http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/oklahoma-ban-ap-us-history
What do you guys think about this, especially the students in APUSH now?
It’s infuriating. History is history and should be taught they way it happened regardless of whether or not it portrays European settlers and white Americans in a positive light. However, I can’t say I’m surprised this happened. Many schools have been sweeping the Native American genocide, slave trade, etc under the rug for decades.
Sigh… I’m actually surprised that AP Biology hasn’t been a target over that whole evolution thing.
Georgia and parts of Colorado have also talked about eliminating or “modifying” APUSH.
The stupid thing also is that if they “modify” it than most colleges and top universities won’t take their ap credit because they probably won’t pass the exam.
I was required to read “A People’s History of the US” by my APUSH class. Howard Zinn definitely bring up the issues not considered important for centuries. I think while it’s important to teach every fact, it is wrong to indoctrinate certain beliefs to young minds.
This is impossible.
Perhaps we should turn to Mr. Zinn for guidance:
And perhaps my favorite Zinn selection:
I’m on the University of Oklahoma’s student government. We just passed a unanimous condemnation of this moronic initiative.
@marvin100 Let me take back and reiterate every known fact.
If a teacher were to require his students to read Chris Matthew’s Hardball, he should also require his students to read Dr. Ben Carson’s America the Beautiful.
While it is important to find that sufficient balance – as Mr. Zinn eloquently puts – the world we know, the school, the class we know do not follow this prime instruction. Consequently, the classroom, and therefore the students, become the sole victims of NOT the “well-intended & biased” historians, BUT the teacher himself.
So many public uproars today come from extreme, political partisanship explicitly recorded on the teaching materials. Should this be the case? Absolutely not. But is there a way to prevent it? Not unless the teacher changes his political spectrum & ideology (which we know so well occurs often…)
They’re taking a big risk here, getting between upper-middle class families and top-tier colleges. I don’t care if you’re a Republican or a Democrat or a Green – do anything that might incrementally lower their chances of getting into Princeton and you’ll get mauled.
(Oh, and banning the AP from the entire state? Good luck with that!)
For the sake of Oklahomans I hope it’s just a stunt and not an actual policy that they want to move forward with.
@whenhen: Bravo to you and to OU’s student government!
@viphan -
There are more than two views of any given event. It’s false to imagine one can produce “balance” or (worse) “objectivity” by presenting “liberal” and “conservative” views in opposition.
@whenhen - bravo indeed. Well done. Stir it up and get some press!
Good ol’ Oklahomans… haha.
“Rep. Fisher is also successfully navigating his bill – which would replace traditional AP U.S. History courses with a selection of religious sermons, the Ten Commandments, and several Ronald Reagan speeches – through the Oklahoma legislature. It passed committee along a party-line 11-4 vote this week, and is now headed for the full House.”
Oh dear god… How do these idiots even acquire these jobs?
“Oh dear god… How do these idiots even acquire these jobs?”
Maybe – just maybe – because all the “non-idiots” wouldn’t consider compromising their standards and squandering their time by running for and serving in elective office.
WhenHen, congratulations to the student government for standing up to this idiotic initiative.
But I think DmitriR has it right: getting in the middle of upper middle class parents and their offspring’s top tier college choices will not end well for the politicians.
TopTier: that’s a cheap shot. Running for office takes time, money, a team, and a willingness to be pummelled at the slightest pretext. It may affect your children, your employment, your relationship with neighbors and friends. It’s not a matter of “compromising their standards and squandering their time by running for and serving in elective office”.
From a practical point of view, how do you eliminate an AP course from an entire state’s curriculum? Do you threaten to cut funding to schools that offer it?
Do you hope parents who support you will take a stand until the local school stops offering it?
I’m not sure how these officials conceive of history. Clearly, not as an academic discipline. It sounds like they see it as propaganda, mere vehicle for ideology, rather than a legitimate field.
Of course history isn’t “positive”, Americans from the past weren’t saints and geniuses, and it’s frankly insulting to imagine 16 to 18 year olds who are smart enough to take the class will not see through a rose-colored version of history where immigrants were happily welcomed by all and all became prosperous, the settlers were all nice, the “Indians” conveniently died on their own - or deservedly for attacking said poor nice settlers, where slavery is not presented in a “too negative light” (yup apparently AP US History dares to present slavery as something really horrible! And since saintly Americans from the past participated, certainly it couldn’t be that bad - there was that point made a few years back during a “history textbook battle” in Europe, about colonialism “sure there were a few massacres and we exploited them, BUT we built schools and hospitals, without us they’d still be savages basically!” The idea that since “our ancestors” participated, it couldn’t be that bad, is apparently widely shared by various politicians, if not by actual historians.) etc, etc.
- I didn't check but I'm assuming there are more than a couple :)
But, didn’t we learn from Voltaire in AP Literature that we live in the “best of all possible worlds”? Oh, wait, you say he didn’t actually mean that as fact?