A Little Knowledge, Part One – Secession and Superiority

February 21, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 3 Comments

In the Election of 1860, despite almost unanimous opposition from southern states, Abraham Lincoln was elected. Between the announcement of his victory (it took a little longer to tally everything back then) and his inauguration in early March, seven southern states announced they were leaving the Union.

From Georgia’s declaration of secession:

The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property…
A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia. The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party… anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose…

From Mississippi’s:

In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery – the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

They all pretty much go like this. The format consciously echoes the Declaration of Independence – the basic proclamation followed by a list of complaints explaining their decision to bail.

Based on these documents, produced by the Southern states for the explicit purpose of proclaiming to the world the causes of their secession, the main issues seemed to be (1) slavery, (2) slavery, and – in some cases – (3) slavery.

South Carolina took the lead as they always did when racial equity needed to be crushed:

But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the Institution of slavery has led to a disregard of their obligations… {The northern} States… have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress, or render useless any attempt to execute them… Thus the constitutional compact has been deliberately broken…
Those {non-slaveholding} States have assumed the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions*; and have denied the rights of property** established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of Slavery***; they have permitted the open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace****… They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

*i.e. ‘slavery’
**i.e. ‘slaves’
***i.e. ‘Slavery’ – oh wait, it says it that time, doesn’t it? My bad.
****i.e., abolitionists

South Carolina was upset that the North allowed so much discussion of things which threatened their way of life and went against their beliefs. They listed as one of their central reasons for trying to break the country their collective outrage that other states weren’t doing enough to stifle debate.

Their little white feelings were hurt and their dominant role in the world inconvenienced. Poor things.

Seriously, it goes on for several pages like that.

Was Lincoln’s election really such a threat to their way of life? Maybe. Not according to Lincoln, it wasn’t, but the new Republican Party openly advocated for restrictions on slavery – particularly in terms of limiting its expansion. Perhaps that was a debate worth having, in the context of the times.

But the time for debate and compromise, it seems, was over. The writing was on the wall, and the South feared that reason and decency would no longer produce the outcome they wished. So, they circumvented both and tried to change the rules. They chose theatrics over the much more difficult path of introspection.

…those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

Slavery was not simply about physical bondage, as central as that was. It required a type of brainwashing and systemic manipulation so that the slave remained perpetually hopeless, and largely helpless. They were kept ignorant of all but the most basic skills or concepts. Slave-owners – the same ones who would soon rebel based on their right not to be bossed around – were forbidden by law from teaching their slaves to read, allowing them to learn to swim, or otherwise expanding their horizons beyond what was absolutely necessary.

The shocking thing about slave revolts isn’t that they happened – it’s that there were so few of them. Most resistance was covert, cultural – playing dumb, breaking things, maintaining an identity bewildering to white slave-owners.

The Underground Railroad was pretty amazing, but the total numbers carried to freedom were miniscule compared to the size of the institution. And yet…

…incited by emissaries, books and pictures…

Do you feel the past reaching out to you through that line? I got goosie-bumps.

“We don’t like the thinking prompted by your teachers, your books, your visuals. We don’t appreciate you complicating their world or ours by introducing problematic ideas. Ignorance is bliss, buddy – our version of reality is good enough, despite its apparent inability to withstand the slightest scrutiny.”

See? I coulda been a Southerner.

The problem with education is that it gets people thinking. The problem with thinking is that they don’t always think what we want them to. And, in the South’s defense, sometimes a little knowledge IS a dangerous thing – we’ll look at that in Part Two.

The South understood the dangers of expanded thinking. As lovers of tradition – and of being in charge – they had little taste for new or threatening ideas. They codified narrow-mindedness as a virtue and framed the ignorance of those in bondage as a mercy.

Turns out the human race is pretty good at legal, intellectual, and moral contortions when it’s time to rationalize something we really really want to be true.

After the War – which they lost – the South continued to fight against dangerous levels of education for others. They also began denying their own explicitly stated causes for trying to leave in the first place. When you feel strongly enough that your cause is just, reality is just one more adversity to nobly overcome for the greater good.

