In a recent edition of her excellent online newsletter, Letters from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson features the new curriculum requirements in Texas public schools, which requires teachers to “present opposing views on controversial subjects.”
Recently, a fourth-grade teacher, who kept an anti-racism book in her classroom, was reprimanded by the Carroll County School Board apparently (it’s not totally clear) for ignoring the “both sides” requirement. Did the reprimand suggest that an anti-racism text must be balanced by a pro-racism text?
Teachers asked the curriculum director for guidance about what books they could keep in their classrooms.
As reported by Richardson, the curriculum direction replied:
Just try to remember the concepts of [House Bill] 3979. Make sure that if you have a book on the Holocaust, that you have one that has an opposing, that has other perspectives.
The director was asked for specific guidance. If you have a book on the Holocaust in your classroom, what would constitute an acceptable opposing viewpoint?
“Believe me,” the director said. “That’s come up.”
[image_credit]Creative commons photo via Wikimedia/Peter Stevens[/image_credit][image_caption]Heather Cox Richardson[/image_caption]
The rest of Richardson’s essay explores the challenges of teaching even-handed both-sidesist history. But, in addition to preaching both-sidesism, the Texas standards apparently include a list of “topics eliminated from the teaching standard.” I infer that these are things that were in the old standards but not included in the new version, including: “the history of Native Americans,” and “[founding] mothers and other founding persons.”
Under “commitment to free speech and civil discourse,” things that were dropped from the old standards included:
“the writings of…George Washington; Ona Judge (a woman Washington enslaved and who ran away); Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings (the enslaved woman Jefferson took as a sexual companion after the death of his wife, her half-sister…
“…The standards lost Frederick Douglass’s writings, the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850, the Indian Removal Act of 1830 that forced Indigenous Americans off their southeastern lands, and Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists defending the separation of church and state.
“…The standards also lost ‘the history of white supremacy, including but not limited to the institution of slavery, the eugenics movement, and the Ku Klux Klan, and the ways in which it is morally wrong” and “the history and importance of the civil rights movement.”
The full Richardson column on the new Texas standards is right here.
Conservatives looking to rewrite or eliminate history contrary to their narrative? Cue my shocked face…
Fortunately, they are not cueing up to become k-12 teachers, they just want to tell them what to do.
Good luck with that…
Conservatives have become a classic case of borderline personality disorder.
I’m no phycologist, but I am aware that one of the traits of borderline personality disorder is that people afflicted with the condition will often accuse those around them of their own faults. If I drink too much, I accuse you of drinking too much. If I’m sleeping around on my wife, I accuse her of sleeping around on me. This is how conservatives now operate, and this is the latest example.
If someone wants to tear down a statue honoring a Confederate general, the conservatives whine, “But you’re erasing history!” And here we have Texas conservatives erasing history themselves.
They express fealty to the Constitution, but cheer those who tried to shred it on Jan. 6, even pledging allegiance to a flag that was at the Capitol during that attack on democracy. They whine about stolen elections, then set in place machinery to steal future elections. The tell us those dirty libs are anti-American, while they go to spend July 4 in Putin’s Russia!
Whatever they accuse liberals of doing, they are doing in spades.
No need to pathologize it; you’re describing a basic psychological process called projection. Accusing someone else of your own faults.
Recently, an administrator in a Texas school district told teachers they that if they have books about the Holocaust in their classrooms, they should also include reading materials that have “opposing” perspectives of the genocide that killed millions of Jews.
This was reversed after some publicity. But how many times does something like this happen under the radar and without being challenged.
Perhaps I and my fellow members of the flat earth society need to challenge all those round globes in Texas classrooms.
Seems we haven’t come very far since the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial.
A fact based presentation of “opposing” views is justified. Of course, that is the opposite of what Texas Republicans want. One is never obligated to withhold the terrible truth that the world is filled with foolish, selfish, greedy and violent people who intentionally do terrible things to others out of hate and greed.
Why not provide a factual description of the evil people who carried out the Holocaust and the wing nuts who deny it? It is important to teach students about Big Lies because our world is so burdened by them.
I don’t know if she was doing it on purpose, but that administrator in Texas who said that teachers had to show “other perspectives” did a beautiful job of showing how incredibly stupid the Texas law is. There are far too many people who doubt that HaShoah happened, or that it was all that bad, really. In that sense, there is a “controversy.” Similarly, there are too many people who are willing to doubt – while “of course, not right” – that slavery was as bad as it was made out to be, when you consider the economy of the US and that slaveowners “treated slaves well.” There are also those who would try to draw parallels between indentured servitude of Europeans and slavery.
