So, all was well with the newly approved AP History...then the Social Justice Warriors (SJW) messed things up.
SO, micro aggression warning...if you have an autographed copy of Howard Zinn's (closet Communist) Peoples History of the United States, take if off the shelf now and hug it close cuz I have the historical whupass grenade and I am pulling the pin.
I have to say that this SJW infestation of history is sadly not new, and has been fostered by the Fifth Column of progressive historians for a long, long time:
As a leading conservative culture warrior, Bennett held a traditionalist vision of the humanities. He believed the Western canon—which he defined in the terms of Matthew Arnold as “the best that has been said, thought, written, and otherwise expressed about the human experience”—should be the philosophical bedrock of the nation’s higher education. “Because our society is the product and we the inheritors of Western civilization,” Bennett matter-of-factly contended, “American students need an understanding of its origins and development, from its roots in antiquity to the present.”
Most academic humanists, in contrast, took a more critical stance towards the Western canon. They believed it too Eurocentric and male-dominated to properly reflect modern American society and thus revised it by adding books authored by women and minorities. Toni Morrison was to sit alongside Shakespeare. As literary theorist Jane Tompkins told a reporter from the New York Times in 1988, the struggle to revise the canon was a battle “among contending factions for the right to be represented in the picture America draws of itself.”
Many college students agreed with the canon revisionists. In 1986, Bill King, president of the Stanford University Black Student Union, formally complained to the Stanford academic senate that the university’s required Western Civilization reading list was racist. “The Western culture program as it is presently structured around a core list and an outdated philosophy of the West being Greece, Europe, and Euro-America is wrong, and worse,” he contended, “it hurts people mentally and emotionally in ways that are not even recognized.” Stanford students opposed to the Western Civilization curriculum marched and chanted, “Hey ho, ho ho, Western culture’s got to go,” and the academic senate approved mild changes to the core reading list that they hoped would satisfy the understandable demands of their increasingly diverse student body.
{My bolding for emphasis on the liberal mindset..I mean really? Hey Ho, Hey ho? I wonder what pot-smoking draft dodging professor they learned that from, eh?}
This thinking, of course, drives me up the wall. It's like the modern version of "every kid gets a trophy." In the SJW mindset, EVERY protected class of people contributed equally to American history and the making of America.
Even great historians are beginning to realize this SJW rewriting of American history is dumbing down the academic realm itself.
But a new generation of historians is no longer interested in how the United States came to be. That kind of narrative history of the nation, they say, is not only inherently triumphalist but has a teleological bias built into it. Those who write narrative histories necessarily have to choose and assign significance to events in terms of a known outcome, and that, the moral critics believe, is bound to glorify the nation. So instead of writing full-scale narrative histories, the new generation of historians has devoted itself to isolating and recovering stories of the dispossessed: the women kept in dependence; the American Indians shorn of their lands; the black slaves brought in chains from Africa. Consequently, much of their history is fragmentary and essentially anachronistic—condemning the past for not being more like the present. It has no real interest in the pastness of the past.
These historians see themselves as moral critics obligated to denounce the values of the past in order to somehow reform our present.
Yup, for SJWs everything is about politics and the ever present "hooey changey" crap.
OH, and it gets even worse. Not content to dumb down and rewrite American history to make sure everyone is included, the new class of SJW is even making sure that only the politically acceptable topics are discussed.
In fact, some American universities seem to be reconsidering whether exposing students to a wide range of perspectives is necessary or beneficial. They want students to feel safe; not just physically, but psychologically and intellectually as well. Over the past year, many mainstream universities have been experimenting with the use of trigger warnings. If an idea might upset some students, then professors are encouraged to provide a trigger warning so students can choose to close themselves off.
OYYY. So here are the so-called "learning objectives" put forth by the progressive liberals writing the new AP History.
Section II: Thematic Learning Objectives.
The content learning objectives for the AP U.S. History course and exam are organized under seven themes, which are topics of historical inquiry to explore throughout the AP U.S. History course.
Identity
Work, exchange, and technology
Peopling
Politics and power
America in the world
Environment and geography — physical and human
Ideas, beliefs, and culture
Peopling?---is that even word.
Here's the truth...and it's not pleasant...so for anyone who might be offended, clutch that Zinn tight now.
1. American history has the good, bad, and ugly. As an honest historian, I am not afraid to discuss and debate any of them...even slavery...that huge bugaboo of many SJW historians.
2. Whether the SJW like to admit it or not (and they don't I assure you), white males made most of American history. Yup, I said it. Now, we can debate whether that was "FAIR" or not or why women, blacks, Hispanics, blah, blah were not included in the making of America, but the facts are not in dispute. There we no one-legged Puerto Rican lesbians at Lexington Commons, Gettysburg, or Omaha Beach....FACT. Is Seneca Falls as important as the Constitutional Convention? Is Harriet Tubman as important as U.S. Grant?
Well, I think you know where I stand on those questions. BUT I am not afraid to debate them...politely...with no name calling. That's what teaching history should be about...figuring out things in CONTEXT and trying to draw some useful conclusions about why things are they way they are.
After all, America in 2015 didn't just happen...our institutions, culture, politics and even the iWatch came about because of thousands of decisions, big and small, good and bad, and they all can be examined.
But don't try to tell this Grouchy Historian that D-Day is as important as the Stonewall Riots..because well, I will have to get my whupass grenade again.
So, needless to say, I am not a fan of the AP learning objectives...historical trophies for every protected group do not impress me.
