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Jewish World Review May 4, 2000/ 29 Nissan, 5760
Suzanne Fields
But when Jay Leno takes to the streets of Los Angeles for pop interviews testing the facts of history, he gets the same results and that's no laughing matter. He asked bystanders who was the president of the United States during World War II and one of them replied Abraham Lincoln. Another thought it was Jimmy Carter. In more systematic tests in the 1980s, two-thirds of American 17-year-olds couldn't get within 50 years of the dates of the Civil War. It got worse when they were asked about current events. There are lots of reasons for such ignorance, and we can round up the usual suspects -- bad public schools, poor teachers, broken homes, bad study habits. But it's even simpler than that. History textbooks are lousy and they may be getting worse. For more than a decade Gilbert T. Sewall, director of the American Textbook Council, has examined history and social-studies textbooks for the fifth, eighth, and eleventh grades, and the message isn't good. Textbooks are worse than ever in both content and style. Many of them are wedged into narrow-minded ideological agendas, with pride in the vision and courage of the Founding Fathers replaced by exaggerated attention to the abuse and exploitation of minorities, women, and immigrants, especially `Native Americans` and black and brown men and women. Garish graphics dumb down the presentation further, overwhelming the text with simple-minded images. A typical example is in a text published by McGraw-Hill entitled "A New Nation,'' a history of the United States for fifth graders. It's hugely popular with teachers. So many 10-year-olds read it that it could be considered a national primer, offering some of the first lessons about America's past. One passage describes the Mississippi River, citing its origin in Minnesota and how the Indians named it. The reader learns how the barges carry goods from Minnesota to St. Louis, Memphis and New Orleans. So far, so good. But the text is overwhelmed by a huge photograph of a black man singing into a microphone, superimposed on a photograph of barges. The caption: "The Mississippi River forms the western border of the state of Mississippi, birthplace of Charley Pride and other country music singers.''
Textbooks today exclude such majestic figures as explorers, statesmen, inventors and writers, replacing them with pop celebrities like Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley. Pride, patriotism and faith in G-d and country have vanished as diseased symptoms of "triumphalism.'' The American character is redefined as a ruthless patriarchy that exploits women, nonwhites, Indians, and the ecosystem. To introduce black history, a good idea, European history is downgraded or short-changed, which is a bad idea. "Textbooks now lavish attention on medieval African centers of learning and universities,'' writes Mr. Sewall. " `Timbuktu boasted over 100 religious schools as well as a university' declares (one textbook), ignoring contributions to American culture originating in European intellectual centers such as London, Geneva, and Seville.'' The same textbook celebrates the "magnificent reign'' of Mansa Musa, a West African king of the 14th century who was "the richest and most noble king in all the land'' and "who worked to bring peace and order to the kingdom of Mali.'' He's become a stock figure in politically correct texts.
Not all the textbooks are this bad, but there's an appeal to anger and indignation toward America
rather than an inculcation of pride in a remarkable democracy that continues to attract immigrants
from every corner of the world. Alas, the giants of history such as Julius Caesar, Augustine, Martin
Luther, Copernicus and Magellan play only supporting roles to the heavy hitters of history like
Rigoberta Menchu (Nobel Prize-winning Guatemalan political activist), Chico Mendez (Brazilian
"eco-martyr''), Anita Hill, Anne Hutchinson and, of course, Mansa Masu the Magnificent. Should
we be surprised when our children grow up to know
05/01/00: Gore's ruthless doublespeak
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