oh texas...
so instead of doing my homework like a good little grad student, i took a break to see what interesting headlines are in the news today & found something that is quite frightening. don't know how many people have heard, but texas has been working on a bunch of revisions to their history textbooks which have caused some controversy. normally i wouldn't care all that much, but texas is the primary customer for textbook publishers, so basically determines what goes into history textbooks in schools all over the country. & as a historian, some of the things that are going down are kind of scary. here's an article about the latest stuff to hit the fan in regards to adjustments: www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39311882/
- if you don't want to read it, the title basically says it all : "Texas school board debates 'pro-Islamic' bias in textbooks" meaning that members of the board think that textbooks have a pro-islamic bias & that they should instead stress more of the bad stuff.
i have to admit that i was taken aback by this new resolution. i don't exactly have a problem with it BUT, & that's a HUGE BUT, only if there is equal mention of christian atrocities as well as the wonderful things islam has brought to the west & we all know how likely that is to happen. seriously, God forbid we have a balanced & well-informed view of history & the world around us.
some comments were saying how religion should be totally left out of the school curriculum & that it should be left to parents & religious institutions. to them, i say HAH - good luck with that. first of all, there is a huge difference between teaching religion & teaching about religion. how could you discuss king henry viii without talking about the reformation, the founding of the USA without the puritans & their search for religious freedom (even though they denied this right to others), the crusades, history of india without ghandi, all of those mythological & Biblical references in literature, without any mention of religion? in fact, many, many wars were fought as a result of religious differences. somebody obviously has no sense of history or literature. there is no possible way to leave it out of the textbooks.
the key, though, is to point out and address how all religions have both good & bad parts to play in history, just like nations themselves. one of my favorite illustrations of this is a scene from monty python's Life of Brian, when a group is planning a revolt against the roman empire. they are complaining about all of the injustices & then someone asks, "& what have the romans ever done for us?" answer: roads, drinking water, sanitation, medicine & the list goes on. the same could be said about anything.
i think one of the biggest problems is that there is simply not enough time to cover everything well in schools, so you have to pick & choose. if you want to talk about bias, in this country, there is a huge western bias in world history. i learned almost nothing about east asian history in my world history classes, even though countries like china have a written history longer than some western ones combined.
even in US history there are regional biases. i grew up on the east coast, & again, learned practically nothing about western expansion or the goldrush, aside from some small mention of the Louisiana purchase & that gold was found in 1849 & led to the creation of cities like san francisco & part of the push west with the railroad. on the other hand, one of my friends who grew up on the west coast said that he learned practically nothing about the revolution. again, it all comes back to time.
another issue, it seems, is that people are lazy thinkers. they don't want to show different opinions or other sides to a story because it might make them look bad or it might just be too hard to explain. it's too bad, since i think a lot of people these days lack the ability to debate issues respectfully.
end soapbox
in more frivolous news, timeripple & i have started watching tamra the island! & yes, we've already seen it, but this is the unedited version!!!! think extended lord of the rings vs. the ones they showed in theater. uh-huh, SO MUCH BETTER!!!!!! more cute!, more awesome yan, beo jin's mom & park gyu, more everything!!! squee!!! & also the anime fruits basket - SO cute!!! it seems the older i get, the more asian i become. hmmm. something to think about...