That’s Part Three.

My goal throughout is to avoid directly referencing Representative Dan Fisher and his ilk – not even once – no matter how analogous the issues involved.

Oops!

OK – just once, then.

Unintended Consequences

February 9, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 2 Comments

In 1850, as part of a collection of legislation intended to once again defer civil war, the Fugitive Slave Act (FSA) was passed. It had always been technically true that escape by a slave to a ‘free state’ did not mean they were legally free, but in practice, reaching Ohio or New York dramatically reduced the chance they’d ever be forced back into bondage.

The FSA mandated some pretty serious fines for anyone in law enforcement who didn’t demonstrate sufficient commitment to capturing and returning this peculiar contraband. It even required private citizens to respond when called upon to act as a sort of ‘posse’ in these efforts. The goal was to force northerners to be a bit more cooperative when southern ‘property’ was at large.

If asked, most northerners would have condemned the system of slavery, and there were of course some rather vocal abolitionists. But most folks were simply leading their daily lives, uninvolved one way or the other. Much like today, there was a substantial gap between popular opinion and overt action. People have things to do – it’s not personal.

Hey, Swamp People is on!

The FSA had a result quite different than intended. When forced to partake one way or the other, most Northerners chose to assist runaways, directly or indirectly. Whether this was Christian charity or a collective middle finger to the South was irrelevant to the couple sleeping in their barn and accepting that leftover ham. The FSA ended up galvanizing into action the formerly uninvolved – but not in the way intended.

This is what we in the history business call “unintended consequences.” Examples are plentiful.

Several years ago, my district implemented a policy against giving extra credit for ‘stuff’ – no points for tissues, colored pencils, novels used in class, etc. They argued it was wrong to reward some students with points inaccessible to those with fewer resources.

Fair enough.

The new policy led to several unanticipated consequences. Many of us simply quit reading as many novels or doing as many artsy-fartsy projects. There are other ways to acquire resources, but few have the patience or wherewithal to perpetually write grants and fill out RQs for stuff they might not get anyway.

Besides, hours of tedious paperwork and bureaucratic hoop-jumping without assured benefit to students? That’s what VAM and TLE are for.

Most teachers were already maxed out on what they could buy themselves, so some instituted modest but uniform ‘supply lists’ required of all students. Those unable to comply were dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

These were the same kids who didn’t have to worry before about coming up with colored pencils or poster board because we always had a stash in the back which had been donated for extra credit. That was, in fact, why we’d done it that way.

This is what my friends in ELA would call ‘ironic’ – and not in a fun way.

‘Extra credit,’ properly dispersed, rarely makes a dramatic difference in a kid’s total grade. It may nudge, but the overall impact is negligible in an ocean of numerization which is largely subjective to begin with. The effort to eliminate it, however well-intentioned, had negative impact on those it claimed to protect.

The introduction of the horse to Plains Amerindians. Prohibition of alcohol in the 1920’s, or of drugs today. Pretty much anything involving the internet. There are exceptions, but it often seems the greater the good we’re trying to mandate, the more ‘unintended consequences’ prove quite the spoilers.

One last example…

In the early 1970’s, employers began running into trouble with the ‘aptitude tests’ they used to assess applicants’ qualifications – or at least their potential – for available positions. As the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and related legislation grew in scope and impact, these tests became suspect – minorities didn’t always score as high as whites.

The disparity had nothing to do with IQ or potential and everything to do with socio-economic realities only one short century after the Civil War. The head of racism had perhaps been crushed, but its fangs remained firmly clamped into our collective heel.

Business owners had no desire to end up on the wrong end of socio-legal revolution. Their solution was simple – no more aptitude tests. Instead, applicants now needed a college degree – in some cases, pretty much ANY college degree. Let the universities deal with any disparities – and hey, look at our over-qualified workforce!

Demand for post-secondary degrees swelled, and the cost of college rose commensurately. Many minorities who would have done just fine on the various aptitude tests – or could have, given some basic training – were effectively washed out of the job pool by a financial and academic bar they weren’t prepared to clear.

