Texas Board of Education at it again Banning textbooks

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Surely, though, there are very few subjects in which the political inclination of the authors matters? If I were to buy a maths textbook, it would not cross my mind for a moment to consider whether its author was left or right wing. It's only really a very few subject - history and economics spring to mind - where it could be a factor in introducing bias into the material taught.

History is the big one, with CA's "must show diversity" clashing heavily with TX's "must be pro-American" rules. (The problem isn't so much that TX has rules about what can be in its textbooks; it's that publishers want to make one textbook for all 50 states, and that means matching everyone's rules, with TX & CA being the heavy hitters that can force changes by threatening not to buy books.)

Anything that touches on history also gets affected... Economics, Civics, Sociology (if there are high schools that teach Sociology after the last couple decades of budget cuts); sometimes even foreign language textbooks.

The Christian dogmatists have managed to get a wedge into all the sciences, by insisting that evolution be labeled a "theory," meaning, in their mind "nobody should believe this until there's any proof." Biology, geology, astronomy, and chemistry textbooks all get affected by the insistence that "the earth is only 6000 years old" be given equal consideration with the science the rest of us deal with.

English Grammar classes aren't affected (except in their choices of examples & artwork), but Literature classes are, because the selection of literature is not supposed to clash with state rules about what values need to be presented in textbooks. CA's rules might require a notable percentage of minority authors; TX's might require that none of the stories be anti-government.

CA & TX don't have directly contradictory rules (erm, except for the creationist bits), but trying to match both means that publishers work to come up with the most bland and non-controversial textbooks they can manage, rather than books that will inspire thought and conversation.

[HarryT]

Thanks, Elfwreck - I didn't realise that textbooks could be such a minefield! I don't think that any of that kind of thing affects us here in the UK; we don't have any such regulation of selection of textbooks, to the best of my knowledge.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Thanks, Elfwreck - I didn't realise that textbooks could be such a minefield! I don't think that any of that kind of thing affects us here in the UK; we don't have any such regulation of selection of textbooks, to the best of my knowledge.

I raised an eyebrow as well when I read the regulation as stated in the link that mrscoach gave us earlier (I assume this refers to the teaching of history and economics):

Texas Education Code Sec. 28.002.

(h) The State Board of Education and each school district shall foster the continuation of the tradition of teaching United States and Texas history and the free enterprise system in regular subject matter and in reading courses and in the adoption of textbooks. A primary purpose of the public school curriculum is to prepare thoughtful, active citizens who understand the importance of patriotism and can function productively in a free enterprise society with appreciation for the basic democratic values of our state and national heritage.

I'd be interested in seeing how the UK regulation approaches this. I would have thought that the primary purpose of education was to present the facts and build reasoning ability.

Edit: note, I'm not dismissing this, and I do see that the word thoughtful is in there. I was just surprised that it was so specific.

Graham

[TGS]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Thanks, Elfwreck - I didn't realise that textbooks could be such a minefield! I don't think that any of that kind of thing affects us here in the UK; we don't have any such regulation of selection of textbooks, to the best of my knowledge.

I think we (you? - being an ex-pat) are more concerned with political correctness than with particular perspectives. Having said that Marxism used to be taught as part of the Agreed Syllabus for RE, but was dropped.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by TGS

I think we (you? - being an ex-pat) are more concerned with political correctness than with particular perspectives. Having said that Marxism used to be taught as part of the Agreed Syllabus for RE, but was dropped.

Yes, I'd certainly agree with that. My brother-in-law is an RE teacher (Religious Education, for our friends' benefit) and there's now great stress laid in covering all the major world religions equally. In my day (early 70s) RE just covered Christianity and nothing else.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Graham

I'd be interested in seeing how the UK regulation approaches this. I would have thought that the primary purpose of education was to present the facts and build reasoning ability.

<homeschooler rant>The focus of public schools in the US is to be "an essential support system for a vision of social engineering that condemns most people to be subordinate stones in a pyramid that narrows to a control point as it ascends."

