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fandomhigh2014-09-19 11:27 am
professor-lyman.livejournal.com) wrote in fandomhigh2014-09-19 11:27 am
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American History: Lies Your Other Teachers Taught You [Friday, Sept 19, 2014]
Hello, kids, and welcome to the latest installment of Joshua Lyman Really Hates Texas!
He waved a stack of paper that he then slapped onto each student's desk. "Right. Texas is fighting about American history books again. As we talked about in the beginning of the class, who ends up in books, how the story is presented, and making sure that information is presented in a balanced and accurate way is what stops us all from being Fox News watching morons who believe our current president is a Kenyan Muslim terrorist who's carrying ebola personally across the Mexican border."
Stop ranting, Josh.
"When a book is full of white guys, students will get the impression that white guys were the only ones who did anything and that is patently untrue. This current iteration of a history book apparently spends a lot of time talking about Moses and the formation of the US as a Christian nation which is...well, not true. First off, Moses was Jewish. Second of all, it was thousands of years between Moses and Europeans even getting to this continent. Third of all, the separation of religion from the practical aspects of governing a country was way, WAY up on the list of importance for our Founders. Many of the colonies had been founded by people fleeing religious oppression. Thomas Jefferson wrote and I quote, and feel free to forward this to your crazy redneck uncle, 'Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.' You can be me and be gearing up for High Holidays, you can believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, you can worship Zuul and unless you decide that your religion means you can keep slaves, have ten wives, or kill everyone in a fifteen-block radius, the government is supposed to give no kind of a fuck." He shrugged. "Most of the time that's even true."
He leaned back against his desk. "But why does what one state does in a textbook matter on a national level? Texas is freaking huge, and they buy a lot of textbooks. Therefore, the publishers want to make Texas happy so they can make lots of money. We'll discuss this more when we get into why the Confederacy comes off smelling like a rose in a lot of history textbooks and how that's because Texas is in the South.To a lesser extent, this is also why kids in Minnesota have to remember the Alamo." He took a sip from his coffee. "Okay. First we're gonna rant about Texas a bit, then you get a surprise pop quiz where you have to correctly label the states and their capitals because that kind of crap isn't up for debate."
He waved a stack of paper that he then slapped onto each student's desk. "Right. Texas is fighting about American history books again. As we talked about in the beginning of the class, who ends up in books, how the story is presented, and making sure that information is presented in a balanced and accurate way is what stops us all from being Fox News watching morons who believe our current president is a Kenyan Muslim terrorist who's carrying ebola personally across the Mexican border."
Stop ranting, Josh.
"When a book is full of white guys, students will get the impression that white guys were the only ones who did anything and that is patently untrue. This current iteration of a history book apparently spends a lot of time talking about Moses and the formation of the US as a Christian nation which is...well, not true. First off, Moses was Jewish. Second of all, it was thousands of years between Moses and Europeans even getting to this continent. Third of all, the separation of religion from the practical aspects of governing a country was way, WAY up on the list of importance for our Founders. Many of the colonies had been founded by people fleeing religious oppression. Thomas Jefferson wrote and I quote, and feel free to forward this to your crazy redneck uncle, 'Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.' You can be me and be gearing up for High Holidays, you can believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, you can worship Zuul and unless you decide that your religion means you can keep slaves, have ten wives, or kill everyone in a fifteen-block radius, the government is supposed to give no kind of a fuck." He shrugged. "Most of the time that's even true."
He leaned back against his desk. "But why does what one state does in a textbook matter on a national level? Texas is freaking huge, and they buy a lot of textbooks. Therefore, the publishers want to make Texas happy so they can make lots of money. We'll discuss this more when we get into why the Confederacy comes off smelling like a rose in a lot of history textbooks and how that's because Texas is in the South.To a lesser extent, this is also why kids in Minnesota have to remember the Alamo." He took a sip from his coffee. "Okay. First we're gonna rant about Texas a bit, then you get a surprise pop quiz where you have to correctly label the states and their capitals because that kind of crap isn't up for debate."
Listen to the lecture
Re: Listen to the lecture
Admittedly, she did not take too kindly to the rant at first, and spent the first five minutes or so of it frowning, but she was listening and it did seem to make sense the longer he went on, so the frown softened into a slightly reserved, thoughtful expression.