Many good jobs in the 1970’s didn’t really require that level of education in order to be successful. For many, a college degree was complete overkill. Nevertheless, those from families who’d shared the benefits of preferential status for generations could often make the necessary adjustments fiscally and academically, while those still fighting for their place at the table often could not.

Frightened employers trying to cover their pale behinds sought refuge in ‘higher standards’. They couldn’t be held accountable for racial or economic fallout as long as they clung to requirements both lofty and universal. That it centered around ‘education’ made it even easier to blame the victim.

So… bonus.

You see where I’m going with this now, don’t you?

When we try to mass-mandate solutions in ways that ignore or deny the underlying sources of the problems, there will be unintended consequences. In the 1970’s the primary issue was race, and its impact on access to education or employment. That hasn’t gone away, but we’ve expanded the problem by insisting that every new life must be immediately assimilated into our ‘college and career’ ideals. We intone ‘all children can learn’ as we practice ‘all your identity are belong to us’.

We want so badly for ‘higher standards’ and ‘college ready’ to become unilateral solutions to complex problems, and to provide us with moral and legal cover as we marginalize and blame those not born into pre-existing privilege. We choose not just the height of the expectation, but its very nature. We rarely stop to ask if our concept of ‘mastery’ reflects anyone’s worldview but our own.

In practice, ‘high expectations’ has become a new poll tax or grandfather clause – fair and reasonable on the surface, but inequitable and perhaps even malicious just below the gilding. It’s a job description tailored to the person on the inside they’ve already decided to hire, labeling all others ‘unqualified’.

It doesn’t have to be purposeful to be destructive (hence ‘unintended’), but I’m not always certain it’s not. Our conflation of ‘high standards’, ‘success’, and ‘compliance with my old white guy paradigm’ is simply too persistent to dismiss intent altogether. Real learning and its ‘measurement’ must vary with circumstances and goals. It must accommodate real students and teachers working through their messy, non-standardized worlds.

That this is cloyingly unsatisfying makes it no less true. Until we grasp that, we’ll just keep trying to pound the wonderful variety of pegs entrusted to us into the same damn little round holes. Not only will we keep failing to make them all fit, but we’ll break far too many along the way.

Their destruction will be an unintentional consequence of our most noble rhetoric. The grades will go on their report cards, but the failure? That’s ours.

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Meet Senator Brecheen, Part II – Books on the Bonfire

January 30, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 5 Comments

I’ve been sharing some thoughts on Senator Brecheen lately as background to understanding his recent attack on Advanced Placement U.S. History (APUSH) courses in Oklahoma.

There are perfectly valid debates to be had over the specifics of APUSH here and elsewhere, and I myself am a big fan of challenging and questioning our assumptions and uses of ANY given terminology, program, assessment, etc.

But that’s not what I’m seeing from the Senator so far.

I don’t yet have access to written or videotaped comments by the Senator on this specific bill, but thanks to his love of YouTube I do have a trove on something similar. As you may know, the Senator was vehemently anti-Common Core – not because of its pedagogy, the unclear means of assessment, poor implementation, or even its perceived exacerbation of equity and access issues.

No, his main gripe was that it (a) came with lots of federal money, and (b) required our socialist children to rape one another for the glory of the devil in order to graduate.

I may have the exact phrasing a bit off on that second one – I’ve been watching too much political discussion lately and clear, accurate language is not the norm.

He addresses the first point in this rather laborious interview with Glenn Beck:

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Several things jump out at me from this. The first is that Brecheen was afraid the feds were going to take away staples of Oklahoma education like the A-F Report Cards, the new TLE system, our own high-stakes testing, etc. It’s important to remember that he thinks these are the GOOD parts of what we’re currently doing.

The second is that Brecheen finds it silly to make an issue of a few zillion dollars of educational funding. Apparently Oklahoma spends five ooglecrillion dollars every DAY on those edu-whiners, so no one’s gonna notice one way or the other if we add or subtract a few billion here or there.

