From: Arlo J. Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Tue Nov 09 2004 - 05:00:14 GMT
Hi Mark,
> I agree with Scott here. There's plenty of idiocy to go around.
No argument from me on this. If I've been lopsided in my criticisms, it has been
a defensive reaction.
> A high school teaching Creationism, as backward as this would be,
> wouldn't impair our children's ability to think nearly so much as
> what passes for United States History.
Isn't this the truth. I have a 11 year old daughter, and i've been over the
columbus lunacy with her many times. What I teach her (or try to) are (what I
firmly believe to be) the 2 most important educational outcomes: (1) critical
thinking, and (2) cross-cultural competence.
I have a close friend who works with the Tennessee BOE, the nightmares on
textbook adoption, even those that make the news, are scantily known to those
outside the process. What is frustrating, as you are likely well aware and
familiar with, is how the uncritically applied label "liberal bias" is used by
the right-wing to dismiss any academic endeavor that does not stroke the
"America the Great and Pure" nonsense. Notice how Platt (although he is
emblamatic of the greater problem) so readily dismisses any research
illustrating horrors committed by the "white man" (the Indian genocide), and
yet so readily embraces those same academics when their research illustrates
the horrors of "20th century communism". The Texas BOE is quite probably today
the decisive factor in textbook adoption nationwide. To appease Texas, all our
history books suffer from the perspective of childlike fables, all reifying a
false consciousness in the guise of nationalistic pride. I believe the author
of "Lies My Teacher Told Me" faced a similar problem in Alabama (if I remember
correctly) because he accurately discussed lynchings. This upset the
white-man-so-good mentality of the good ol' boys, and hence was censored (at
the time this book had gone to press).
How come people don't get all
> bunged up about that, I wonder?
>
Four meetings with the school and my daughter's teachers thus far into the year,
and I live in central pennsylvania with one of the strongest school districts
around (thanks to the influence of the universtity). So, some of us do anyway.
:-)
> The nonsense of fundamentalist Christianity is the LEAST of our
> educational problems, IMO.
I may disagree just slightly, as it is spillover from "conservative" textbook
policies that do effect the landscape nationwide. But, your point is well
taken.
Even a moderately bright student will
> detect the sillyness of Creation v Evolution.
Here I can only hope you are correct. I want to believe critical thinking
skills, necessary for this detection, are being fostered, but some of the
things I hear... It's scary. Still, I admire your faith.
What's spooky in its
> subtlety is that that same student will graduate believing that the
> United States Government (owned and operated by the Fortune 500) acts
> everywhere and always in the best interest of of its citizens and all
> of mankind.
And to say otherwise marks you as a "traitor" or a "liberal academic with an
agenda". Here, cross-cultural competence is so vital, getting people learning
second and third languages, interacting with other cultures-- and not just
European but Indonesian, Asian and African, areas with significant cultural
differences who have been impacted by american hegemony. All schools should
require AT LEAST two non-american sources for reports, whether news programs or
literary. It is shameful how few students look outside very narrow, very
fractured, nationalistic media channels.
> Folks, Christianity, even at it's silliest fundamentalist worst, is
> not our biggest problem. WUASTC.
>
Not familiar with this acronymn. ??? But again, I do appreciate the reality
check.
Arlo
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