Easy E wrote:
The real quesion should be....

Does the AP History course teach to the test enough?

 LordofHats wrote:
It is totally unfair. There's enough "America is Awesome" is history as is, we hardly need more

Someone in an AP history course should already be well grounded in the 7 Years War and the American Revolution. Otherwise they have no business in an AP course, the purpose of which is supposed to be to prepare you for college work.

College history courses cover things like Pre-Columbian America and how it effected the Colonial New World, which does effect the United States (it's actually a really big deal, historically speaking).

They cover things like the history of slavery in very fine detail (which is a huge issue in US history general education almost always overlooks outside of it's role in certain compromises and the Civil War).

Environmental History has also become quite hip in college and you're likely to see courses offered covering it.

Except that that's history. Straight out of Van Ranke (literal father of modern historical study).

This is not history. This is propaganda and the only reason to teach it is for purely political reasons.

All education is propaganda. We have to decide what propaganda is socially valuable, and personally I'd rather see students being taught that it's through their collaboration as citizens that we overcome challenges and not through shouting down other identity cliques in a race for power and status.

 Jihadin wrote:
Wonder how the War on Terror is going to be taught

 LordofHats wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
Wonder how the War on Terror is going to be taught

I have $10 on the War on Terror becoming the 21st Century version of the Barbary Wars. A conflict with a huge impact that hardly anyone bothers remembering after twenty years (or maybe a better comparison would be the Boxer Rebellion)

Mostly because I'm expecting something big to happen in the next twenty years that will cause everyone to forget about it

 LordofHats wrote:
I don't see North Korea lasting much longer. China is tired of dealing with them, only supporting them insofar as they don't want to lose their 'ally' in the region, but I think China is going to go the route of trying to woo South/United Korea away from the US through escalating tensions with Japan. I just don't think North Korea can last anymore. They're in the death throws.

Russia is took weak to constitute a threat to Europe and honestly I don't think Putin is going to last. His time is eclipsing, part of the reason he's pushing in the Ukraine is to stabilize his domestic position and he's kind of sabotaged it in the process. Granted. Eastern Europe might get screwed in all that. Not sure.

I think the conflict with radical Islam is ultimately going to be kind of a footnote for us. It's not new and it's not going away. It'll always be there, but it'll cease being the concern it is now. A very specific set of circumstances led to our being attacked directly by it, and I foresee it falling out of our interest as time goes. Bin Laden had a personal interest in attacking us at home. He's dead. Others might not like us, but their concern isn't attacking us in 9/11 style attacks.

 Jihadin wrote:
China likes that buffer on the Korean Peninsula and (eventually) NK does that freaking nose dive to doom and Kim Im Anut tries to unleash war on South Korea I can see Chinese Peace Keepers moving with quickness and China striking the likely location on where NK has their nukes(?). Though the UN will have to commit to the aggression.

Russia military strength is not on par with the US but NATO currently is not a solid block of "buddies". Germany made it known they cannot commit to NATO long term goals (something like that) and EU is a bit slow on sanctions on Russia antics in Eastern Europe. I can see Putin making a play and having a big pay off using natural resource discounts to former eastern bloc nations. Those former eastern bloc countries are going to have the best of Western and Eastern influence (as long as they do not join NATO)

I do not think the ME conflict going to be a foot note being like you said.

Big ? is when Iran gets an operational missile nuke is what the Hell they are going to do with it (Israel)

 LordofHats wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
China likes that buffer on the Korean Peninsula and (eventually) NK does that freaking nose dive to doom and Kim Im Anut tries to unleash war on South Korea I can see Chinese Peace Keepers moving with quickness and China striking the likely location on where NK has their nukes(?). Though the UN will have to commit to the aggression.

Yeah, but NK isn't really in China's pocket and never has been. Recent overtures suggest that a unified Korea might happen in the coming future. This would not necessarily disadvantage China, as there are means by which to easily turn a unified Korea into that buffer.

Russia military strength is not on par with the US but NATO currently is not a solid block of "buddies". Germany made it known they cannot commit to NATO long term goals (something like that) and EU is a bit slow on sanctions on Russia antics in Eastern Europe. I can see Putin making a play and having a big pay off using natural resource discounts to former eastern bloc nations. Those former eastern bloc countries are going to have the best of Western and Eastern influence (as long as they do not join NATO)

Chechnya and Afghanistan. That is all.

Russia might be able to beat down a poor little country like the Ukraine with the cream of its crop, but the rest of their military is a bloody mess. Russia might have the hardware but they don't have the infrastructure or the logistics. They can't maintain the the needs of a long war effort and their economy is glass.

Ignore all the scare mongering. Russia is not Nazi Germany 2.0 that people keep proclaiming.

I do not think the ME conflict going to be a foot note being like you said.

