What You Don't Know CAN Hurt You - Accurate US History Must Be Taught

Our first paper was entitled, "Common Core State Standards; An Introduction to Marxism 101". That paper - and our subsequent arguments that Common Core amounted to socialized education - earned us the ire of the Daily Oklahoman (and others).  In fact, ROPE began as an organization devoted to increasing student knowledge of the Constitution and accurate US History, which, quite apparently, we do not have in Oklahoma, as a rule, today.

Recently, the College Board (under the guidance of David Coleman, the architect of the Common Core State Standards) has decided to revise their AP US History curricula and tests.  Fortunately, this has created a furor from many quarters, not the least of those our friends at American Principles Project - Emmett McGroarty and Jane Robbins who have a new editorial in Daily Caller:

To summarize, the private College Board is rewriting its AP courses, starting with AP U.S. History (APUSH).  The new APUSH framework departs radically from the traditional AP course and now reflects a progressive philosophy and leftist bias. Forget the Founding Fathers and the principles of the Declaration of Independence that proclaimed the natural right of freedom and self-government; concentrate instead on the racist cultural imperialism that supposedly built America.

Why does this matter? Why in the world should we care about David Coleman, Howard Zinn, the Centers for American Progress, or any of the other active, involved, progressive/liberal organizations pushing a 'kinder, gentler view of America' in public schools to color, or even discard, historical truth in favor of something more palatable within the confines of our new Politically Correct society?

Because once we refuse to understand that our rights are granted to us by God (or are inherently our own once we are born if you oppose the 'religious' viewpoint) and not man (via Government), we become SUBJECTS and not FREE MEN. Once we begin to stop reading/studying US History for ourselves - including and mainly our Constitution - we become ignorant of the way our government works and how our rights are to be UPHELD by the government and not usurped. In fact, once individuals become ignorant of our rights, for all intent and purpose, we have none because as the government grows unchecked by the citizenry it is meant to protect (not govern), we can only become less and less free. Once we become ignorant of what the Constitution says, what the Founders meant it to say and the arguments surrounding why it says what it does, we aren't knowledgeable enough to know truth when we're faced with deception.

I'll give you an example. Not long ago I was at a meeting with someone I really admire, when we began to say the Pledge of Allegience to open the meeting. As we began the line, "One nation under God", I was surprised to hear him recite, "One confederacy under God." As soon as the Pledge was over, I asked him why he changed the wording from "nation" to "confederacy". He told me he believed this part of the pledge (added about 50 years ago when Communism was a significant issue worldwide) was included not simply to instill patriotism in the face of Communism, but to break down the notion of the 10th Amendment to the Constitution - to make people feel as though we're all one big country; one big mass of citizenry, not individual persons. 

Because America is a confederacy of states that only come together under the umbrella of the federal government to promote the general welfare of the states through the 20 Enumerated Powers held forth in the Constitution, we can't be a nation. America is simply a group of states, yet how many of us actually know that? Goodness knows our state and federal lawmakers don't appear to. 

Though I've studied up on the Constitution (in fact, the kids and I are to be taking a Constitution class right now), my friend's analysis hit me like a ton of bricks. I'd never thought of that. Why? Because I didn't know enough to consider this idea.

My gosh, I think of all the times I sang "This Land Is Your Land" in Girl Scouts, and though we never sang the really controversial lyrics, it bothers me to this day to know Woody Guthrie's thoughts about America - those to which I don't subscribe. Looking back I wonder how so many of us don't recognize the absolute stunning nature of the development of this country, what it's done for other nations around the world (would Japan have recovered from WWII without us? What about Europe?) and what a stabilizing force it's been in relation to Communism and other threats to liberty all over the world - how it's provided a nation of individuals who can possess and amass more personal goods and wealth than any other two countries put together.

Granted, it's hard to find time to study the Constitution - or even find reputable sources for study - however, it is up to us as individual citizens to know our rights and responsibilities as citizens; and if you believe simply voting covers them, you need knowledge most.

Unfortunately, today, messaging is everything and most people still get their news from main media sources (including FOX news). Because we don't know the Constitution and we aren't sure of the way state and federal governments should work, we get 'suckered' into believing things like national healthcare or national educational standards (Common Core) are good (this article by Bill Evers of the Hoover Institution - part of his testimony to the Ohio state legislature against Common Core - is wonderful in this regard, please read!). These notions are made to sound good - made to influence people who are ignorant of the way American government SHOULD function under the Constitution - so much so, in fact, that those of us who bang the Constitution drum are now called names as part of that messaging campaign.