SO, micro aggression warning...if you have an autographed copy of Howard Zinn's (closet Communist) Peoples History of the United States, take if off the shelf now and hug it close cuz I have the historical whupass grenade and I am pulling the pin.
I have to say that this SJW infestation of history is sadly not new, and has been fostered by the Fifth Column of progressive historians for a long, long time:
As a leading conservative culture warrior, Bennett held a traditionalist vision of the humanities. He believed the Western canon—which he defined in the terms of Matthew Arnold as “the best that has been said, thought, written, and otherwise expressed about the human experience”—should be the philosophical bedrock of the nation’s higher education. “Because our society is the product and we the inheritors of Western civilization,” Bennett matter-of-factly contended, “American students need an understanding of its origins and development, from its roots in antiquity to the present.”
Most academic humanists, in contrast, took a more critical stance towards the Western canon. They believed it too Eurocentric and male-dominated to properly reflect modern American society and thus revised it by adding books authored by women and minorities. Toni Morrison was to sit alongside Shakespeare. As literary theorist Jane Tompkins told a reporter from the New York Times in 1988, the struggle to revise the canon was a battle “among contending factions for the right to be represented in the picture America draws of itself.”
Many college students agreed with the canon revisionists. In 1986, Bill King, president of the Stanford University Black Student Union, formally complained to the Stanford academic senate that the university’s required Western Civilization reading list was racist. “The Western culture program as it is presently structured around a core list and an outdated philosophy of the West being Greece, Europe, and Euro-America is wrong, and worse,” he contended, “it hurts people mentally and emotionally in ways that are not even recognized.” Stanford students opposed to the Western Civilization curriculum marched and chanted, “Hey ho, ho ho, Western culture’s got to go,” and the academic senate approved mild changes to the core reading list that they hoped would satisfy the understandable demands of their increasingly diverse student body.
{My bolding for emphasis on the liberal mindset..I mean really? Hey Ho, Hey ho? I wonder what pot-smoking draft dodging professor they learned that from, eh?}
This thinking, of course, drives me up the wall. It's like the modern version of "every kid gets a trophy." In the SJW mindset, EVERY protected class of people contributed equally to American history and the making of America.
Even great historians are beginning to realize this SJW rewriting of American history is dumbing down the academic realm itself.
But a new generation of historians is no longer interested in how the United States came to be. That kind of narrative history of the nation, they say, is not only inherently triumphalist but has a teleological bias built into it. Those who write narrative histories necessarily have to choose and assign significance to events in terms of a known outcome, and that, the moral critics believe, is bound to glorify the nation. So instead of writing full-scale narrative histories, the new generation of historians has devoted itself to isolating and recovering stories of the dispossessed: the women kept in dependence; the American Indians shorn of their lands; the black slaves brought in chains from Africa. Consequently, much of their history is fragmentary and essentially anachronistic—condemning the past for not being more like the present. It has no real interest in the pastness of the past.
These historians see themselves as moral critics obligated to denounce the values of the past in order to somehow reform our present.
Yup, for SJWs everything is about politics and the ever present "hooey changey" crap.
OH, and it gets even worse. Not content to dumb down and rewrite American history to make sure everyone is included, the new class of SJW is even making sure that only the politically acceptable topics are discussed.
In fact, some American universities seem to be reconsidering whether exposing students to a wide range of perspectives is necessary or beneficial. They want students to feel safe; not just physically, but psychologically and intellectually as well. Over the past year, many mainstream universities have been experimenting with the use of trigger warnings. If an idea might upset some students, then professors are encouraged to provide a trigger warning so students can choose to close themselves off.
OYYY. So here are the so-called "learning objectives" put forth by the progressive liberals writing the new AP History.
Section II: Thematic Learning Objectives.
The content learning objectives for the AP U.S. History course and exam are organized under seven themes, which are topics of historical inquiry to explore throughout the AP U.S. History course.
Identity
Work, exchange, and technology
Peopling
Politics and power
America in the world
Environment and geography — physical and human
Ideas, beliefs, and culture
Peopling?---is that even word.
Here's the truth...and it's not pleasant...so for anyone who might be offended, clutch that Zinn tight now.
1. American history has the good, bad, and ugly. As an honest historian, I am not afraid to discuss and debate any of them...even slavery...that huge bugaboo of many SJW historians.
2. Whether the SJW like to admit it or not (and they don't I assure you), white males made most of American history. Yup, I said it. Now, we can debate whether that was "FAIR" or not or why women, blacks, Hispanics, blah, blah were not included in the making of America, but the facts are not in dispute. There we no one-legged Puerto Rican lesbians at Lexington Commons, Gettysburg, or Omaha Beach....FACT. Is Seneca Falls as important as the Constitutional Convention? Is Harriet Tubman as important as U.S. Grant?
Well, I think you know where I stand on those questions. BUT I am not afraid to debate them...politely...with no name calling. That's what teaching history should be about...figuring out things in CONTEXT and trying to draw some useful conclusions about why things are they way they are.
After all, America in 2015 didn't just happen...our institutions, culture, politics and even the iWatch came about because of thousands of decisions, big and small, good and bad, and they all can be examined.
But don't try to tell this Grouchy Historian that D-Day is as important as the Stonewall Riots..because well, I will have to get my whupass grenade again.
So, needless to say, I am not a fan of the AP learning objectives...historical trophies for every protected group do not impress me.
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