of democracy (e.g. the flag) more than its democracy itself . . .

and when you realize that everyone who has been "educated" in this system has been force-fed the very same shovels of shit -- and that's pretty much all of us -- you begin to understand things like the "election" of George Bush, the invation of Iraq, 9/11, and all the rest of it . . .

not a pretty picture . . . in fact, it's pretty damned ugly . . .

[SHRED]

14. you nailed it

100% agree.

[treestar]

17. You have a great point about valuing the symbols over the reality

The American sheeple are extremely shallow. If they do not like reality, they think it can be wished away if they just hear what they want to hear often enough. It goes to show in that the Dems worry more about having a "boring" candidate than a smart one. They know the voters are as shallow as runoff.

[Marr]

36. Education is about alot more than history and civics.

There's math, for instance. Higher math teaches a person how to think; how to deliberately set about solving complex problems step by step. There's science. There's art.

History and civics texts are horribly censored, I'd agree on that. But there's more to public education than just creating little corporate drones.

[walldude]

15. I figured it out in 9th grade.. by 10th grade I had quit high school

passed my GED and went out to seek the truth for myself. All part of a life that landed me on DU.

[treestar]

16. The whole point of public education is sheep like behavior and

conformity - the "lessons" were only window dressing. I was in school from 1966 to 1977. College was not much better.

The whole point was "socializing" and being good in sports. Nothing else really mattered. People who got good grades were actually looked down upon. The worst sin was wearing the wrong clothes.

This is why there are so many sheeple among the baby boomers.

[SHRED]

19. I always thought...

...that K-12 gets the people ready for the 40 hour work week.
You have to get up, from early childhood, and go to a place that you don't want to be at, for the most part.

It's all conditioning towards "compliance", as the overall goal.

[MountainLaurel]

23. That too

But it all goes back to the "do what you're told" sheeple model.

[TalkingDog]

22. The point of Public Education is 2-fold....

1) It keeps a huge segment of the population out of the work force (and off the unemployment rolls.) If the 13-18 segement entered the labor force at will, it would drive down wages to the point that family units could not sustain themselves (or pay taxes or buy stuff) A huge labor market, in certain ways, is bad for "business".

2) It indoctrinates the population while they are still malleable. When you think of Helen Keller you think of a citizen surmounting impossible odds. Rarely do you think of a Strike Organizer and Labor Protestor. Most people learn a "fact" as taught by the "authority" and never think to question beyond that. Mostly because they are not trained in critical thinking. (which is why it is one of the first concepts I introduce my students to)

[Mrs. Overall]

18. My 9th grade history teacher, who was also the football coach,

taught us how great it was that we dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. According to him, that event saved so many lives and helped establish the US as THE world power. I believed this until my freshman year of college, when my roommate was an exchange student from Nagasaki and I learned about her family.

[Catshrink]

20. Remember the duck and cover drills?

In 2nd grade that was a weekly event. It was kind of weird because we didn't understand why we had to do that and why it was different than a fire drill.

[SHRED]

21. I do...

...talk about instilling fear...WOW!

Even in second grade, some of us knew that these exercises were futile.
Yeah...like pulling the curtain and getting under our desks was going to stop a wave of radiation and concussion.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

31. Duck and Cover

As if squatting under a flimsy desk with your hands over your neck and head would do a damn bit of good in an atomic blast...

Yes... I remember the cold war but I didn't know it was "The Cold War" back then. We knew the term "air-raid" but it really had no meaning. I do not remember even being afraid or frightened by these drills -- the films they showed us all had happy kids and the song "Duck and Cover!" was such a happy little jingle... How could I be afraid when we got to sing and jump on the ground and roll into a ball?

What a bunch of crap.

[nadinbrzezinski]

24. Actually it has gotten much worst

[Odin2005]

25. History textbooks are sanitized crap.

Schools are scared about angering parents by teaching contraversial things. If the textbook stated the truth that winning the Veitnam War was impossible because an invasion of N. Vietnam would of led to war with China you would have a bunch of freeper parents screaming "It was the smelly commie librul hippies that made us loose the war" and that the curriculum had an "'Murrika-hating librul bias". :eyes: The dangerous result of this is that our children get the message that everything is a matter of opinion.

[1monster]

26. When my son was in fifth grade, his teacher did teach about Andrew

Jackson's culpability in The Trail of Tears, and it was covered again when he took American History in eighth grade. Neither teacher had anything good to say about Jackson, althought they failed to cover the similar treatment toward the Choctaw Indians and the whole general Indian policy which ran counter to Constitutional and other federal laws.

I attended elementary and high school from 1962 to 1974. Jackson was venerated as a great Democratic president. We never heard of the Trail of Tears for of the Indian policy.

The only real Native American history that I can recall learning in school during that time was that Sqanto was the only member of his tribe still living after it was decimated by diseases brought to this continent by Europeans and that he taught the Pilgrims how to plant corn. And that Sequoia, inspired by the English alphabet, created a written alphabet for the Cherokee language.