The methods were strongly influenced by Alexander Inglis's 1918 book, Principles of Secondary Education (apologies for the Comic Sans for anyone who follows the link):

Inglis, for whom a lecture in education at Harvard is named, makes it perfectly clear that compulsory schooling on this continent was intended to be just what it had been for Prussia in the 1820s: a fifth column into the burgeoning democratic movement that threatened to give the peasants and the proletarians a voice at the bargaining table. Modern, industrialized, compulsory schooling was to make a sort of surgical incision into the prospective unity of these underclasses. Divide children by subject, by age-grading, by constant rankings on tests, and by many other more subtle means, and it was unlikely that the ignorant mass of mankind, separated in childhood, would ever re-integrate into a dangerous whole.

Teaching kids how to think, and giving them a good foundation in several subjects, has always been secondary to teaching them how to sit down & shut up & do as they're told, in US public schools.
</rant>

[ardeegee]

On Badastronomy today:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/ba...otential-cure/

Note at the bottom links to earlier news on the TBoE, but not (I think) a direct link to this one:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/ba...000-years-old/

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by AlQaedainMiami

Oh we've got plans for texas. Soon every high school will be converted into a Madrassah! And Presedent Buush will be Muslim!! Mwahahahahaha!!

20 bucks says an ISP trace puts him posting from the same ISP as terrazoids...

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Yes, I'd certainly agree with that. My brother-in-law is an RE teacher (Religious Education, for our friends' benefit) and there's now great stress laid in covering all the major world religions equally. In my day (early 70s) RE just covered Christianity and nothing else.

In the early 80s, we covered a fair few religions in RE, especially at the start, although bias in terms of time spent was given to Christianity and to a lesser degree Judaism. We did once have to write an essay comparing several of them and from that conclude which one we thought was best. I didn't endear myself to my RE teacher by concluding I preferred the Norse religions and gave as my reason that they had better stories... Thankfully it was only a mandatory subject for a short period of time.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Teaching kids how to think, and giving them a good foundation in several subjects, has always been secondary to teaching them how to sit down & shut up & do as they're told, in US public schools.
</rant>

Now that explains an awful lot. On another forum I'm on, someone (an American) was complaining that her child had been excluded because he had asked why he was being singled out for not following a dress code, when others were being ignored. The overwhelming response from other Americans was that he should have just accepted it and obeyed without questioning, and maybe complained through the correct channels later - but that it would probably be better if he didn't. That kind of thinking is absolutely foreign to me, and would have been to most of my contemporaries at school.

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

20 bucks says an ISP trace puts him posting from the same ISP as terrazoids...

I'm more inclined to think it's someone else, but that depends on whether the account was created before or after terrazoid's suspension...

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

20 bucks says an ISP trace puts him posting from the same ISP as terrazoids...

Yeah, that's likely a sucker bet.

(And the servers have been hanging a bit in the past few minutes-- any possibility someone's attempting a DDoS?)

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

Yeah, that's likely a sucker bet.

(And the servers have been hanging a bit in the past few minutes-- any possibility someone's attempting a DDoS?)

ah the access issues haven't just been me then?

well I just got a load of hay delivered, time to go get it covered up. y'all have fun with our new buddy

[Angst]

Originally Posted by kennyc

...
(CBS/AP) Texas' State Board of Education - following a long history of throwing itself into "culture war" issues - is set to vote Friday on a resolution calling on textbook publishers to limit what they print about Islam in world history books.
...

As long as they remove the current limit, (zero), to what they publish on FSM, I'm all for it.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Angst

As long as they remove the current limit, (zero), to what they publish on FSM, I'm all for it.

FSM???

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by kennyc

FSM???

From the website:
The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, while having existed in secrecy for hundreds of years, only recently came into the mainstream when this letter was published in May 2005.

With millions, if not thousands, of devout worshippers, the Church of the FSM is widely considered a legitimate religion, even by its opponents – mostly fundamentalist Christians, who have accepted that our God has larger balls than theirs.

Some claim that the church is purely a thought experiment, satire, illustrating that Intelligent Design is not science, but rather a pseudoscience manufactured by Christians to push Creationism into public schools. These people are mistaken. The Church of FSM is real, totally legit, and backed by hard science. Anything that comes across as humor or satire is purely coincidental.

--------
Indeed, we are all touched by his noodly appendages.