Colorado’s latest education official to condemn high school history course standards wonders why those who wrote the curriculum missed what seems to her an obvious point — that the United States voluntarily ended slavery.
Pam Mazanec, a Larkspur businesswoman who sits on Colorado’s Board of Education, posted on a Facebook discussion thread her concerns that questions asked on the Advanced Placement U.S. history test “portray the negative viewpoint as the correct answer.”
“As an example, I note our slavery history,” she wrote to a woman who teaches AP U.S history. “Yes, we practiced slavery. But we also ended it voluntarily, at great sacrifice, while the practice continues in many countries still today!
“Shouldn’t our students be provided that viewpoint? This is part of the argument that America is exceptional. Does our APUSH (AP U.S. History) framework support or denigrate that position?”
Did she say that we ended slavery voluntarily? Boy she must never have lived down south.
As you might imagine her stupidity did not sit well with actual educators:
"The idea that the United States voluntarily gave up slavery is an outright misrepresentation of history. The United States engaged in a civil war to end slavery. There was nothing voluntary about it,” said Stephanie Rossi an AP U.S. history teacher at Wheat Ridge High School. “I’m just flabbergasted at anyone who would make that claim. Flabbergasted.”
And this woman is on the freaking Board of Education. Yeah I think flabbergasted is definitely the proper choice of word.
As you may remember both Colorado educators and students have been protesting the attempts by these conservative loons to dumb down the curriculum. However so far it has been unsuccessful.
This is why it is very important to find, and support progressive candidates in local elections.
It is no accident that school boards and municipal assemblies get overrun by conservatives. That is part of their plan to push forward an agenda to take this country back to the 50's.
The 1850's.
G -
ReplyDeleteThere is so little truth and reality coming from conservatives. They recreate history to suit themselves - or are they just ignorant? Perhaps a dose of that also. The sarahgance is maddening.
Pat Padrnos
Yes, it's Sarahgance, but IMO it's also extreme mental illness. It's reminiscent of what is termed dissociative disorder or reality detachment syndrome. In what seems to be an over-reactive coping mechanism, it is as although they are subjectively experiencing a completely different reality than the one presented by the outside world. This can occur in people who suffer (and apparently do not recover well) from severe traumatic events, but I think there can be other triggers as well (physical injury that affects the brain, substance abuse, perhaps different brain wiring, an inability to live in situations the person can not fully control, etc). It is usually accompanied by high or even extreme levels of anxiety, phobias, alienation from those around them, and an obsession with particular lines of thinking (hmmmm: sounds like a typical GOPer).
DeleteThis ranks right up there with that utterly STUPID comment made by Sarah about Paul Revere's ride!
ReplyDeleteRight after her proclamation about the " Statue of Liberty"
DeleteWho were the teachers in elementary school,high school, and "college" that could produce these lies?
It's a cult -- and it wants us all to be part of their know-nothing cult.
We must fight back, school board by school board.
Facts are facts, Ms. Mazanac.
Willful ignorance and extremely proud of it. Ack.
DeleteAnon 8:24 M I believe the Ol' Gizzard renamed it "Statute of Liberty".
DeleteThe school board lady should visit the battleground at Gettysburg. The southern states did NOT give up slavery voluntarily and a few hours walking around those grounds would teach this woman and her cohorts a lot.
ReplyDeleteBeaglemom
It is entirely within the realm of possibility you would have to bind them and DRAG them around places like that. They would refuse to WANT to learn the truth. It would endanger their "reality".
DeleteIf a Duggar comes away from a Holocaust Museum visit to equate it to abortion, there you have it, their cognitive dissonance is willful and righteous.
DeleteLuckily there are more sane, rational people in CO than conservative lunatics. Has a long history of no-nonsense frontier types. Speaking of conservative lunatics, I just have to share this utterly spot-on Sarah Palin meme!
ReplyDelete"My heart goes out to the people of Ebola"
http://memegenerator.net/instance/53206385
~Canuck~
I am so sick of these idiots.
ReplyDeleteThe next thing they'll say is that slavery was some sort of
exclusive unpaid internship program.
If conservatives have their way, people will PAY to be treated like slaves...
DeleteYou said it more politely and concisely than I could, so I'll just say "Amen".
DeleteWillful ignorance is so plentiful among those who deny reason and logic.
