U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

A group of Oklahoma state legislators is pushing back hard against the AP History curriculum for high school students because, in a nutshell, it does not promote "American exceptionalism" and is not patriotic enough for their blood:

Why Oklahoma Lawmakers Want to Ban AP US History -- NYMag

 

In other words, the curriculum doesn't lie enough. Awesome.

You know it's bad when an already whitewashed, male-dominated version of American history doesn't suit the establishment.

 

Roughly half of education "policy" in the US is efforts to insure that children grow up as ignorant as adult politicians.

 

Instead of Eyes On The Prize, schools will be required to show American Sniper.

 

'Merica

 

A school board member in a suburban Colorado district tried to do the same thing this past year and got absolutely blasted. Teachers did organized sick days where whole schools had to be shut down and students walked out for several weeks. They didn't necessarily table it, but they tweaked it a lot and said there would be more community input. It's an a stupid idea and a great way to teach freaking history. Something that already and actually happened!

 

For a country that likes talking about how great and strong it is it certainly has a very thin skin.

 

Seems like a good time to point out that when I was in grade school and junior high in the 80s and early 90s, our US History classes always seemed to take the same path from the Revolution through Lincoln and the Civil War and to WWI and WWII. But the school year always seemed to end before we got to the Korean and Vietnam wars. It wasn't until I took US History AP in the 11th grade that we actually covered the causes of, and stateside opposition to, Vietnam.

 

With WWII reading something like this: "Hitler took over Europe and then Japan attacked America and the United States joined the war and led the D-Day assault and Germany surrendered and then Japan surrendered and yay America!"

 

My son is 5 1/2, and has started to show some interest in American history. The other night he asked me, "Why did Japan want the United States to join in the war?"

"That's an easy one, son! Well ... um ... yeah, whoo, it's getting late. I'll finish telling you about it tomorrow."

 

Does anybody know any specific objectionable passages?