That was the part that most made me want to smack everyone involved. It’s especially odd that very similar dollar amounts are apparently absolutely ESSENTIAL to the SURVIVAL of core industries in the state when it’s time to cut taxes on the wealthiest slivers of our population yet again.

Then again, they’re “job-creators”, as opposed to whatever it is we do in ‘public school’.

Finally, Brecheen and what’s-his-name smile and nod in agreement with Beck when he claims that states who accept federal money with rules attached are whores. I’m curious as to whether Beck, Brecheen, and what’s-his-name believe this is only true in reference to education dollars, or if it applies equally to funding for highways and other infrastructure, health care, military bases or related industries, etc.

I’m not looking to wage the Common Core war again. I AM suggesting that, as a history teacher, I tend to look to the past to illuminate the present. Brecheen is pushing legislation to save us from another boogeyman. Knowing whether he’s lying, insane, or just making it all up as he goes can better prepare us to respond this time around.

Besides, one area of heated criticism in recent months is the connection between Common Core and College Board, the organization behind AP and the SAT. Google “David Coleman” if you’d like a fun read or two (thousand) along those lines. Good times!

So, let’s continue with the Senator’s concerns over Common Core implementation:

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OK – I gotta confess that IS a little scary. Prentice Hall and “Pearsons” running everything does terrify me a bit. And we can add ‘edu-company’ names to the list of things the Senator appropriates for his own purposes without actually getting them right – along with scripture, how baseball works, and Common Core materials.

The “suggested reading” to which he refers is from Appendix B to the ELA Standards of Common Core. He highlights Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, which is on Page 152 of the document.

Page 2, on the other hand – and note this is the FIRST PAGE OF THE DOCUMENT after the fancy title and cover art – BEGINS this way:

If he thinks they’re up to something, fine – but let’s not call it the “Suggested Reading List” if that’s explicitly what it claims NOT to be. I understand that facts and details can be inconvenient, but this renders them no less relevant, Senator.

Flip ahead 150 pages or so and you’ll find the entry causing him such concern:

Clearly these aren’t the dirty parts. So here’s a fascinating question…

How many of these pages and pages of titles did the Senator and his staff have to locate and peruse and – god forbid – READ in order to come up with an explicit scene like this? How tickled must they have been to have finally found those vaginas and genitals! Reminds me of the early days of internet searching when you’d finally –

Actually, never mind. That’s not my point. My point is that when facts and irritating details don’t fit his predetermined narrative, Senator Brecheen is happy to go to any lengths necessary to make them fit, or at least pretend they do.

My point is that his convictions aren’t shaped by reality; his reality is shaped by his conviction.

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I don’t really have anything for that clip – it just cracks me up. Reminds me of Steve Allen reading rock’n’roll lyrics in the 1950’s:

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Personally, I’m opposed to dirty books – especially in school. I’m a firm believer that we should avoid anything in history or literature that might make students with complicated lives feel at all connected to what they’re reading or who they’re studying.

First off, they shouldn’t have dysfunctional lives in the first place. I know it’s not technically their fault if they do, but they should have the courtesy to suppress and deny it like we did for hundreds of years and it worked JUST FINE. Second, just because their lives have unpleasant or painful elements doesn’t mean I should have to understand anything about what that must be like, or expect my ‘good’ students to stretch themselves with that sort of insight or empathy.

Since when is school about challenging pre-existing experiences and beliefs about ourselves and our worlds? How is THAT going to help them on the state tests?

I’d personally prefer we stick to nice safe happy books of how things should be and how everyone should feel. That way we have elusive, unreachable ideals to which all students can aspire. Since they’ll never reach a point where their lives or efforts can even begin to live up to the fictions we perpetuate, they’re far more likely to allow those who sound like they’ve made it to tell them what to do, or – if we’re lucky – to give up altogether.

I just can’t see a down side.

But that’s irrelevant in the current APUSH argument. Unless, of course, you replace ‘nice safe happy books’ with ‘over-deified white guys no one can possibly relate to and flashy sanitized fireworks versions of complex events’.