At least she didn't come out and say Jesus ended slavery
ReplyDeleteHave you seen this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt1761005/?ref_=nv_sr_1
The "Persecution" plot line:
Nationally acclaimed evangelist John Luther is the last obstacle in the way of sweeping religious reform in the States. When a U.S. Senator and Luther's own supporters abduct and frame him in the murder of an innocent teenage girl, an unprecedented era of persecution is unleashed. Out on personal recognizance, Luther escapes police surveillance in search of the truth. And suddenly a once-normal life is targeted by a team of ex-military operatives who wage a relentless campaign to eliminate the incriminating evidence. As evangelist turned fugitive, Luther vows to expose anyone involved with, or profiting from, the girl's murder. It's a mission that brings him face-to-face with the coming storm of persecution that will threaten the entire American Christian community.
"An unprecedented era of persecution."
"The Bible and the Constitution are both under attack in today's America."
"In my mind, it is not outside the realm of possibility that it may one day become illegal to practice my faith."
Yeah, that really is how these evangelical christians and tea party conservatives think.
Holy sh*t batman.
I predict this movie is going down the same trajectory as Tommy Weiseau's The Room: it'll fail so miserably in a firestorm of mockery that the people who produced it will start claiming it was intended as satire and re-release it in art houses as "the funniest dark comedy this year!!"
Delete-Or maybe: "Destined to be a cult classic!"
LOL
The Bible is mostly under attack by the apostates who CLAIM to be christians, refuse to read it, and definitely refuse to live by it. The Constitution is mostly under attack by a group of five Opus Dei men on the Supreme Court, of whom the apostates wildly approve. They (the righties) are screaming into the mirror on both counts. As for persecution, puh-leeze, gimme a break: it is THEY who desire, in every situation imaginable, to be the dominant player – going so far as to wail about their inability to determine who can, and who can not, be catered to by wedding cake decorators.
DeleteI am a Christian, and I despair of these people: I want absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with them.
Of course they love to feel persecuted, their entire religion is based on fearing punishment and persecution from their big cheese who's such a mean guy that he let his kid be killed just to prove a point.
DeleteChristianity is one big persecution fest. From having a vengeful god heading up the whole thing, burning and smiting and pretty much destroying entire towns if you don't follow his rules. Talk about always looking over your shoulder, and that's how christians live every day! They don't need to worry about the non believers beatin' up on them because their god does a fine job himself, if you don't follow his rules. Oops, checked out your neighbor's wife's ass? You're burnin' in hell baby! That'll teach you. And we're the one's persecuting them? Not so much.
This is not healthy behavior and a persecution complex is probably the least of the mental damages that this brainwashing causes.
Go to The Conservartive constitution, where slavery is a legal, God-given rights for slaveholders.
ReplyDeleteThere was no voluntary end to slaveholding. Only the force of the North could force the slaveholders to relinquish their proprietary hold on the chattel, their human possessions. Also the greater intellectual power of the Northern forces.
This is what the Russians and Chinese have tried in rewriting history to damn the opposition and make themselves look lily white. It won't work.Only oligarchs, or would-be oligarchs, can
pretend that black is white and up is down, to fool their uneducated followers. It is to be hoped that Fox has not salted the ground so much that real facts can't flourish in this wasteland of ignorance.
Have all these people gone to faux-schools like Liberty or Oral Roberts, where the truth is twisted so much it can't be recognized by the majority of historical, scholars and voters?
The colleges will sort this out by not allowing the students who take these classes to opt out of history. No student will bother to take AP history due to the lame curriculum and it will end. The GOPpers free market approach will work against them big time.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you hate America's history of exceptionalism, Gryph? All we want is for history to teach the truth that USA = NUMBER ONE. What's so wrong with wanting our kids to know how the Founding Fathers worked TIRELESSLY until slavery was ended? What's so wrong with wanting our kids to not forget how Paul Revere shot those shots and rang those bells on the back of his horse to warn the British that they weren't going to take our guns away like Barack HUSSEIN Obama wants to do?
ReplyDeleteWhats so wrong with wanting our kids to stand, salute and recite a pledge to nationalism every morning and be fed a nonstop stream of self aggrandising propaganda about how WE ARE THE BEST, therefore everyone else had better do what WE SAY, because if they're not WITH us, they are AGAINST us?
What's wrong with making sure our kids think the way we WANT them to think, and are patriotic and respectful and do whatever anyone in a position of authority tells them to do?
