“Need to Know,” a new PBS current affairs program, aired an insightful piece Friday on the debate over social studies curriculum standards at the Texas State Board of Education. Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller, state board member Don McLeroy and Thomas Ratliff, who defeated McLeroy in the March Republican Primary, all have prominent places in this 12-minute review of how the far right is rewriting history and hijacking the education of Texas schoolchildren. Check it out here.
I miss bill moyers
“Free Enterprise Pig. Still has the same connotations. My kids will be shipped out of Texas to stop brain washing from Texas. Textbooks have been wrong for a while now, why not just read The Lies Teachers Told Me, but to The Lies the State has told me.”
The above item was a comment that a reader made after reading and listening to the PBS item. I am not sure about lies in textbooks, but kids are told some mighty odd things in our classrooms by some teachers whose ignorance is about on the same level as that of the Texas SBOE members. As an example, I will offer up some American history that one of my grade school teachers (4th grade as I recall) imparted to our class. Here goes:
“Ponce de Leon was a Spanish conquistador who explored Florida. He was searching for a water source called the Fountain of Youth. Legend had it that drinking the water from this fountain would make old people young again. They wanted to find the water, sell it, and become rich. He and his men searched and searched and searched all through the Florida country, but they never did find the Fountain of Youth. However, they did discover the orange and other citrus fruits, which were growing naturally all across southern Florida. Citrus fruits have Vitamin C, which makes us what? Yes Tommy. That’s right: Healthy!!!! So you see. While the Spaniards did not find the Fountain of Youth, they did discover something else that might have been the next best thing. Fresh and fruity citrus.”
Yep folks. It was B.S. in Education ignorance on a massive scale. I am sure the people who frequent TFN Insider know the problem with the above statement. For those of you who frequent the Liberty Institute website and believe all of that crap the radical right members of the Texas SBOE are feeding you, a little education is in order. Citrus fruit is not native to the New World. Ponce de Leon did not discover oranges, lemons, limes, and grapefruits in Florida. None were growing there naturally or otherwise. These fruits were brought across the ocean from the Old World and planted in Florida in later years.
Please people of Texas. Fight ignorance in the Texas public school classroom. Write your Texas state legislator and request that they dissolve the Texas SBOE—forever.