Over the past few months, it has become apparent that there is something less than truthful about your dealings with the curriculum and textbooks. The state of Texas has become an educational joke on the scale of Kansas (no offense Kansas, but it’s true) and I for one do not approve of the politics that have taken over decision making for the "best interests" of our students. Aside from running a campaign, what qualifies you to make these decisions? Some of you have been on this committee for longer than I have been alive. With all of the advancements in theory, and technology, are you never concerned that perhaps someone younger might have a better understanding of the world we live in and the future we are supposed to be preparing our students for? Not to mention the fact hat many of you have never been teachers in the first place. Having children of your own is not the same as being qualified to make decisions for every student that goes through Texas schools for 10 years. Being a Sunday school teacher is nothing like being a high school teacher, and being a lawyer, real estate agent, or dentist doesn’t mean that you know about educational theory.
Along those same lines—I think that having party affiliations is ridiculous and asinine. It’s not as though there are Democratic educational theory and Republican educational theory. I care so much more whether you are a proponent of Ravitch or Palmer, Vygostky or Piaget. You know, things that actually mean something to educators, and say something about educational technique and outlook. Although politics has little to do with education, it’s overwhelming influence makes me feel as paranoid as a character from Brave New World. I understand that as elected officials it is easier to be elected by party affiliation, but that begs the question: what differences will that make in the quality of education that our children receive? What are the real objectives in having elected officials write the TEKS for our schools? When politics gets involved, you can be sure there are ulterior motives.
Most recently you all were in the news and other media for your decisions about the revisions posed and passed for the history curriculum. It is obvious to me that none of you are experts in history, yet you hold yourselves up to the light in just that way. To assert that you are qualified to make decisions about something that people can spend a lifetime learning, studying, and writing about simply because you “read about it a lot” defies the mind as so egocentric it ought to be illegal, and certainly is not a point to brag on.
To assert that history has a leftist bias reflects more on your own insecurities than on history textbooks. There is more to history than the white European Christian dogma; your inability to accept that shows a lack of scope that is staggering. In a state like Texas where the majority of the population is Hispanic, it seems odd to cut out leaders like Cesar Chavez and Father Romero because, well, honestly I’m not too clear on your reasoning. One of you, Patricia Hardy, is on video saying that Oscar Romero is “one of those names that I guarantee most of you did not know.” This reasoning does not incline me to disregard him as a powerful figure in world politics, or say that he wasn’t a crusader on par with Nelson Mandela. It makes me concerned that perhaps you are too ethnocentric to realize that there is a world outside of Texas, and that people who are not already famous are also worth our time and energy teaching. I mean, if our nation’s children can recognize Ronald McDonald, but more than half the people who took americanrevolution.org's quiz didn’t even realize that the American Revolution occurred before the War of 1812, that says something about our students’ ignorance on more global issues. Every year I show my students a PowerPoint of people famous around the world for various reasons, both Hollywood and politics, and generally my students think that Nelson Mandela is Morgan Freeman, and that was long before Invictus was made. Most of them don’t know who Gandhi is, or why he is famous.
On another point, public education is not allowed to advocate or advance a specific religion. To say that the United States of America is a Christian nation, and therefore we should teach Christianity in our schools goes against the Constitution, the founding document of our nation. The First Amendment of the Constitution states, “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” And while you may disagree with Thomas Jefferson, you can’t cut him out of the history books just because he thought that the separation of Church and State was a good thing. If you had been a real student of history, you would understand that we would be repeating the mistakes of other cultures and times, rather than learning from those cultures who allowed religion to become the end all and be all of their government. You know, like the Taliban?
You cannot simply remove things from the history books because you don’t like that they happened. I don’t like that slavery happened, but I’m not going to lie to people and say that it never happened in order to save face. I think it is better to honestly teach people than to ignore or revise things. It’s lying, and while maybe our students should get used to people in power lying to them, it seems wrong to start so young. History doesn’t work like that. You can’t rewrite history to suit a political or religious agenda. Education should make our students question, learn, and make their own decisions about the world around them. To deny them the opportunity to learn about history objectively is to deny them the choice, and to purposefully make them ignorant of the larger world outside Texas’s borders.
I fear that your inexperience in the classroom leads to your close-minded views on this subject. If you had been charged with the care and education of a truly diverse group of students you might better understand the damage your views could cause. If a child grows up in a Unitarian or Deist household, your omission of Thomas Jefferson (for his political and religious beliefs) tells these students that their views are wrong, rather than simply being different from yours. And what would you say to a Muslim, Hindi, Sikh, or Buddhist student when they hear that this is a Christian nation? Are these students going to feel equal to their peers? Or are they going to face discrimination based on opinions that are being handed down from on high by people whose religious beliefs are more important to talk about in their TEA profiles than their educational beliefs. Think about the damage that you are doing to these students by claiming a monopoly on the theology of Texas education.
The State Board of Education should be a group of educators who make the best decisions based on their experiences and thoughtful consideration of facts and opinions formulated by experts in that particular field. If this committee is going to ever be taken seriously, then certainly the children of the various board members should attend public schools, and if teachers, they should teach in our public schools as well. There is no purpose in having people make guildelines that they will not ever have to follow. Yes, Cynthia Noland Dunbar, I was thinking of you. If you ask for the opinions of teachers it would look better if you actually listened and took what they said under advisement rather than simply voting along religious party lines. If you alienate your teachers, the people who you are dictating to, then who will actually carry out your directives? What about teachers who are non-Christian? You do realize that there are teachers in your schools who are not Christian, or Republican, and that maybe, just maybe, they don’t approve of your decisions.
The real reason I decided that I had to write you is this: I am tired of Texas, the place that I love, being made a laughing stock on comedy shows across the country, including The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, just because you either don’t realize how foolish the things coming out of your mouth sound, or you honestly believe that this reason is a good one. If the former, then you should really listen to the play back on some of your meetings, and if the latter, then you should take a few modern education classes.
You claim to have changed the curriculum because there is a liberal slant in history, although the victors write history, and it seems that white European history has always taken a front seat in my education, but that is neither here nor there. If there is a liberal bias, then wouldn’t the ideal solution be a completely neutral one? It seems to me that the slant now leans just as far to the right as it once leaned to the left, and how is that any more acceptable? Just because you agree with something it’s alright for it to be slanted?
Sincerely,
A Young Teacher
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