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Texas students will soon learn slavery played a central role in the Civil War

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
apo 8y ago
The board also decided to keep Hillary Clinton and Helen Keller in the curriculum, reversing a decision that made headlines in September. Clinton and Keller were initially removed, along with other historical figures, in an effort to "streamline" the state's social studies standards. Having gotten a close-up sample of California's approach to teaching history, any coverage that Texas may have been giving to Clinton and Keller would probably have amounted to one bullet point at best in practice. This is just political posturing.
- kodablah 8y ago
  > This is just political posturing. This is often the case as I see it due to the differences between the perceived methods of teaching/learning history and the actual methods (coupled with the differences in value too). Once reasonable comprehension can occur in youth, knowledge is obtained these days from a multitude of sources. Also history teachers, more than others, tend to deviate based on personal preferences making centralized bullet points only as valuable as their disseminators. While this may sound scary, good teachers like historical orators of the past can do wonders with narratives. Regardless, children obtain so much from the internet, documentaries, and other avenues of self learning that specific textbook statements are often overvalued simply out of fear of misrepresentation.
pimmen 8y ago
To the people who say it was about ”states’ rights” and not slavery I ask: A state’s right to what? And it’s interesting that we focus on states’ rights and not human rights.
- mikestew 8y ago
  A state’s right to what? The articles of succession of the individual confederate states can answer that question for you. I’ll save you some reading: it’s what you think it is.
  - albntomat0 8y ago
    It's in the second sentence of the declaration of secession for Mississippi. "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world." [0] [0]: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp
    - jjeaff 8y ago
      Second paragraph of the Texas declaration: "maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery - the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits".
      - justin66 8y ago
        South Carolina's declaration makes it clear what it's all about while kind of torpedoing the idea that they were champions of "states' rights" as it's presented today, a struggle of smaller states against a dominant central power. They wanted very much for the states, the Northern states in particular, to obey the federal power. They just wanted the federal power to reflect their priorities. No bonus points for guessing what type of disobedience they found particularly troublesome. The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States. The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution.
  - Frondo 8y ago
edoo 8y ago
Slavery was already on the way out. It was all about protectionist laws. Slavery doesn't create wealth, it actually holds back industrialization. There are countries in Africa where slavery is still rampant and it does not create wealth for them. The Civil War was about nothing but crony capitalism. It is incredibly important that the idea of slavery is pushed as the cause for the civil war. Without that it becomes obvious the path we took was not for the better of the country. Without the civil war slavery would still have been abolished yet states would still have strong rights. Our country was lost.
- vkou 8y ago
  On its way out? Slave states were fighting tooth and nail to keep it. An institution doesn't have to create wealth for an entire country, in order to persist. It only has to create wealth for the rich and powerful. The Civil War was absolutely about slavery. The South sure thought it was. The amount of ink it spilled on the subject of protecting that one particular right of a state was staggering. It was the one thing that apparently, they could compromise on. It's almost as if preserving the right to keep human beings like cattle was the whole bloody point of their secession.
  - edoo 8y ago
    Go read all of Lincoln's racist quotes. He is on record saying he would keep the slaves slaves if that meant the country stayed together. He wanted them all exported back to Africa. Slave owners in the south were a very small percentage of the population. The south did not rise up to defend slave owners. They rose up to defend themselves.
    - tcbawo 8y ago
      Lincoln was in favor of maintaining the status quo in order to keep the country intact. However, the Southern states were planning secession prior to his election. What were the Northern states planning to do to the South? What was the South defending themselves from?
aychedee 8y ago
Why kind of effed up country votes on history?
- falcor84 8y ago
  This sounds very strange to me too, but I assume that in other countries history teachers also have to follow a curriculum given to them by some central authority, no?
- krapp 8y ago
  Politicizing history and the teaching of history is hardly an American-only problem, particularly where that history is contentious.
- tonetheman 8y ago
  The US. https://www.jacksonville.com/news/national/2017-08-22/how-civil-war-taught-school-depends-where-you-live https://www.jacksonville.com/news/national/2017-08-22/how-ci...
- deleted 8y ago
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- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- znahz 8y ago
  As the two world wars have shown us, history is written by victors. That also applies to democratic votes.
- SteveGregory 8y ago
  Just wait until you hear about science.
- evgen 8y ago
  Every country does, it is just the case that in most of them you do not vote on the people who set curriculum standards directly. Who decided what would be in your history textbook and how it would be presented? I can promise you that some politician is at the top of that food chain. In some ways the UK is far worse because it is carefully hidden behind layers of ossified class hierarchy and centuries of a toxic mix of arrogance and prejudice.
GhostVII 8y ago
They already learned that slavery played a central role. They new changes are going to have it listed as the only cause, rather than one of three causes.
- gameswithgo 8y ago
  Do you have a source for your claim? Slavery was the first order cause, so it would be correct to present slavery as having a central role. source: Texas Declaration of Secession: http://www.civil-war.net/pages/texas_declaration.asp http://www.civil-war.net/pages/texas_declaration.asp
  - jjeaff 8y ago
    Wow, I had no idea they were so blatant about it. I thought it was all caped in "state's rights" at the time. But right near the top: "maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery - the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits"
    - thechao 8y ago
      Texan here who was educated in the "state's rights" regime and had to learn about the slavery 'angle' in college... As opposed to most wars, where history was written by the victors, in the US Civil War was mostly written about by the losers. They immediately went about reinventing the war in order to ease their conscience. I mean, the South deliberate started the war to defend an absolutely evil act (slavery), and in the ensuing conflict brought utter ruin on their society. The North was complicit in this rewriting because their main interest was in reintegration and reunification of the country. Unfortunately, fast forward 100+ years, and now we have people talking about state's rights, and not about slavery. Counterrevisionism, in this case, is more than justified.
      - kodablah 8y ago
        Also Texan, we learned slavery was the primary motivation and the discussion concerning states rights was based on the outcome dovetailing into a pattern of federalism henceforth.
rurban 8y ago
Let's see what they'll tell about the Texan Oil War and the Coal Wars. The university in Austin teaches it right, but even Wikipedia is wildly censored to spread the government POV there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_oil_boom#Discoveries_spread https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_oil_boom#Discoveries_spr... > These efforts at controlling production, intended to protect both the independent operators and the major producers, were largely unsuccessful at first and led to widespread oil smuggling. The largest producers demanded the governor to shutdown competition. They did this with the help of the Texan National Guard to protect their cartel and thus the Railroad Commission was born. Upton Sinclair or Howard Zinn are much more accurate than Wikipedia. The other prominent high-profile Texan criminals are either still alive or just died, so their rosy view of history is still censored in their favor. On the other hand the Coal Wars Wikipedia article is pretty accurate, but this didn't happen in Texas.
jacobmoe 8y ago
Last time I visited Austin I went to the state capital and was pretty surprised to see how history was told on the monuments there. I don't remember the wording exactly, but there were references to the "war of northern aggression" and Confederate soldiers who died "protecting states rights". I wonder how this disconnect between how civil war history is told in school and how it's told in public spaces will play out in the long run.
jacobmoe 8y ago
Considering that the country seems to be getting farther apart when it comes to the culture war, this news is pretty surprising.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