Then, I guess, it’s the same damn thing for the exact same reasons. Fear, entrenched power, venom…

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Way to bring it all home, there, Senator! The conflation of Joshua and Elijah followed by the reminder that the 10th Amendment protects “conservative Christian values.” In a way, it’s the perfect conclusion – once you have the course laid for your crusade, don’t worry about what stuff actually says or does or means. Just GO for it, knowing that those who question you need not be answered – they need merely be damned.

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Meet Senator Josh Brecheen, Part I: Fire From Heaven

January 28, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 2 Comments

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What a go-getter! “You have to take what’s thrown at you.”

Except you don’t – at least not in the context he’s chosen for his little melodrama. That’s why they give you a glove. So you can catch stuff. Just letting it bonk off your face is either reckless or clueless.

You’re doing it wrong.

I’d let it go as just local political ad silliness, except it so perfectly represents how Brecheen uses whatever props are at his disposal – baseball equipment, Common Core documents, random phrases from scripture, etc. He straps them on and has a little morality play, but one whose meaning is predetermined by his unwavering agenda – not by anything his props actually do, or say, or mean.

I’m not suggesting he’s necessarily dishonest. It’s entirely possible he’s genuinely that ignorant and self-deceiving. I’d like to give him benefit of the doubt, however, and assume he’s merely cynical and exploitative, twisting the weaknesses of those he serves to promote his own agenda. I’m optimistic that way.

You may remember the Senator’s famous diatribe against Common Core some time back on the floor of the Oklahoma Senate:

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Weighty rhetoric. I can only wonder… WTF? What is he even SAYING?

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I’ve no wish to challenge the assumption that Old Testament excerpts are an appropriate basis for educational legislation, but at least use them correctly.

“I’m amazed people don’t know this.” Yeah, me too, Senator – especially when they’re reading it into the record. When relying on a holy book largely centered around a God so particular that minor violations often led to severe illness or the deaths of everyone you love, perhaps a little accuracy would be in order.

“Choose this day who ya who ya gonna serve” is not Elijah – it was said by Joshua in the 24th chapter of his own book in the Old Testament, not long before he died. Elijah DID ask, “How long will you waver before two opinions?” which is a similar sentiment, but said in a very different context.

Joshua was speaking to the chosen people of God at the end of a long period of relatively good times. His question was part of an extended recount of all the ways they’d been blessed by God, not from anything they’d done, but simply by being born into the right demographic. It could be paraphrased as “so you can keep going with the system that’s worked out fairly well for you and left everyone else pretty much damned, or turn your back on a good thing and suck along with them.”

This is not mockery of God or the Hebrew children, by the way – it’s just that the rules were different back then. It was a harsher time with harsher gods, and a favorite source of inspiration for those today who find the inclusiveness and self-deprivation of the New Testament rather nice in theory, but annoying in practice. So… we quote the Old Testament.

A lot.

Even if not always taken literally, it offers nice analogies for people doing pretty well today based on being born into the right demographic but believing they must really have accomplished something, and who feel spiritually or morally superior, seeing as how things seem to keep turning out so well for them – unlike those… ‘others’.

So, yeah – I see the appeal of this for Senator Brecheen. But keep your Bible straight, son.

The story to which he intentionally refers is Elijah on Mount Carmel, as told in I Kings 18. Elijah is never a happy prophet. He’s not generally welcome anywhere he goes because he’s always criticizing the way leadership is doing things. He speaks a bit bluntly and sometimes people have no idea what he’s talking about, but his words have power.

I’m a fan.

At Carmel he’s pissed because the folks who are supposed to be running the government are repeatedly shown to be self-absorbed, lying, hypocritical bastards. They exploit and use those in their care, and serve gods of convenience and worldly pleasures rather than Yahweh – the “love your neighbor and don’t be a perv” alternative.

