Editors gone wild

Have you all heard about the big vote coming up in Texas? It's with the State Board of Education, and they're voting on some revisions in textbooks. Nothing major, really...just a few changes here and there, tidying up a few messy historical matters, editing a few troublesome details and oh yeah...totally rewriting history in order to further these fundamentalist yahoos' own religious and political agendas! Think I'm joking?

Among the recommendations facing a final vote: adding language saying the country's Founding Fathers were guided by Christian principles and including positive references to the Moral Majority, the National Rifle Association and the GOP’s Contract with America.

Other amendments to the state's curriculum standards for kindergarten through 12th grade would minimize Thomas Jefferson's role in world and U.S. history because he advocated the separation of church and state; require that students learn about "the unintended consequences" of affirmative action; assert that "the right to keep and bear arms" is an important element of a democratic society; and rename the slave trade to the "Atlantic triangular trade.”

This is, of course, alongside the usual "teach the controversy" crap in which evolution is taught as a theory and intelligent design as a viable option.

All of these revisions are ridiculous—I find the new name for the slave trade especially appalling, as should anyone who has bothered to learn even the most fundamental things about the practice and the war that resulted from it—but you know which one really gets to me? The ousting of Thomas Jefferson from his rightful place as one of the major players in the framing of the government of our country.

Jefferson had his flaws (see slavery comments above), but there is no denying that he was a towering intellect and one of the greatest statesmen and philosophers the world has ever experienced. I truly believe that, and don't feel that it is an exaggeration at all. According to the Texas Board of Education, Jerry Falwell, Newt Gingrich, Charlton Heston, and Phyllis fuckin' Schlafly have more significance to our country than Thomas Jefferson.

Of all the memorials to various figures that I've seen in our nation's capitol, the Jefferson Memorial is my favorite. It is a lovely structure, and although grand, it is also beautiful in its simplicity. A large rotunda, with a 19 foot tall statue of Jefferson in the center, the surrounding walls inscribed with Jefferson's words. I remember walking the interior of the memorial, looking up as I read Jefferson's words, and I was struck by his intellect, his eloquence, and most importantly, his vision. He didn't just see how things should be in his moment in time; he saw the need to frame our documents so that we could change as we grew and matured as a country. This is my favorite inscription in the memorial:

I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

That's right. Jefferson fully intended that the Constitution would change over time. The basic tenets concerning human rights must remain the same, but as we become more enlightened, we adapt by adding (or repealing...I love you, 21st Amendment! <sip>) amendments. (The "all men are created equal" part was finally expanded to include other than white male Christians, for example.) But I digress. I am dismayed that the Texas BOE would think that it is perfectly reasonable to exclude Jefferson from a place of importance in history textbooks. He's only the main architect of our republic and our Constitution, the same Constitution that they claim to love so dearly. I guess their love for the Constitution's primary author stops when he advocates the separation of church and state.

Why does the Texas Board of Education matter to me? Well, beyond the fact that we should all be concerned about what kids in Texas are being taught in our schools—some of these kids will be the national leaders of tomorrow, and I think we should expect that they will be taught, not indoctrinated—the Texas school system is so large that they are the second biggest buyer of textbooks after California, so many of the revisions they specify are used in textbooks around the country. Texas's revisionist history could very well make it to the textbooks of your children. Do you really want your kids learning more about the NRA and Phyllis Schlafly rather than Thomas Jefferson? If so, what is wrong with you?

How many times do we have to quote Moynihan: You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts. Excluding Thomas Jefferson, one of our greatest thinkers and one of the world's most amazing intellectuals, from history books because he understood the importance of the separation of government from religion is not just crazy. It is dangerous.

Fancy book-larnin’…Texas Style!

I read this Washington Post piece about the nationwide influence of the Texas Board of Education first on PZ Myers' blog, then Darren and Dan posted it on Facebook (thanks to all). It's a long one, but it's one I read all the way through because I think it's important. If you get a chance, I encourage you to read the entire thing.

I found it shocking, dismaying, and appalling to realize that these yahoos are influencing what American children are learning in school. They make no bones about their anti-science bias and their desire to have creationism, despite its obvious fallacy, taught in schools. This is bad enough, but they don't stop there; they want to rewrite history.

• They have sought to remove the New Deal from a timeline of significant historical events because some thought it was a little too socialist in nature
• They want to call Reagan's 1983 military intervention in Grenada a “rescue” rather than an “invasion”
• They demanded that publishers remove illustrations of techniques for breast self-examination
• They wanted publishers to exchange a photo of a woman carrying a briefcase for one of a mother baking a cake
• They feel that Joseph McCarthy has been "vindicated," and want him to take his place in American history as some sort of hero
• They want textbooks to highlight conflicts with Islamic cultures, and to portray them as part of the West's ongoing battle with Muslim extremists
• They agree that people like Martin Luther King Jr. have a place in history, but they feel that they shouldn’t be given credit for advancing the rights of minorities (because only majorities can do that)
• They mandated the teaching of climate-change denial; they removed any reference to the universe being roughly fourteen billion years old, because that doesn't jibe with biblical accounts of creation

Going beyond politics, history, and science, they even had issue with the language arts teams (mostly teachers and curriculum planners), saying that their draft submissions didn't focus enough on basic grammar and focused too much on reading comprehension and critical thinking. One of the conservative board members (an insurance salesman with no college degree) said, “This critical-thinking stuff is gobbledygook.”

You know, to him, I don't doubt that it was.

The problem here is that Texas has a huge influence on what is published in textbooks that are used nationwide; California also a huge influence and a more liberal one, but with their budget problems, they won't be adopting new textbooks for a while. This leaves Texas and its reactionary, right wing Board in charge of what kids are learning all across the nation.

Educators across the country are taking notice, and the lock of these ultra-conservatives on the board seems to be waning. But when such a group of people has a major say in what is taught in American classrooms, everyone needs to take notice. I may not have kids of my own, but I do care about the future of this country, and I want our kids to be taught sound science, accurate history, and yes, critical thinking! I don't want our curricula coming from a bunch of addle-brained idiots blinded by their religion. Here's a quote from Don McElroy, who was the Chairman of the Board until he got a little too far right even for Texans, and the state legislature refused to confirm him for another term:

“Remember Superman? The never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way? Well, that fight is still going on. There are people out there who want to replace truth with political correctness. Instead of the American way they want multiculturalism. We plan to fight back—and, when it comes to textbooks, we have the power to do it. Sometimes it boggles my mind the kind of power we have.”

Multiculturalism? I wonder where McElroy's ancestors hail from? McElroy, McElroy...sounds sort of...I don't know...IRISH to me. He obviously doesn't give a rat's ass about the history of his own people, who were looked down upon as ignorant potato farmers by the people who had been keeping house here already for several decades, who also weren't from here originally! It's this kind of ignorance and intolerance that makes me go out of my mind with frustration, and the thought of this dipshit having a hand in what children other than his own (poor little rug rats will probably end up just like their idiot dad, unless they start doing some critical thinking) are taught in school should make us all very afraid.

And yes, that's right--the guy helping to choose the textbooks of our nation's children is referencing a fucking comic book as some sort of ideal America.