What could possibly be wrong with THAT?
Heil Amerikkka!
Damn straight. Time to celebrate with 128 oz. soda, fire off some rounds to let neighbors know I'm pack in', cut some trees down and put on some Lee Greenwood.
DeleteThose Founding Fathers worked tirelessly for 75 YEARS to free those slaves, even after they were DEAD!!! How tirelessly is THAT!!!
DeleteAnd all that stuff about The War of Northern Aggression being about slavery? Not true!!! It was really just because those Damn Yankees wanted more cheap cotton for their commie librul Mao jackets.
Let's teach our kids the RIGHT history!
(This historically fictitious rant paid for by Koch Industries...Keeping Today's Youth Dumb and Desperate)
Don't forget to slaughter several moose and castrate some hogs while you are at it. After all, how could you show your patriotism without shedding some innocent blood, and then gloating about it?
DeleteSorry, I'm too busy shootin' bound copies of Obamacare and rollin' coal to do any of that. Anyways, that's wimmen's work! Are you tryin' ta feminize me?
Delete9:45 -
DeleteOr you could just slaughter some turkeys since it IS, after all, almost the Season of Giving Thanks (unless you're a turkey, of course).
Martin Luther King, Jr. was a "foundering father."?
ReplyDeleteIn what universe?
What about James Madison, James, Munroe,John Adams,Aleaxander Hamiliton? The many more from every 13 states who wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?
Ben Franklin was abroad during much of this debate. Why throw him in as one of the only three 18th c. thinkers that she cites? Someone hasn't studied her American History much, has she? Or it was spoon-fed by religious fundamentalists who went off the rails and stopped reading many, many decades ago.
Oh, slavery is not dead, not at all. It is very much alive, though not well, and it is hidden behind such activities as being forced into prostitution or being an indentured servant to the Koch companies.
ReplyDeleteSure, they don't pick cotton, hoe the fields or pull a plow, but anyway you cut it, it's just another form of slavery.
And let us remember that back in the day, they used the Bible to justify enslaving Africans. Before you know it, they will be citing Dred Scott to say that certain folks among us are not U.S. citizens.
ReplyDeleteSlavery ended at the point of a gun. And I am very proud to say that my Chase ancestors where some of the folks who had the guns. We kicked the south's ass. And in the interest of unity, I will decline to made any comments about dumb crackers.
I might also add that we saved our Union at the point of the gun. The Civil War also proved that you can get into the Union, but you cannot get out.
My family was on the opposite side being that we were plantation owners and still own the property and part of the family still resides there and gives tours. I've been out of the south for so long that it seems appalling to me but this is my family's legacy and they see it as "preserving history" but the tours are all a bit "sugar coated" and sometimes they seem to be practicing a bit of revisionist history. Generations separate us from the days of slavery but the family interprets certain family journal and staff journal entries as evidence that my family "treated our slaves really well". I always have to argue with them that the mere fact that they were slaves completely negates that argument, but what do I know, I've lived north of the Mason Dixon Line (wayyy North!) for too many years now and according to my family it's "tainted my outlook" and made me "question my heritage".
DeleteI think the point is that it's not a North vs. South thing, it's a humanitarian issue and geography should have nothing to do with it, I think that their viewing of the past through rose colored glasses helps them sleep at night, but there are a few in my family that still feel that we had every right to own slaves and that we were doing them a favor, it's not much fun to talk to that group at holiday functions!
G -
ReplyDeleteThere is a related article on Salon by Sean McElwee titled, "Why the GOP hates U.S. history". Some quotes by D D'Sousa on slavery are astounding.
Pat Padrnos
Ben Franklin would have thought Julie Williams was a moron.
ReplyDeleteHopefully this will show people how important it is to vote, even for something small like school board (maybe especially for something that small).
ReplyDelete"American exceptionalism, the "American dream." Where the hell do these terms come from?!? I see nothing "exceptional" or "dreamlike" about America nowadays, except for its stupidity (which, it much be said, is more nightmarish than anything else.)
ReplyDeleteOh come on now, we're 36th worldwide in education and we rank at the bottom of the top 11 first-world countries in healthcare. What's not exceptional about that ;-)
DeleteYep, parts of the US are exceptionally stupid.
