emilynghiem
Constitutionalist / Universalist
GOP lawmakers intensify complaints about bias in U.S. history exams - Houston Chronicle
Republican lawmaker Dan Fisher, who wrote the bill, complained that the course’s guidelines focus too much on “what is bad about American” and does not teach the idea of "American exceptionalism." The Oklahoma legislator withdrew the bill for revision after facing criticism. But Oklahoma is not the only red state with major issues with the history course’s guidelines.
In Texas, where 47,500 high school students took the test in 2013, Republican representative Ken Mercer said the exam doesn’t talk enough about historic triumphs like the liberation of Holocaust camps or civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar Chavez. A Georgia congressman recently called AP history lessonsanti-free enterprise and presenting a “more politically correct” and “revisionist” version of history.
Conservatives in South Carolina, North Carolina and Colorado also protested the tests guidelines, which do not actually mandate what can and cannot be taught in class. One complaint included not specifically calling World War II veterans “the greatest generation,” and another disliked questions asking students to think critically and assess the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan. In South Carolina, a teacher called not educating students with patriotic lessons amounts to “almost a national-security risk.”
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Instead of this being an adversarial issue, historians teachers and students should be REWARDED for coming up with well-written history books, materials and exams.
Why not collaborate and work out these writing and editing projects as part of the education itself?
Then the versions that get the best reviews and receptions are rewarded with contracts,
and the school district get to vote on which textbooks they want to use, etc.
Make it democratic and educational. Frankly it is interesting to me to see both sides of historic debates, and challenging to find ways to express and include both, so you get the FULL perspective, not just one side over another. Why not show the whole context?
Republican lawmaker Dan Fisher, who wrote the bill, complained that the course’s guidelines focus too much on “what is bad about American” and does not teach the idea of "American exceptionalism." The Oklahoma legislator withdrew the bill for revision after facing criticism. But Oklahoma is not the only red state with major issues with the history course’s guidelines.
In Texas, where 47,500 high school students took the test in 2013, Republican representative Ken Mercer said the exam doesn’t talk enough about historic triumphs like the liberation of Holocaust camps or civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar Chavez. A Georgia congressman recently called AP history lessonsanti-free enterprise and presenting a “more politically correct” and “revisionist” version of history.
Conservatives in South Carolina, North Carolina and Colorado also protested the tests guidelines, which do not actually mandate what can and cannot be taught in class. One complaint included not specifically calling World War II veterans “the greatest generation,” and another disliked questions asking students to think critically and assess the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan. In South Carolina, a teacher called not educating students with patriotic lessons amounts to “almost a national-security risk.”
===============
Instead of this being an adversarial issue, historians teachers and students should be REWARDED for coming up with well-written history books, materials and exams.
Why not collaborate and work out these writing and editing projects as part of the education itself?
Then the versions that get the best reviews and receptions are rewarded with contracts,
and the school district get to vote on which textbooks they want to use, etc.
Make it democratic and educational. Frankly it is interesting to me to see both sides of historic debates, and challenging to find ways to express and include both, so you get the FULL perspective, not just one side over another. Why not show the whole context?