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But - why aren't these parents doing their job? Teaching their kids to THINK?
If Daddy wants to present an alternative narrative - then Daddy should DO IT and not count on the school to do everything for him.
One of the most important things to teach our kids is how to see both (or multiple sides) of any issue.
Instead of bitching and moaning about what my son was taught - not all of which I agreed with - I simply let him know there was more than one way of thinking about things.
I have a current college history book sitting here, "Give Me Liberty" by Eric Foner. (post reconstruction)..Some of the things we did wrong were glossed over. Wounded Knee, where the cavalry murdered a couple hundred unarmed Indians, men women and children, is mentioned but not the bad part. The illegal invasion of Hawaii (a sovereign nation) by our military is not even mentioned. Our history is sanitized in the current books.
On the other side, people say that we're not told alot about our atrocities. We were made to glorify people like Columbus and use crayons to color little pictures of happy Indians and Spanish Explorers looking all kid friendly.
Later we find out he was a genocidal prick.
Maybe different schools just teach different things differently. All curriculum lack something. Perhaps the parents should teach their children to read between the lines. Problem is some parents will teach them their personal agendas(this goes for right and left)..
On the other side, people say that we're not told alot about our atrocities. We were made to glorify people like Columbus and use crayons to color little pictures of happy Indians and Spanish Explorers looking all kid friendly.
Later we find out he was a genocidal prick.
Maybe different schools just teach different things differently. All curriculum lack something. Perhaps the parents should teach their children to read between the lines. Problem is some parents will teach them their personal agendas(this goes for right and left)..
Hardly. Most enlightened people know the not so pretty history of Christopher Columbus, Cortez, and others. On the other hand North America would be under the control of the Aztecs, Comanches, or other similar group that was the most agressive. Every country and people in the world has been conquered and reconquered time again. If some alternative supposedly more peaceful timeline is supposed to exist if the Spanish did not set foot on American shores none of us would exist today, and any peaceful people that may have existed would be long conquered by a neighboring more aggressive tribe. If we didnt have Columbus you can just as well throw out your current text books that brought you the knowledge you gained from your history books that you stated above.
History does not exist in a vacuum, your cell phone, your car, your grocery store, or any other convenience that our current historic timeline has brought us would also not exist today.
So my Daughter took a world history class this year with a focus on 20th century history. For nearly half the year she was taught about Nazi Germany in the 30-40s, Hitler, Fascism, etc but was taught NOTHING, and I mean nothing, about the rise of Marxist-Leninist governments in the 20th century. So she knew all about the 6 million people Hitler killed but nothing about the 100 million people Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, Kim, Etc killed. This is almost revisionist history by way of omission. To make matters worse in some of her social classes she is actually taught Marxist ideology in a positive light! Our schools are doing a huge disservice to these kids. I was taught that both Communism and Fascism played equally bad roles in my 20th century history class, and extremism in any way is a failed ideology. Why has the curriculum changed so much in 20 years? Has anyone else had this experience with their kids in the US public education system?
Obviously, you need to take a more active role in your daughter's school and attend more school board meetings.
You might want to have a talk with the teacher as well.
I got kicked out of a student-teaching experience, because I was heavily critical of the teacher who spent six weeks on the US Civil War. My point was that if she couldn't teach the Civil War in three days, she ought not be teaching. I mean it was really grotesque. She read off of her college notes and students wrote down everything she said, which included casualty figures from battles, the location and date of battles and the general officers who commanded, and then they would have memorize that garbage for the test.
That is not teaching and it's totally inappropriate for high school and undergraduate college course-work as well. Battles and casualty figures are for someone pursuing a Master's or Doctoral degree.
All countries save Australia have a had a civil war, civil wars revolve around concepts, and the three primary concepts can be taught in three days. It's sufficient to mention the total battlefield casualties for the parties involved, in order to demonstrate that civil wars are generally very bloody, but not necessary to make students memorize that statistic, since it serves no useful purpose in life.
She had serious issues with my treatment of the Emancipation Proclamation. I gave student vocabulary words from the Proclamation as homework, then a quiz on the vocabulary the next day, and then we dived into the Proclamation and students on their own came to the correct conclusion that it didn't free any slaves, and I added that it was a propaganda tool to quell opposition to the Civil War by the Abolitionists and other groups. She was quite horrified.
Six months on Hitler's Germany is appalling.
Any competent teacher can cover WW II in 10-12 days, including the Versailles Treaty, the Wiemar Republic, Hitler's rise to power, the Anschluss, the European Theater, the Holocaust, the Potsdam Conference, Allied Occupation, the US, Japanese, British, French, Belgian and Italian colonies in China, the rise of Japan, the Pacific Theater and Japan's surrender.
I can't imagine how bored students would be spending 4-6 month's on Hitler's Germany, and after all that, I'll bet they learned nothing of value.
The pace my kids did history at I don't know how they spent months on anything. My kids seemed to sail through stuff.
There are ways for parents to get involved in the schools. You can help in the classrooms, help at the board level, offer up suggestions for curriculum.
I know one parent who was concerned about the science curriculum -- or the fact that many of the teachers didn't follow it too closely.
At this one school she actively raised funds to supplement the classroom resources -- and created a phenomenal 'science lab' with resources for the teachers. She then continued finding funds for educating the teachers on how to teach the curriculum.
I know not every parent has the skill set or time to do that but most certainly if you have concerns with the curriculum it would be a good idea to contact the school board with your concerns.
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