The stuff in the ME today is the stuff that's been in the ME forever. We're just paying more attention to it at the moment on a public scale.

Big ? is when Iran gets an operational missile nuke is what the Hell they are going to do with it (Israel)

Iran is a state, not radical Islam. Israel itself is as much a problem as Iran. We just ignore how big a problem they are because we like them more.

 LordofHats wrote:
Hey it's Halloween season

 TheMeanDM wrote:

And I was even more shocked (yes, I had shock left in me to be shocked) to learn that this year, my kids in 5th grade (twins) are *allowed* to re-do homework and certain class activities in order to avoid the C/D/F grade.

 d-usa wrote:
Getting a chance to see "why" your answer was wrong and getting to spend another day learning "how" to do it right is nothing bad IMO.

 Jihadin wrote:
What's wrong with getting it "right" the first time? Seems like one can hip shoot a homework assignment to get that extra time on Xbox/PS3/WoW that night knowing they can get a 2nd....3rd.......4th chance at getting it right. That setting a precedent (notional) that screwing it up is acceptable being you can get additional chances to get it right.

 Jihadin wrote:
So you see no "abuse" of this policy eh

 Jihadin wrote:
What's wrong with getting it "right" the first time? Seems like one can hip shoot a homework assignment to get that extra time on Xbox/PS3/WoW that night knowing they can get a 2nd....3rd.......4th chance at getting it right. That setting a precedent (notional) that screwing it up is acceptable being you can get additional chances to get it right.

 Jihadin wrote:
I go over my kid school homework and correct him where needed. Then I show him where he derailed at and get him back on track. I got History and stuff. Wife got college math bit. I'm getting the feel my kid is getting a bit more education then the other students and at times the teacher

 TheMeanDM wrote:
Interesting....two articles that tie together.

Spoiler:

DENVER (AP) — A fight in Colorado over how United States' history is taught has pitted the new conservative majority on a suburban Denver school board against students and teachers who accuse the board of censorship.

The students and teachers are protesting possible changes to the new Advanced Placement history course. Hundreds have turned out to demonstrate, holding signs saying "There is nothing more patriotic than protest" and "Teach us the truth."

School board members say they want to make sure the history course, accused of having an anti-American bias by some conservatives, is balanced. They say students are being used as pawns by teachers, who are upset about a new merit pay system.

Here's a look at the issue that has galvanized Colorado's second-largest school district:

WHAT SPARKED THE CHANGES TO THE CLASSES IN THE FIRST PLACE?

For years, high school teachers have complained that Advanced Placement history classes — electives which are meant to help high school students prepare for college— were not challenging enough. They said they were covering so many topics superficially and were more focused on helping students memorize facts and pass the test to earn college credit than actually preparing them to go to college.

A group of college professors and high school teachers were appointed in 2006 by the College Board, which administers AP exams, to redesign the course. The course plan was made public in 2012 and this is the first year it is being used in schools across the country.

HOW WERE HISTORY CLASSES CHANGED?

The focus of the course has shifted from cramming in as many facts as possible to emphasizing examination of historical documents and discussion about the nation's history organized around themes such as "politics and power" and "identity."

For example, the course gives more attention to the period before Christopher Columbus' arrival — a period rushed through before as just a "prelude" to colonization — as well as to slavery and women to incorporate new research, said University of Colorado history professor Fred Anderson, who helped in the first round of the redesign. He said teachers have more time to cover these topics because they no longer have to cover as much minutiae, like making students memorize dates of minor historical events.

WHAT DO CRITICS SAY?

Some conservatives like the National Review's Stanley Kurtz say the course was influenced by a movement in academia to de-emphasize the United States' uniqueness and treat it as one nation among many, with an eye toward promoting a less aggressive foreign policy.

The Colorado school board member who proposed reviewing the course, Julie Williams, says the course has an emphasis on "American-bashing" and says the framework omits important historical figures like Benjamin Franklin and Martin Luther King, Jr. and events like the Boston Tea Party. But others she says are omitted are mentioned as possible choices for student essays on the test, including Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.

The College Board says the framework isn't meant to be an exhaustive list of events and people to be covered because teachers generally know which figures to include and because curriculum standards vary among states. For example, the Black Panthers are suggested for a discussion about "attacks on postwar liberalism," but the instructions state that their specific mention doesn't mean that they are more important than King or Rosa Parks, who isn't mentioned.

WHAT STARTED THE COLORADO PROTESTS?

On Sept. 18, the Jefferson County Board of Education met and proposed setting up a committee to ensure that the courses "promote citizenship, patriotism, essentials and benefits of the free-market system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights" and don't "encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law."

Williams is one of three conservatives elected to the school board last year. They are now the majority, and they've pushed out the district's veteran superintendent and clashed with the teachers union and parent-teacher association.

