{"id":555,"date":"2004-01-31T02:57:56","date_gmt":"2004-01-31T07:57:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wordpress\/2004\/01\/what_civil_war\/"},"modified":"2004-01-31T02:57:56","modified_gmt":"2004-01-31T07:57:56","slug":"what_civil_war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2004\/01\/what_civil_war\/","title":{"rendered":"What Civil War?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m don’t follow the status of Georgia public education too closely. But if Joseph Jarrell’s column<\/a> accurately describes proposed changes to its high school history curriculum, the system is headed in the wrong direction:<\/p>\n

The new curriculum calls for teaching only the period from 1500 to the 21st century. Students will no longer study such figures as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, William the Conqueror or Joan of Arc.
\n“The Iliad” and “The Odyssey” will not be mentioned. The development of democratic government in Greece and the fall of the Roman Empire will be skipped. Jesus, Muhammad, the Buddha and Confucius are not to be found in the new curriculum. Great civilizations like ancient Egypt will no longer merit study, and the concept of feudalism will not be discussed.
\nThe present 11th-grade U.S. history course covers the Exploration period to today. In the proposed changes, teachers will spend two or three weeks discussing the foundation of our country, with the remaining time devoted to studying events from 1876 to the present. Gone is any mention of the Louisiana Purchase or Lewis and Clark. There will be no discussion of Indian removal and the Trail of Tears.
\n. . .
\nSearch in vain for discussion of the Civil War; that topic is off limits. In a course entitled “American History,” students will not study our most devastating war. There is no mention of Fort Sumter, Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee or anything else associated with those years.
\nThough teachers supposedly have no time to discuss topics essential to understanding our heritage, the curriculum suggests they have their students write a 1920s radio drama. Teachers are also encouraged to assign essays about dating in the Jazz Age and to show segments from “All in the Family,” “Good Times” and “Chico and the Man.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No discussion of the Civil War? In Georgia<\/i>? Segments from “Good Times”?
\nTo borrow a line from Johnnie Mac, “You cannot be serious!” Why even have a history class if you’re going to skip the most significant events? This is one of the nuttiest things I’ve read in a while. Definitely educational experimentation gone awry.
\nVia Calpundit<\/a>.
\nUPDATE: Looks like I may have been too quick with this post. Ricky<\/a> links to this Georgia Department of Education release<\/a> stating that Joseph Jarrell’s op-ed is misleading–students will actually be learning about some of the aforementioned events in elementary school. If that’s the case, I’m not sure what’s up with the Atlanta Journal Constitution<\/i>. Apparently they check submissions about as well as the Knoxville News-Sentinel<\/i> does.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m don’t follow the status of Georgia public education too closely. But if Joseph Jarrell’s column accurately describes proposed changes to its high school history curriculum, the system is headed in the wrong direction: The new curriculum calls for teaching only the period from 1500 to the 21st century. Students will no longer study such […]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-555","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}