Senator Bercheen successfully cast Common Core as Baal – a twist he’d have been able to identify as “irony” if he’d been schooled in its ten ‘Anchor Standards of Reading’, especially #4. (See what I did there? I cited my source accurately and used it in context to support my point. That’s the kind of anti-American time-wasting I’m doing in class instead of having my kids memorize Emma Lazarus.)

But, let’s go with that – Common Core is Baal. We’ll even let Bercheen be Elijah – who calls down literal fire from heaven to consume the sacrifices being offered. He then orders the losers to be chased down and murdered with swords – literally, in Elijah’s case, but hopefully metaphorically in the case of education reform.

But what a mindset! We’re not debating pedagogy; we’re destroying the unclean who refuse to follow our dogma.

It wasn’t my example, folks – I’m just cleaning up the record. And it’s irrelevant at this point whether you liked Common Core or not – that’s not the issue. The issue is the character, methods, and goals of Senator Josh Brecheen and his ilk. If men of good conscience and some awareness wish to debate what’s best for our children, let’s have that discussion all day long. If they wish to sweep aside reason and experience to play the trump card of holy justice, then save it for the Middle Ages.

And before you accuse me of being too unfair, everying I’m using is from HIS YouTube channel and videos HE’S chosen to represent himself to the people.

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You know it just got real when the dramatic strings drop out and it’s just the reverb drums for awhile. It goes on for minutes and minutes, but this was my favorite bit:

Totes adorbs on the little helly-flames for SFC! Burn, you anti-Josh f*ckers, burn! Our little Elijah certainly is a feisty fella’.

Too bad there’s not a Stand for Grammar group he gets along with. They could help with the sentence structure.

Brecheen does have some fans, however:

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Hey hey hey! He certainly seems down-home values to me.

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Well, there you go, then.

Brecheen may believe he’s standing up for truth and justice and such. He just thinks those who disagree with him are hell-bound, at least metaphorically.

That’s no excuse for not getting your facts straight, however – whether in regards to the scripture you’re quoting or the curriculum standards you’re opposing. Next time I’ll finish looking at his convoluted condemnation of Common Core as a tool not of poor pedagogy or even Corporate Edu-takeover, but as a plot to turn your kids into little perverts having much better sex than you. After that we should probably break down the APUSH bills themselves and try to figure out which parts are openly insane, and which are thinly veiled harbingers of bigger, weirder things.

Some even weirder than this:

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Noooobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition!

January 28, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 4 Comments

Before I go off on my trademark character assassination and sarcastic diatribes regarding pending legislation in the hallowed halls of the Oklahoma legislature, I thought it might be helpful to bring the non-history teacher-types up to speed on just what the fuss is about.

Unlike the easy accessibility of Sally Kern’s “Use Shock Therapy on Gay Teens” bill or our state guidelines for which angry white men we’ll send to the new Constitutional Convention to rewrite that sorry remnant of darker times (because our current leaders are SO much smarter than the Framers and besides what could possibly go wrong?), contention over something as specific as an AP curriculum can be a bit bewildering for those not walking daily in that world.

What exactly IS the kerfuffle with the ‘new’ College Board Advanced Placement U.S. History (APUSH) course and exam?

The short version is that the College Board decided a few years ago to move away from a ‘Know Way Way Lots of Stuff and be Able to Apply that Knowledge Effectively’ model to a ‘Know Lots of Stuff and Learn to Think About it from Different Perspectives AND Apply that Knowledge Effectively’ model in APUSH. They wanted to give AP teachers and students the opportunity to ‘go deep’ and practice analytical thinking without being limited by the overarching need to memorize every fact ever.

The shift was not without detractors; history teachers (especially those AP-types) love to argue and hand-wring and bluster about what’s truly important and what should be assessed and how and OMG I’ll have to revise a few of my lesson plans.

I work and socialize with quite a few AP-types, most of whom are smarter and cooler than me. After a drink or seven, many would admit that if it were up to them, they’d tweak this part or refocus on that other thing or whatever. I feel the same way about pretty much every PLC data-goal or family vacation plan I’ve ever been a part of shaping. That’s the nature of anything designed for such a variety of teachers in such a wide range of circumstances – you won’t entirely please everyone.