The world has become a busy place for people - parents especially - but, as sad as it is to say, baseball practice and soccer games should be taking a backseat to understanding and study of America's form of government. If we don't, America will end as Rome, sure as history repeats itself when forgotten.

"A REPUBLIC Ma'am - If you can keep it!"

For those of you who have been educated in public schools and have not done any outside reading on your own, the man above is Benjamin Franklin - a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States - an American Founding Father.

I say this in the most snarky possible way because until the other day, I had not read the 'new' Oklahoma Social Studies Standards, adopted by the State School Board in March of last year. 

For those of you who don't know, ROPE was begun when myself (Jenni) and my friend Julie McKenzie realized that young adults in America must not have been taught the fundamentals of US Government, its founding and the Constitution if we were to expand government the way we did under Bush's last term and then go on to elect Barrack Obama. 

If you don't know, our current state superintendent (Janet Barresi) told ROPE (when we complained bitterly to her about the Common Core State Standards) we shouldn't worry our silly heads about this because we would just LOVE the History standards she was working.  We would be proud of these standards because she would have prominent historian David Barton be a part of the working group to create them. 

ROPE wasn't aware there was a working group until November of last year. We didn't even know the standards had been approved until yesterday! Yes, I'm sure the Department of Education put them out for public comment, but how odd is it that a watchdog group dedicated to public education wouldn't know that the state history standards had been completed and were up for review? If we didn't know, WHAT PARENT/TAX PAYER DID?  

In fact, there is a rule change about the Oklahoma State Standards open for public comment currently (through March 25, 2013) on the State Department of Education website.  Did you know that?  Yes, here is the link, right here:   Here is the link to ALL of the current (well current until the rule change is decided) standards.  C3 is Dr. Barresi's way of taking Common Core State Standards and marrying them to standards produced in Oklahoma, producing our own (well, by way of Jeb Bush in Florida of course).  We get the best of both worlds that way, right?  Well NO.  I'll talk about the science standards in another blog!

At any rate, after meeting with David Barton last November at his Pro-Family Legislative Conference, he told us he had come to Oklahoma at Janet Barresi's invitation and had been part of the working group, but he didn't really contribute anything. He said he told the teachers assembled they needed to include American Exceptionalism in their standards and they refused.  

 American Exceptionalism is the notion that America is exceptional because we a Republic - a nation with a Constitution that protects citizens FROM their government by laws - and that our laws are derived by our CREATOR unlike those in any other nation in the world in order to impart upon us NATURAL rights that are not given by the government, nor can they be taken away by the government.  

This is more than frustrating!  How can a teacher object to that?  American history teachers don't WANT the government to be able to protect citizens from itself?  They don't want students to know they live in a country that protects their personal, individual rights through a form of government found in no other country in the world ?  Here is the video where he discusses this with Glenn Beck on his election program from last year. 

I can see why Mr. Barton was so upset. Please read the standards when you have a minute.

Our biggest complaint is on page 11.  It appears the ENTIRE set of standards is predicated on the following notion:

"The goal of civics and government is to develop literate, informed, competent, and responsible citizens who are politically aware and active and committed to the fundamental values and principles of American constitutional democracy." 

What? America is a Constitutional Democracy? NO. It is a Constitutional REPUBLIC. There is an ENORMOUS difference between the two. No wonder Barton wasn't happy with what he was hearing.  This is the same exact thing my co-founder Julie McKenzie and I fought when we first started ROPE!  We found this same nonsense in our OLD Oklahoma State Standards and tied the phrase right back to the Progressive Policy Institute!!!  Basically, Superintendent Barresi told us one thing and absolutely DID ANOTHER!  We don't have 'new' standards 'informed' (to use one of the 'educrat' terms) by David Barton, but a re-hash of the same old tired standards Oklahoma had before which are teaching children INACCURATE information!

Why are we teaching this to kids in America - especially in OKLAHOMA - the reddest state in the UNION!?  Maybe you'd better talk to our state school board and find out!

Attack of the 50-Foot History Teacher

 

I read the most fantastic, truly enlightening (in a, “I can’t believe they really just came fully out of the liberal closet” way) article recently, entitled, “Response: Ways To Deal With ‘History Myths’ In the Classroom" by an author named Larry Ferlazzo. 