It’s a slippery slope. How much of our past are we willing to ignore in order to avoid making certain types uncomfortable, or (more likely) to avoid letting the marginalized populations of the United States think that yes, they might have legitimat3e grievances?
That is of course the point. They don’t expect “opposing evidence” they expect that teachers will simply omit material inconvenient to the narrative. Banning books while preserving the argument that “we didn’t ban anything”.
If they only really wanted “both sides.” The fake CRT issue seems to be about completely ignoring one side.
The Center of the American Experiment is leading the anti CRT effort here.
Complete and utter nonsense. To listen to them, CRT is a big a problem as alternative energy and the ratio of Norwegian immigrants to Muslim immigrants.
All a bunch of bigoted clap trap to keep their right wing noise machine properly funded. You’ll rarely, if ever, see them with the courage to engage outside of their echo chamber. Their CEO, John Hinderaker, was an alleged very good litigator, capable of making an argument and defending it. He’s put that way into his rear view mirror these days.
I think even Minnpost has realized how terrible that organization has become. Haven’t seen any of their drivel here in awhile.
Of course a different perspective is always a good idea. Isn’t the left always talking about everyone having their own truth, the world is shades of gray?
On a serious note, assuming that the current perspective on the holocaust is from the victims. Would not the perspective of a perpetrator be of educational value? The Germans were not spawned in lakes of fire, they were people not unlike us. To understand how their society devolved, and why, into what they became, as a cautionary tale seems to be of great importance. Especially seeing what has happein the.last year to our society. Maybe we can learn to avoid the same path. Presenting additional perspectives does not necessarily mean condoning what happened
Wells it shouldn’t.
Why would folks intent on following the same “path” be interested in providing a roadmap to avoid it? You underestimate the malevolence inherent in this policy.
The Germans rightly treat the Nazi era with shame, and yes, they learn about how things devolved. We don’t. We put up statues of men who committed treason for the right to be able to own other people, and get upset when people who think we shouldn’t celebrate traitors tear them down, and make movies that romanticize our bad history. We’re not adult enough as a country to learn about how the Germans fell for Nazism. Because we’re in the middle of falling for it ourselves, and the people who need to learn the problems with that devolution are much more willing to celebrate it than be ashamed of it. Apparently being ashamed of being a bad person or doing bad things is a bad thing these days.
“Isn’t the left always talking about everyone having their own truth, the world is shades of gray?”
No.
“Would not the perspective of a perpetrator be of educational value?”
Is that perspective presented as just another opinion? Do we consider the viewpoint of the Holocaust denier?
If all perspectives are supposed to be considered, there is no logical reason to oppose the teaching of CRT in schools.
“If all perspectives are supposed to be considered, there is no logical reason to oppose the teaching of CRT in schools”
Very true. And if Texas includes “1776 Project” like materials in their curriculum they are now legally obligated to teach CRT.
You’re being absurd here. A good history course on WWII will certainly talk about social/political/economic events in Germany that formed the rise of the Nazi Party, but that doesn’t mean you need to give the perspective of the perpetrators of the Holocaust on the Holocaust. This idea is how you get foolishness like Southerners pretending the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery, as the self-serving “reflections” from the perpetrators try to make excuses for their behavior. Presenting “another perspective” on the Holocaust implicitly suggests that there might have been acceptable reasons for participating in, enabling, or looking the other way in the systemic eradication of a people. That’s disgusting and dangerous.
‘Both sides’ refers to opinions, not facts.
Historical events like the Shoah (Holocaust) have been documented past the point of opinion. One may argue the details of why it happened; not the fact that it did.
I agree with your argument, however, some folks still think that flat earth theory is controversial, as well as certain medical treatments such as leeches and anal smoke treatments, (we won’t even get into de worming for Covid) the question becomes, how crazy do rationale people we need to go to give the crazies their voice? Sun revolves around the earth?
Far from being a demand for presentation of “both sides”, the dropping of a massive amount of material from the Texas history “standards” makes clear that what these (white) TX reactionaries really want is a return to “one side”: the white nationalist side. It is the rise of an actual pluralist, multicultural society that “conservatives” wish to repress in the schools. So they don’t really want a “debate” about this stuff, they want to return to absolute silence about the many blots and blemishes in the nation’s history, usually involving race. America can only be seen as morally irreproachable, that’s all children can be taught, most especially non-white children!
