I tend to think Lincoln is a bit overrated like most icons but this is a goood quote

[57Brave]

I don't agree with what they're doing in OK, but I do remember my AP history passing off Howard Zinn's book as the class textbook, so I can see why there's concern.

As for "making room for Reagan," I would say that a flaw in every American history class I've taken (middle school, HS, college) is that they universally all run out of class time somewhere around Vietnam. The mid-70's to present day doesn't get the attention it deserves.

The reason I don't get too worked up about this stuff is because I did (still do) readings outside the classroom. It's the liberals I feel sorry for, not the non-liberal students. They're the ones who go through their educations without their views/perspectives being challenged.

I would think Zinn ripe to AP History. Much to debate.

- The historical jury still out on post Viet Nam America ?.
30 years out not as cut and dried as my high school days

[50PoundHead]

Do you remember the big stink they had in Texas a few years back when they decided their textbooks were "a bit too revisionist" in nature and set about to make them more accurate and realistic and they did so by removing or greatly limiting the historical contributions of minorities like Cesar Chavez, and even cut way back on how much Jefferson they wanted to cover, yet they found room to increase the contributions of people like Ronald Reagan. Certainly no "revision" going on there, huh? Isn't the biggest problem of all that when a person looks at something like a textbook they see things the same way they see everything else, "don't try to tell me something I didn't already know or believe" and if you do, you're trying to make stuff up and lie to me.

I followed that closely. I think the thing now is that with all of the resources available on the web, students can really dig into the primary documents. The problem then becomes how does the teacher present the interpretations of the documents. I had a great high school social studies teacher. A big part of our senior social studies class was the study of excerpts from some classic political theory texts (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, etc.) and then to make presentations on the texts and the varying interpretations of the texts. The teacher really challenged us during these presentations.

The thing that kind of bugs me is that there are some (on both sides) who want to teach history/political theory/social studies as though it is a hard science with data that leads to a particular inescapable conclusion. I think one of the goals of social studies and civics (which is hardly taught anymore) is to help students develop their own worldviews by providing them with the tools to analyze and think critically about information that is being presented to them. There's just a lot of folks (again on both sides of the spectrum) who don't trust kids to start down the path of developing their own conclusions.

[BedellBrave]

I followed that closely. I think the thing now is that with all of the resources available on the web, students can really dig into the primary documents. The problem then becomes how does the teacher present the interpretations of the documents. I had a great high school social studies teacher. A big part of our senior social studies class was the study of excerpts from some classic political theory texts (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, etc.) and then to make presentations on the texts and the varying interpretations of the texts. The teacher really challenged us during these presentations.

The thing that kind of bugs me is that there are some (on both sides) who want to teach history/political theory/social studies as though it is a hard science with data that leads to a particular inescapable conclusion. I think one of the goals of social studies and civics (which is hardly taught anymore) is to help students develop their own worldviews by providing them with the tools to analyze and think critically about information that is being presented to them. There's just a lot of folks (again on both sides of the spectrum) who don't trust kids to start down the path of developing their own conclusions.

Preach it brother.