July 10, 2006

As if this would help their dismal education system

Oh wait, that's right, they're trying to run it into the ground so they can convince people to support vouchers and Ave Maria Landia.


The following section, relating to the required curriculum, of the Florida Omnibus Education Bill was recently passed by the Florida legislature and signed by Gov. Jeb Bush (declared, incidentally, by the Weekly Standard on its cover as "the best governor in America"):

(g) The history of the United States, including the

2 period of discovery, early colonies, the War for Independence,

3 the Civil War, the expansion of the United States to its

4 present boundaries, the world wars, and the civil rights

5 movement to the present. The history of the United States

6 shall be taught as genuine history and shall not follow the

7 revisionist or postmodernist viewpoints of relative truth.

8 American history shall be viewed as factual, not as

9 constructed, shall be viewed as knowable, teachable, and

10 testable, and shall be defined as the creation of a new nation

11 based largely on the universal principles stated in the

12 Declaration of Independence.

What can this possibly mean? Would it be permissible for a history teaching in Florida to present, say, conflicting views of the Jacksonians and the Cherokees regarding the forced removal from Georgia, on the ground that it is simply a fact, and not constructed, that there were, indeed, conflicting views regarding the forced removal? Query, is it permitted to call it "The Trail of Tears," given that this is certainly a "constructed" term, just as, indeed, is the case with "the Holocaust" (see Peter Novick's excellent book on the subject) or, for that matter, "the French and Indian War, which is the American name for the Seven Years War.

Note that the young must be taught that that it is simply the case (and not a constructed notion) that the "new nation [was] based largely on universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence." Does the "largely" allow a Florida teacher to note that these "univeral principles" were denied with regard to (for starters) slaves, women, indentured servants and others without property, Jews, "Mohammedans," in some colonies non-Protestants, etc., or are these "constructed" notions.

...

Is this legislation basically harmless venting by ignorami who should simply be ridiculed by people like me (and, I suspect, most of the readers of this blog), or is it something "we" should be worried about? I omit, of course, the third option, which is that reasonable people should be grateful that the Florida legislature is willing to stand up to the "relativists" and "post-modernists" who are destroying America. Am I wrong to do so?

If it wasn't so sad, I'd be laughing my ass off at "venting by ignorami."

Via Alas, a blog.

Posted by binky at July 10, 2006 01:06 AM | TrackBack | Posted to Florida | The Academy


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