re: JJ on Sportscenter right now

quote:

---

Damn sure isn't in my classroom. Or in those liberal PC textbooks either for matter.

---

I'm glad you, personally, invest in Jefferson, but your "state mandated" curriculum doesn't share your enthusiasm. Kids, for the large part, aren't going to care about who you personally feel is worthy of discussion versus who the state wants you to teach. And the GLE's, at any history level, say nothing -- to my knowledge -- about students learning anything specific about Thomas Jefferson in an autobiographical sense and that is to protect kids from learning about what they are discouraged from knowing (and I totally disagree with that approach). I think Robert E. Lee is a great American and the ultimate sacrificer (being that the gave up his support for the U.S. in favor of his own state, VA). I can put his posters up and begin the first five minutes of each class discussing why he should be noteworthy for all. You doing that for Jefferson is commendable, but you are expected to teach what is expected from you whether it's LEAP 8th grade or ACT and pACT for sophs and juniors.

The literature often suggests who should be important in schools versus who shouldn't be. Public school kids read Fredrick Douglass, ML King, and maybe Solomon Northup. The only whites that are strongly focused on in history/English dual context would be Benjamin Franklin (simply because his autobiography is proverbial and clean, for the most part...not to mention abridged) and some of the older poets that have little to do with founding of America. When it comes to readings, there's nothing on Jefferson or Washington. Yes, there's discussion of them in relation to the constitution and Washington's success as a military commander, but nothing compared to what a name like Douglass gets.

And those liberal pc texts are garbage, of course. They're watered down and tell history from largely a victorious standpoint and a very western biased one, too. I am not surprised that many, many kids -- even 3.0 college kids -- do not know what Thomas Jefferson looks like. A majority of American history teachers are subpar to begin with. Many others follow the comprehensive curriculum and are not about to turn a lesson about the consitution/Articles of Confederation and turn it into a picture memory game devoted to the third president. You can think my statements about the ACLU having a hand in secondary ed as ridiculous and incredilous, but NO historian who mistreated blacks is going to be vigorously studied. If your high school is different, then it's different.


Point being, JJ is not going to likely know a lot of what YOU feel is essential when it comes to learning. You as a history teacher should know how ill-important the state feels about history compared to math, langauge arts, and science.


ETA* - What parish/area do you teach in LA? Do you even teach in LA? Your pro-Jefferson agenda might actually be persuaded in some places versus others, though not likely.