After the first election of Barack Obama as president of the United States, I came to the sudden conclusion that America must be educating our youth improperly or incompletely in US History to have so many voters not know what a “Marxist” was and/or how to spot one.  Consequently, I began doing research in US History education in Oklahoma.  What I found startled me enough to co-found an organization (Restore Oklahoma Public Education) dedicated to exposing public education in our state.

“Response” has the dubious honor of containing nearly every category of leftist education drivel I have studied and/or cataloged over the last four years.  After reading this article, I thought it might be helpful to point out to readers a few of the ways it is disingenuous.  Over the years, I've seen many a parent/voter/taxpayer become simply mesmerized by all the rhetoric education 'experts' bloviate by the bucketfuls in order to finance and perpetuate their tree-hugging, Dewey-loving, social-justice-spreading dismantling of America.   People want the truth about education issues, but like deer in the headlights of a Mac truck, they can't figure out how to get past the loud, scary noise to find it.

Toward this end, I have highlighted some of the more astonishing passages from this article.  As you will note, the depths of self-delusion these people have plumbed to truly believe they are NOT perpetuating history myths themselves is quite fascinating.  In fact, that is the most laughable part of this whole, sad treatise.  “NO, do NOT perpetuate history myths”, the author says.  The only problem with their logic is that apparently the only myths present in the system are those stemming from a conservative (accurate/non-PC) viewpoint.  How do I know?  

Let’s deconstruct Mr. Bizarro’s, oops, I mean Ferlazzo’s article.  To do so, I will provide actual quotes from his writing followed by what I will call a MYTH BUSTER ALERT (MBA).  Hopefully, this will draw attention to the inconsistencies in Mr. Ferlazzo’s philosophies - or at least create a very stark outline of liberal (progressive) education ideals.

Mr. Ferlazzo begins innocently enough by asking the question, 

“What history myths are being perpetuated by textbooks that you attempt to break down/challenge in your classroom? How do you do that”

To answer, the writer steers his reader to some resources he insists can combat this phenomenon:

The Best Teacher Resource Sites For Social Justice Issues, The Best Resources For Teaching "What If?" History Lessons and History materials he uses in his IB (International Baccalaureate) “theory of knowledge” class.  

MBA:  The term Social Justice is a very liberal philosophy of teaching in which "educators may employ social justice instruction to promote unity on campus, as well as mitigate boundaries to the general curriculum. These boundaries often include race, class, ability, language, appearance, sexuality, and gender." Gosh and golly – no room for political views here!

MBA:  The IB curricula are written by UNESCO, the education arm of the UN.  ROPE has studied the IB curricula and it’s penchant for ‘educating for sustainable development’.  Yes, if you know what Agenda 21 is, then UNESCO’s your partner to get ‘er done!  Let the IB curriculum educate children on how to implement Agenda 21 in a city/county/state/country near you!  UNESCO will also help everyone everywhere implement the Common Core (which is both ‘core’ and ‘common’ and decidedly UnAmerican).

Mr. Ferlazzo goes on from there, to introduce three people that will tell you (the US History teacher) how to avoid bringing history myths into the classroom.   

The first one is Stephen Lazar.  Here is a brief CV afforded by the author,

Stephen Lazar, a National Board Certified Social Studies teacher, is co-founder of Harvest Collegiate High School in New York City where he teaches students Social Studies and English, is Assessment Coordinator, and Union Chapter Leader. Over the past two years, Lazar worked with Social Studies teachers across NYC and the nation to support to support inquiry-based instruction, project-based learning, and Common Core implementation. He is a member of the Teacher Leaders Network.

MBA:  Stephen Lazar is a Union Leader (who could forget the many colorful antics of the NEA whose reading list containing Saul Alinsky drew enough fire for them to remove from their site his “Rules For Radicals” as suggested reading) that promotes the Common Core and teaches at a high school employing the following philosophy, "Underlying all of our Habits is recognition of fundamental human dignity, expressed in the unwavering core values of Commitment to Peace, Commitment to Diversity and Commitment to Growth." Can you find anything but liberal buzz words in that definition?  In addition, this is an 'experiential' high school - in other words, very indicative of the John Dewey (Marxist/Socialist) teaching style responsible for much of the education ‘reform’ programs of today and the associated decline of public education.

Mr. Lazar gives himself away immediately:

When I became a teacher a decade ago, I entered the classroom equipped with James Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me and Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States in the other. I was convinced that the largest problem with history education was the absence of certain stories or perspectives from our textbooks. I saw myself as a myth-buster, ready to challenge students' preconceived notions of Columbus as hero or John Brown as insane terrorist.

