Where your education dollars go.

Or rather, where they ARE NOT going.


Study Finds Many Colleges Don’t Require Core Subjects Like History, Government

A majority of U.S. college graduates don’t know the length of a congressional term, what the Emancipation Proclamation was, or which Revolutionary War general led the American troops at Yorktown.

The reason for such failures, according to a recent study: Few schools mandate courses in core subjects like U.S. government, history or economics. The sixth annual analysis of core curricula at 1,098 four-year colleges and universities by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni found that just 18% of schools require American history to graduate, 13% require a foreign language and 3% economics.

Have you read your children's textbooks?  That is even if they have one or are allowed to bring it home.

I had to specifically REQUEST that one of my kids could bring home his "Social Studies" book.  Which is supposedly, History, Government and Civics all rolled into one.  Which sounds like a good idea at first, but is actually horrible.  In my child's Social Studies textbook I found a brief 2 paragraphs on the Civil War, but 6 pages about Slavery and a full page on the Emancipation Proclamation and Abraham Lincoln. The book made it sound like the entirety of the Civil War was about nothing but Slavery.  Au Contraire Mon Frere.  Slavery was a SMALL part of the reason for the Civil War.  An important one but NOT the main reason.  Add in the Rights of the States which the Federal Government was running roughshod over, add in the Northern Industrialists who were bleeding the South dry through artificially high tariffs on southern products, not allowing southern investors from buying into northern industries.

And there were a LOT more reasons.  But according to the Social Studies book, it was Slavery.

I can remember when things like this started to happen.  Back in the 70's as a kid I was very interested in military history along with my father, and he encouraged me to read all of the available books on it.  He would buy me any book I wanted to help nurture my interest.

I was in Junior High School, and I remember when I walked in on my first day in the seventh grade.  I didn't HAVE History, Civics or Government on my class schedule like I had in Elementary school.

I had Social Studies, English, Reading Comprehension, Algebra, Science, Music and French.

Huh?

What happened to History?  What happened to Civics?  What happened to Government?  I had had those three course since the Third Grade.  Now I suddenly had "Social Studies" 

In the first Week of "Social Studies" I got into seven "Discussions" if you will with my teacher.  I got assigned to write SEVEN papers on top of my regular classwork and got sent to the Vice Principals Office 3 times for "Disrupting Class"

The "Social Studies" textbook was WRONG!  And I knew it and I had PROOF, thanks to the Encyclopedia Britannica..  All of which I told to the Vice Principal.  What happened?  The Encyclopedia's were removed from the classroom and I was told to sit down, shut up and obey the teacher.

I remember when President Reagan was shot.  I was in English Class and my Social Studies Teacher came in to the room and told my English Teach.  Then they both started laughing and saying it was too bad he hadn't gotten hit in the head.  I was in the Seventh Grade and this was 1981.  And my teachers the people who were supposed to teach me to be a  contributing member of society, were laughing about the President being shot and about how it's too bad he hadn't been killed.

I was appalled.

So things started to REALLY change about the time kids raised during the Vietnam started to enter the Halls of Academia.  They saw all the garbage going on.  The protests on the TV, the stories in the newspapers and on the radio.  Those children then went to Colleges and Universities and were TAUGHT by those same protesters as they saw on the TV and read about in the newspapers and listened to on the radio.

And they took those ideas and thoughts in their heads and made them their own.  And then tried to force it into young malleable minds such as mine.

However I had parents who even though I was never a really good student, knew I was smart.  I would sleep in my classes but passed almost every test except the the math ones due to my then undiagnosed Dyscalculia.  I would come home from school and I would read.  I would read History books, Military History, Ancient History, Biology books, Science books, I would read entire Volumes of the Encyclopedia.  My parents actually let me keep one set of our Encyclopedias in my bedroom.  And many times they would come home to find me nose down into a volume readin about something that interested me.

And still several of my teachers would try to force their beliefs into my young skull.

And still it didn't work.

I found myself being transferred out of Social Studies into the Advanced Reading Program.  Evidently they thought since I refused to read the textbooks they wanted me to read I could fail in the advanced class.

It didn't work.

I read the entire curriculum of 14 books in my first month and I was demanding more from Mr. Lytle the teacher.  He is who introduced me to the Classics, since I was bored to tears with the stuff the School District wanted me to read.

Kurt Vonnegut, J.D. Salinger just to start.  Then he introduced me to Science Fiction.  Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, Harrison, and too many more to type out.

Those books introduced me to ideas that I now espouse and hold dear to my soul.

The problem now though is, the teachers have gotten too much rot into the system. They have been allowed to have free rein too long.  And now, 4 generations ware paying the price for it.

I just pray that we can stop it before anymore generations have to pay for it as well.