Even up to the Franklin Roosevelt administrations, Native Americans were treated as not too bright children. And today, the government still keeps them in poverty while withholding revenues from natural gas and oil royalties that rightfully belong to the Native Americans.

And I'm willing to bet that you won't find subject covered in today's public schools.

[Igel]

40. We learned about Squanto, but

barely anything.

My favorite bits of post-college trivia about Squanto was that he was taken captive a couple of times--surely a cursed life. But that one consequence was that he managed to pick up the fish-in-the-hole technique from where he was held as a slave in Iberia, and introduced the very helpful practice to America. Apparently there's no evidence it pre-existed his stay in Iberia, and was a common practice where he was kept.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

28. '61 to '74 And How I learnedAbout life by watching Rocky and Bullwinkle

You and I were matriculating at the same time -- However I have the not so fond memories of attending a private Christian School for my kindergarten and first grade years - I was 4 years old in '61 and was sent to learn how to read and write (I was already doing both prior to beginning school.) Besides the regular formatted instruction of the "Three R's" Reading, Riting and Rithmatic, I got a real big dose of why Jesus was going to send me to hell and why he was nailed to a cross -- I, as a 4 year old, took it very personally -- IT WAS FOR MY SINS!!!! We were penalized for even minor infractions of behavior by being whipped with a leather strap or a flat, wooden stick. It was impossible for me to sit still or keep my mouth shut and so I was beaten at least once every day -- at the end of the day, I would have a note pinned to my blouse or dress telling my Mother why I had bruises (again) on my rear end and the back of my little legs... She would become enraged. Not at the system that allowed a small child to be brutalized but by me for "causing problems at school!" and so I would get a second, more painful, whipping from my mother. I swear, I don't think I could sit down for those first 2 years of my formal education. But i did learn that God was really pissed off at just about everything I was doing.

Second grade was my introduction into the public school system -- I was awe-struck by the lack of corporal punishment (except when administered by the principal) Shred, we learned the same nonsense as you. We learned in SCHOOL that George Washington cut down a cherry tree and he could not tell a lie. We never learned of the genocide of the Native Americans. We never learned about how blacks were enslaved - unless you count the glossy, sugar-coated version... We spent lots of time learning about Abe Lincoln and his lack of a formal education and how he learned to write by using a hunk of coal on the back of a shovel. We also dressed up in pilgrim and Indian costumes and had a fake-feast. We never learned anything meaningful about art. Science was not a focus for us girls -- In fact, we were told, as little girls, that we didn't really have the aptitude for such lofty thinking. Girls were openly discouraged from focusing on the sciences. We got to dissect worms and frogs but we had to work with a boy because they were just better at dealing with guts.

In about the fifth grade we learned about Hawaii and how we "welcomed" them into the USA as our 50th state. Not one word was mention about the true nature of the colonialization of that atoll.

It was, on its own, a very myopic view of the world -- I was fortunate to be able to read very well and I digested everything I could -- My real education was through the books I read.

But most of all, I learned about the world by watching The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Rocket J. Squirrel taught me some very valuable lessons. The Russians were funny and not too smart. Fractured Fairy Tales were lots better than the fairy tale stories I had read. Mr. Peabody and his friend Sherman had fun with history. Mr. Know it All really didn't know it all.

I learned everything I know about technical stuff from watching Rocky and Bullwinkle:
Bullwinkle: This is the amplifier, which amplifies the sound. And this is the preamplifier, which, of course, amplifies the pree.

[SHRED]

34. Gilligan

You are awesome "little buddy".



:loveya:

[China_cat]

29. You forgot

learning that men have one fewer ribs and 4 more teeth than women. (Yes, in a PUBLIC school)

[mitchum]

30. That's why I like teaching Special Ed...

where I instruct my students in life skills.
I never have to fill their heads with jingoistic American rah rah rah happy horseshit in order to normalize them into good little spoonfed consuming Americans.

[otherlander]

32. Not here, but we're a blue state.

They always taught us about the destruction of native civilizations; it's standart curriculum here. They didn't glorify Columbus or the Conquistadores or try to whitewash slavery, women's rights, civil rights, or the lack thereof. But I guess that it's probably a lot different in red states, seeing as schools aren't federally run. Just my opinion, there should be some sort of nation-wide laws about what gets taught. This past year, I luckily had a history teacher who really encouraged debate.

But I can't say that they ever taught us about hemp... I was reading the other replies, made a note to myself to read the books that people reccomended.

[Bridget Burke]

39. Which blue state?

Apparently you're still in school. But you just KNOW that all Blue State schools are progressive & all Red State schools aren't.

Your education is just beginning.

[evirus]

41. try the special ed public school system circa 1990's

not much better realy, being diagnosed with a learning disability, i didnt find my education vary helpful and even now some of the things i learned are being ripped from my head with much social embarassment.