As Mr Brandon sagely observes, there cannot be two (or more) “sides” to a fact, and a great deal of history is simply incontestable fact, such as the existence and recorded actions of the Klan, the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and “the history of the civil rights movement”[!] (Do TX reactionaries really see a need to “teach” the imagined “good” the Grand Wizards thought they were doing by terrorizing non-whites? Apparently so.) I suppose a teacher could bring up the supposed “side” which is not being taught to the satisfaction of “conservatives” and demonstrate how and why that “side” has been thoroughly rejected by actual historians, but that would almost certainly be a violation as well. The Ptolemaic theory of the universe must be taught as a respected model, apparently!
But it is also quite interesting that “conservatives” oppose any requirement of “balance” in news reporting (which was the law before the Conservative Era), but now demand it in the “teaching” of American history. Dare one say this is rank hypocrisy?
What today’s white nationalists across the nation want is a return to the sanitized version of America “history”, a version which absolves the dominant white culture from any moral wrongdoing in the building of America. This was essentially the public school curriculum until the 1970s, and is a relic of 19th Century nationalism everywhere. I guess the idea is that the minority of intelligent children can learn about the actual history of America when/if they go to college. But of course history (a “liberal art”) is a dying discipline even there, as kids now see no real need of learning it.
Texas is now the mother-ship of today’s “conservative” movement and is the model for what white nationalists across the country aspire to build in their states; including MN, where “conservatives” already have a healthy disregard (not to say hostility) for Native American culture. While one might think this TX approach of muzzling teachers speech would perhaps impinge on free speech rights, there’s almost no doubt that it will be blessed by the democratically-illegitimate “conservative” super-majority on the Trump Court. So it will be up to some 21st Century Scopes in Texas or some brave and enterprising TX students to bring up the banned content of actual American history, and let the chips fall where they may.
“a version which absolves the dominant white culture from any moral wrongdoing in the building of America.”
While this is no doubt true, I think it’s worse than that. What they truly desire is a return to that 19th Century hierarchy, and realize they can’t do so without fully indoctrinating every white child they can in their witch’s brew of hate, supremacy, and grievance. It’s the “social engineering” they always deride.
“present opposing views on controversial subjects.” So I guess the first question becomes what is a controversial subject? Math, medicine, climate, science, or defined by anything the right wing disagrees with, like voting statistics!
Good point. It is not clear from the piece whether the “balance” bill passed by the reactionary Texas legislature applies to all types of curriculum or just history “standards”. (It idiotically applies to world history, as the TX curriculum director’s absurd colloquy regarding the Holocaust makes clear.)
Assuming the Texas Education-Suppression law has a reach beyond history standards, then certainly scientific topics like evolution and climate science would need to be “balanced” with the pious religiosity of “Creation Law” and the disinformation of climate denialism, that’s a given in the “conservative” world of 21st Century Ignorance. And don’t even mention economics. as we all know tax cuts raise revenue!
“So I guess the first question becomes what is a controversial subject?”
There are conservatives who oppose teaching the theory of relativity in schools, because it teaches that there are no absolutes, which will in turn lead to moral dissolution and ultimately, to BLM confiscating guns to use to force bakers to bake cakes for LGBTQ weddings.
Many of these same people also oppose teaching about sets in mathematics, because once you allow for the existence of multiple forms of infinity . . . well, the mind boggles.
You know RB, it sounds like a circular argument, I’m not claiming to be a smart guy, but in computer programing (my 1980 ish microprocessor program training) they have something called the endless do-loop, and it is just like logic, if you can’t come up with a logical go no go solution you will for eternity be in the do-loop, so, one might say these folks are going to be searching forever for another line of BS to get them out of this illogical do-loop! They will find one, but suspect it will just be another endless illogical do-loop!
It is simply impossible today to teach in our schools in a way that is not objectionable to someone. I simply don’t know how it is possible to teach the history of slavery in America without being accused of “critical race theory”, or in a way in which America comes off well. We have always demanded the impossible of our teachers but now the demands are being carried to a ridiculous extent.
Another reminder that everything conservatives and the GOP accuse others of is really an admission (and a smokescreen) of what they’re doing. In this case, the Texas education-suppression (an accurate, and smart descriptor) law is truly “cancel culture.”