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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   32102 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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This is why the right loses. It finds itself in a hair splitting debate which it eventually loses. Trying to make 'more accurate' African history courses is not answer. The answer is such courses should not exist at all.

Why not? If people are interested, then I think these courses should be offered as electives.

Think you are forgetting the amount of education of a high school grad even one going to an elite school.

Africans just haven’t figured into the big world events that high school kids don’t know. They’ve had zero influence on major ideologies, political systems, communism versus capitalism etc. The course is either going to be about soul food, Tulsa race riots, and rap music or be a crt/Marxist indoctrination.

The former I think high school kids need training in bigger things or the latter is just woke training.

This is rather silly. History education is not just teaching about the 'objectively' most important things in the world, otherwise British schools wildly under-study Asia and over-study British history, or at any rate certainly pre-Industrial revolution British history. Clearly, race and slavery has been enormously significant in American history, being possibly the biggest running issue in American politics for the first half of the nineteenth century, and certainly for a few decades before the Civil War, and of course being the cause of the Civil War itself.

The course is either going to be about soul food, Tulsa race riots, and rap music or be a crt/Marxist indoctrination.

It's so blindingly obvious you have almost no history education. Yeah, soul food and rap music is the sum total of the impact of race and African-Americans in American history.

It would be better for students spending an entire year reading (1) Paine, (2) Declaration, (3) Articles of Confederation, (4) federalist papers, (5) anti-federalist papers, (5) constitution, (6) Jefferson and Adam’s correspondences, and (7) key early cases (eg Marbury, Gibbons). That provides a much more detailed American history background compared to…AA history.

It's an elective. They will be taking this course in addition to a US History survey course, not instead.

Scarcity is a thing. Doing this means doing less of other things including an in depth review of more important American history.

My guess is a lot of the things I list are covered only in a cursory manner. Do high school students read all the federalist papers? Do they know there are anti federalist papers? Do they understand the importance of the constitution in relation to foreign bond holders?

You seem to be arguing that the mandatory US History survey course should be two years, which is fine. But that leaves less room in student schedules for all AP classes, not just this one. Do you oppose offering AP Stats or AP Bio for the same reason?

I would probably reduce ELA specific classes (writing can be learned in say history) and keep AP stats and Bio.

But yes, I think we need to be more critical of curriculum in general and these more non central classes in specific. Especially given that some of what is covered in these non central classes would be covered in say American history (you will be investigating some slavery in general American history). But I think the current scheme is woefully under serving students.

My sister in law went to an allegedly good high school and a fine university. She didn’t know what the 3/5 compromise was. What we have right now isn’t working.

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