MBA:  Stephen Lazar actually has the unmitigated gal to turn us ALL toward Howard Zinn – a known Marxist - as a method for DISPENSING historical myth in the classroom.  Truly, this is laughable.  Get a load of this Cap Times (progressive) blog where the writer laments President Obama not invoking the name of Howard Zinn during his inauguration.  After all, the great One should recognize ‘real’ American history and be unafraid and unapologetic about delivering that to the American people.  Really.

Ferlazzo then goes on to a narrative about Rosa Parks, which as a Biology major, I’ll leave for debunking by some historical truth-teller to be named later.

Our next author to respond is ReLeah Cossett Lent.  We’re told she is an international literacy consultant and ASCD author of a book called, Overcoming Textbook Fatigue: 21st Century Tools to Revitalize Teaching and Learning:  Just the title of this book sounds exactly like every John Dewey notion in black and white – kids get bored listening to a teacher, kids need to be active doing projects in order to learn and we can’t really have them in a musty old textbook when they can learn so much from each other!  

MBA:  When I went to look up her book, I found it on the ASCD website.  ASCD stands for Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.  There is a chapter in every state and while Oklahoma’s chapter didn’t put up any obvious red flags, the ASCD full site sure did.  Again, we find here a very progressive (Dewey) education philosophy – ‘whole child’, 21^st Century Skills (very Dewey), ‘health and learning’(page 5).

Ms. Cossett Lent says, 

“Who can know all of the inaccuracies that history textbooks may contain? Experts in one historical area or another often are dismayed at the simplistic, sometimes misleading information presented in textbooks. Simple narratives that distill complex events into a nice story, lists of facts devoid of any emotional underpinning, or unintended bias resulting from the selection of, say, one photograph over another can skew readers' understanding of historical events, perhaps for a lifetime.“

Well goodness!  Who in the world would want kids studying lists of facts?  Facts are certainly politicized mythology, right?

Now, here comes my FAVORITE contributor to the article – Bill Bigelow!  Bill, as we find out from our author, is the curriculum editor of Rethinking Schools magazine.  He also co-directs the online Zinn Education Project, which provides free curriculum materials to help teachers "teach outside the textbook."

MBA:  Ok, I know, Zinn again.  But, here’s a tasty morsel…one of the articles our editor has put on the front page of the Rethinking Schools website is entitled, “Lessons in Social Justice Unionism – An Interview with Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis”.  Yes, absolutely, NO politics there and certainly, there can be ZERO mythology in a story with that title I feel certain.

Of course, his treatise is eye-poppingly progressive!  You really must go to the original article and read the entire thing – unless you’re a conservative with a heart condition and then, I just sincerely don’t recommend the read as it could be hazardous to your health.

Here are a couple of lines to illustrate my point:

And, as Bill McKibben pointed out recently in a remarkable article in Rolling Stone magazine, "Global Warming's Terrifying New Math," from a mathematical standpoint, it is demonstrably impossible to prevent the climate from spinning out of control with unimaginably horrible consequences, if we burn the fossil fuels, including coal, that energy corporations are in the process of exploiting and selling.

When it comes to teaching about what matters in the world, teachers should not rely on textbooks published by enormous corporations that profit from--and in many cases, create--our most dire environmental and social crises. We need to work together through our unions, professional associations, school communities, and activist organizations to build a curriculum of conscience, one that addresses the most significant challenges facing humanity. As June Jordan wrote in her "Poem for South African Women," "We are the ones we have been waiting for."

 Certainly, no mythology present in any of that.

 At the end of the article, Mr. Ferlazzo mentions that quite a few people left responses to his question on The Zinn Education Project's Facebook page.

He then includes a few:

Max Castillo:

That indigenous, Mesoamerican, aboriginal civilizations became civilized through the conquering and interactions with European civilizations. We need to teach our students to value our indigenous cultures and heritage as early as possible.

Dennis Shaffner:

Ask students to question the bias in any textbook: easy in art history if woman artists are omitted.

MBA:  Seriously?  That's too easy to waste the keystrokes.  If you can't see those for yourself, there is most probably no saving you from yourself.

Truly, this situation MUST be seen as THE integral problem with America today - history teachers teaching mythological history aligned fully and completely with their narcissistic, thoughtless worldviews completely ignorant of the history they suggest they know.  How else can you explain the slide of a once-great Republic into the entitlement abyss of socialism? And so I will end with two applicable quotes from Winston Churchill as food for thought - though I’m almost certain there are zero public school graduates under 30 who know who this is.  

Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft.    

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.