At the same meeting, they also backed a plan to base teacher raises on an evaluation system which teachers say is flawed. Teachers at two schools staged sick outs with some students joining them in protest the next day. When classes resumed the following week, waves of students walked out of class to protest.

WHAT HAS HAPPENED IN OTHER STATES?

In Texas, the state board of education has ordered teachers to adhere to curriculum standards and not teach to the AP history standards, even though students will still take the same test as students elsewhere. In South Carolina, conservatives have called on an education oversight committee to ask the College Board to rewrite the framework to remove ideological bias.

WHAT'S NEXT?

The school board will meet Thursday and may vote on the proposal. Students, parents and teachers plan to attend the meeting, as well as protest before it starts.

There's no sign conservatives want to back off creating a review committee, but the latest proposal omits the language about ensuring that the course promotes patriotism and downplays social disorder. Superintendent Dan McMinimee has said he'll ask the board to appoint students to the committee.

And they voted, apparently, now:

GOLDEN, Colo. (AP) — Students, parents and teachers in suburban Denver vow to continue demonstrating against a school board's new conservative majority after it refused to back off plans to review Advanced Placement U.S. history courses for what some see as anti-American content.

The Jefferson County Board of Education voted Thursday night to lay the groundwork for a review of curriculum, with the AP history course likely the first to get a deeper look. Board member Julie Williams, who proposed the history review, said she wants to make sure the class is balanced.

The elective course has been criticized by the Republican National Committee and the Texas State Board of Education, which has told teachers not to teach according to the course's new framework. Being taught for the first time this year, it gives greater attention to the history of North America and its native people before colonization and their clashes with Europeans, but critics say it downplays the settlers' success in establishing a new nation.

The Colorado board didn't vote on its original proposal to review the history course with an eye toward promoting patriotism and downplaying social disorder — language students have blasted in school-time protests across the district. However, students and other activists say the board's new approach to include students on existing curriculum review committees doesn't satisfy them because they believe board members will ultimately try to change the history course to suit their views.

"This isn't over," said Ashlyn Maher, 18, a Chatfield High School senior who has been helping organize protests over the past two weeks. "We are going to fight until we see some results."

Students and parents — along with Jefferson County teachers who are in their own fight with the board over evaluations and merit pay — demonstrated along a busy boulevard during Friday's afternoon rush hour as passing cars honked their horns.

Toni Johnson Boschee held a sign calling for a recall against the conservative board members as she carried her youngest child on her back, a Starbucks cup in one hand and fliers in the other. She said she's frustrated that the board did not listen to or engage in conversation with those who turned out against the history proposal.

"This is tyranny in slow motion. This is how it happens. We all need to stand up and raise our voices," she said.

The College Board administers the course and other AP classes, which are meant to prepare students for college and give them a chance at earning college credit. It says the framework — an outline of the course built around themes like "politics and power" and "environment and geography" — isn't meant to be an exhaustive list of everything to be studied, and teachers are always free to add material required by their states.

For example, Martin Luther King Jr. isn't mentioned in the framework, but the Black Panthers are. The College Board's instructions about the new framework say teachers know to include King but asked for help with less obvious examples of people and events to discuss around some of the themes.

But besides who is mentioned and who isn't, veteran history teacher Larry Krieger, of Montgomery, New Jersey, faults the framework for having a global, revisionist view. He said it depicts the U.S. as going from conquering Native Americans to becoming an imperial power, while downplaying examples of cooperation and unity.

"Native Americans were defeated, wrongs were done, African-Americans were enslaved. However, at the same time this was going on, democratic institutions were being established, there was religious toleration and a new society was being created," he said.

The College Board says students need to be familiar with concepts taught in college classes but the exam for college credit will often give students a chance to demonstrate multiple points of view.

Joan Bertin, executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, which opposed the Colorado proposal, said it's likely the issue could come up before school boards elsewhere at a time when some are also upset about Common Core, a new set of educational standards for reading and math adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia.

"People who are not in any ideological camp are going to say: 'Wait a minute. We just want our kids to get a good education. We don't want them to be indoctrinated into anything,'" she said.

http://news.yahoo.com/q-students-colorado-protesting-181737361.html

http://news.yahoo.com/colorado-school-board-keeps-eye-history-changes-082408443.html

 Hordini wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
I go over my kid school homework and correct him where needed. Then I show him where he derailed at and get him back on track. I got History and stuff. Wife got college math bit. I'm getting the feel my kid is getting a bit more education then the other students and at times the teacher

That's excellent. You should continue to do that. Unfortunately there are parents who do literally nothing to help educate their children, but teachers still have a responsibility to help those children learn as well.

Did you know being a member of a Communist Party group is illegal?