DeleteBusted: Right-Wingers in NC Public Schools Indoctrinating Children With Bible Classes (Video)
ReplyDeleteThe Freedom From Religion Foundation says that the Rowan-Salisbury School District in North Carolina “must immediately drop” Bible classes offered in three of its elementary schools — classes the FFRF says are unconstitutional.
The classes, 45-minute weekly sessions — are held during regular school hours and on school grounds, but are funded by local church groups.
FFRF lawyer Patrick Elliott said in a press release that, “It is appalling that the District would take away from instructional time to indoctrinate children in Christian dogma.” He added, “The district’s ill-advised decision to offer elementary bible classes calls into question the legitimacy of the bible classes also being taught in the middle schools and high school.”
According to WBTV,
http://aattp.org/busted-right-wingers-in-nc-public-schools-indoctrinating-children-with-bible-classes-video/
Ben Franklin would have thought Julie Williams was a moron.
ReplyDelete========================================
Ben Franklin would have KNOWN Julie Williams was a moron.
There, fixed it.
What a gorgeous family!
ReplyDeleteI grew up in Colorado Springs during the late 80s and early 90s. Groups like Focus on the Family make a concerted, deliberate, and very well-organized effort to motivate followers to vote in every municipal and local election. The explicitly stated goal is to get "our people" into judgeships, city councils, state senates, and school boards to shape public policy and promote their religious agenda. They send "voter guides" to their followers, and our pastor told us from the pulpit which candidates we should vote for (well, actually, he said, "We could lose our tax exempt status if I tell you how to vote. But here's who I'm voting for. But I'm not actually telling you to vote for these people." Wink, chuckle.)
ReplyDeleteAs Gryphen says, it is essential that liberals and progressives vote in grassroots elections, because the evangelicals are very organized and very motivated at the local level.
As far as accurate American history, ours at my "Christian" school was so insanely inaccurate that most people can't believe it was actually taught in a classroom. I think it may have originated with David Barton, although I'm not sure because it wasn't from a textbook; the teacher literally dictated notes to us from a three-ring binder containing some guy's crazy revisionist theories. Political science class was Gary North, one of the founding fathers of dominionism.
These are the crazies who are choosing and electing school board members. Remember that next time you decide to sit out a municipal election.
I've lived in the CS area off and on since the 60's. The invasion of the hypocritical buy bull thumping organizations destroyed the community as we knew it.
DeleteOne of Sallt'sWords of the Day has been pell-mell. Does she know what it means?
ReplyDeletepell-mell
pelˈmel/
adverb
1.
in a confused, rushed, or disorderly manner.
"the contents of the sacks were thrown pell-mell to the ground"
synonyms: helter-skelter, headlong, (at) full tilt, hotfoot, posthaste, hurriedly, hastily, recklessly, precipitately More
The perfect description of the Palin family heading for their Hummer after the Throwdown at the Hoedown!
Except "moron" wasn't coined until 1910 by H Goddard. Perhaps "beef-head" 18th cent. Or "trull" 17th cent. - person of low character.
ReplyDeleteSource: bookish-relish.blogspot.com and wiktionary
Probably thinks it's a cigarette.
ReplyDeleteI believe Ole' Ben would have invented the term for this woman.
ReplyDelete(thanks for the sources, I love that kind of stuff)
He'd think she's just offal, and she is!!!
ReplyDeleteThe only glimmer of consolation is that it's AP and most AP students are perfectly capable of smelling bullshit.
ReplyDeleteThis exemplifies how schools are set up, the Administrator's jobs are political pay backs given with no regard for truth or knowledge, or seats filled through nepotism, while real educators do the hard work for little pay.
The real victims are the kids.
Someone ought to ask her who told her the "viewpoint" that slavery was voluntarily given up. Then follow up asking her what the Cival War was about.
ReplyDeleteDo these people make up what sounds exceptional to them? Facts must not exist to them.
"just offal"
ReplyDeleteThat is hilarious!
'
I would imagine her definition of voluntary is surrendering after having your a$$ kicked?
ReplyDeleteWas she home schooled, by any chance?
This is why school boards should be abolished. They are unnecessary as far as education goes. Way back when you had the previous year's graduates teaching the lower grades until they got married, it made sense. But today's educators are perfectly capable of making decisions as most have master's degrees and a hell of a lot more training and education than the average dip$h1t that manages to get elected to the school board. If you can't take back your school board, then abolish it. They don't really serve any useful purpose except as a stepping stone to higher political office. Is that really their fundamental purpose?