But none of the ones I’ve spoken with HATE IT. None of them find it un-American or insufficiently rigorous. Yes, some of my friends and colleagues are – for all practical purposes – godless Socialists, but others are surprisingly conservative. They teach the course, they labor over their students’ successes and failures in class and on the exams, and many travel the country training and listening to other APUSH teachers’ opinions and concerns as well.

Even if they DID hate it, it would perfectly appropriate for them to say so, because they have what we in the education world like to call “some f*cking clue what’s going on.” They have a right to whatever opinions they choose because they have credibility. Legitimacy. They’re involved in the process and impacted by the results. They’re the ones actually doing the ‘do’.

Texas, a few months ago, decided the new framework was insufficiently patriotic. The idea that there might be other interpretations or other points of view when it comes to Manifest Destiny, interventions in other nations, internal social or political movements, or whatever, seemed blatantly un-American to some. More flag-waving and less thinking was demanded. Or else.

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And to be fair, we do have a tendency when running from one extreme to embrace the opposite error. There’s no need to teach American history as a series of travesties and genocides based on hypocritical ideals just to offset a little red, white, and blue truthiness. Surely there’s a balance, yes?

But that’s the rub, isn’t it? It’s impossible to teach entirely neutral history. The range of facts and information is too broad to include EVERYTHING ever, and even if we could, a string of people and events completely free of narrative is both pointless and impossible to remember. Every teacher in every subject makes choices about what to cover and how to cover it, while trying to be as balanced and aware of our own biases as possible.

It’s amusing to think there’s a genuine fear that the same kid I can’t CONVINCE to keep an agenda or that there’s value in learning to paraphrase might become unwittingly locked into a lifetime of twisted socio-political dogma based on which Jefferson quotes I selected for a quiz.

But I digress.

The point is that no matter what the curriculum includes, there will be MORE it does NOT.

History teachers deal with this all the time, at every level. One of the science teachers in my building REVELS in asking his kids where Geronimo is buried, or about the Pioneer Woman statue, or Reba McEntire, or that one time in 1973 the governor did that one crazy thing. They have no idea, and he accosts me a few times a week about what we’re teaching in Oklahoma History if we’re not including Geronimo & Co.

History is the story of everything that’s ever happened anywhere ever, and why, and how it all fits together in every possible direction and combination. So, yeah – we make judgment calls. We’re usually wrong.

How many books do you currently own and fully intend to read because you absolutely must and really want to? How often are you casually quizzed regarding a movie or TV show only to be assailed by some form of “OMG! I can’t believe you haven’t SEEN ______________!?! I thought EVERYONE-how-could-you-not-do-this-one-drop-everything-now-why-do-you-hate-America?!?

And you already know how to read books and watch TV. What if you had to be helped to read or watch each one meaningfully along the way? It might take a while. Some might not get covered. Hopefully, however, you’d end up with the tools and background knowledge to eventually watch or read most anything without my still being there explaining as we go. You may even choose different books and shows to watch, or interpret them in ways other than I do.

THAT’s what we call “hating America”. That’s what Texas, and now Oklahoma, want to protect you from. Senator Brecheen and Representative Fisher want to legislate a list of documents which must be covered above all else because they’re the MOST American documents. The BEST American documents, presumably.

And there’s a butt-load of them.

The problem isn’t anything ON the lists; it’s the pre-printing press focus on rote regurgitation of sacred texts, as if we’re not in this to awaken students or create informed citizens, but to indoctrinate followers. The punishments for straying – for violating the tenets of the sacred texts – are the same punishments as always. They’ll pull even more of our funding. Being a teacher in Oklahoma is like being the girlfriend of a low level mobster – you get slapped around and their answer to everything is to cut your meager allowance, then you’re always in trouble for not looking prettier and happier.

I’ll carry on about the specifics of the bills and the credibility of those involved soon. Let me leave you with just a tiny little preview of how much fun it could be:

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