apo 8y ago

The board also decided to keep Hillary Clinton and Helen Keller in the curriculum, reversing a decision that made headlines in September. Clinton and Keller were initially removed, along with other historical figures, in an effort to "streamline" the state's social studies standards. Having gotten a close-up sample of California's approach to teaching history, any coverage that Texas may have been giving to Clinton and Keller would probably have amounted to one bullet point at best in practice. This is just political posturing.

kodablah 8y ago
> This is just political posturing. This is often the case as I see it due to the differences between the perceived methods of teaching/learning history and the actual methods (coupled with the differences in value too). Once reasonable comprehension can occur in youth, knowledge is obtained these days from a multitude of sources. Also history teachers, more than others, tend to deviate based on personal preferences making centralized bullet points only as valuable as their disseminators. While this may sound scary, good teachers like historical orators of the past can do wonders with narratives. Regardless, children obtain so much from the internet, documentaries, and other avenues of self learning that specific textbook statements are often overvalued simply out of fear of misrepresentation.

pimmen 8y ago

To the people who say it was about ”states’ rights” and not slavery I ask: A state’s right to what? And it’s interesting that we focus on states’ rights and not human rights.

mikestew 8y ago
A state’s right to what? The articles of succession of the individual confederate states can answer that question for you. I’ll save you some reading: it’s what you think it is.
- albntomat0 8y ago
  It's in the second sentence of the declaration of secession for Mississippi. "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world." [0] [0]: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp
  - jjeaff 8y ago
    Second paragraph of the Texas declaration: "maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery - the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits".
    - justin66 8y ago
      South Carolina's declaration makes it clear what it's all about while kind of torpedoing the idea that they were champions of "states' rights" as it's presented today, a struggle of smaller states against a dominant central power. They wanted very much for the states, the Northern states in particular, to obey the federal power. They just wanted the federal power to reflect their priorities. No bonus points for guessing what type of disobedience they found particularly troublesome. The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States. The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution.
- Frondo 8y ago

edoo 8y ago

Slavery was already on the way out. It was all about protectionist laws. Slavery doesn't create wealth, it actually holds back industrialization. There are countries in Africa where slavery is still rampant and it does not create wealth for them. The Civil War was about nothing but crony capitalism. It is incredibly important that the idea of slavery is pushed as the cause for the civil war. Without that it becomes obvious the path we took was not for the better of the country. Without the civil war slavery would still have been abolished yet states would still have strong rights. Our country was lost.

vkou 8y ago
On its way out? Slave states were fighting tooth and nail to keep it. An institution doesn't have to create wealth for an entire country, in order to persist. It only has to create wealth for the rich and powerful. The Civil War was absolutely about slavery. The South sure thought it was. The amount of ink it spilled on the subject of protecting that one particular right of a state was staggering. It was the one thing that apparently, they could compromise on. It's almost as if preserving the right to keep human beings like cattle was the whole bloody point of their secession.
- edoo 8y ago
  Go read all of Lincoln's racist quotes. He is on record saying he would keep the slaves slaves if that meant the country stayed together. He wanted them all exported back to Africa. Slave owners in the south were a very small percentage of the population. The south did not rise up to defend slave owners. They rose up to defend themselves.
  - tcbawo 8y ago
    Lincoln was in favor of maintaining the status quo in order to keep the country intact. However, the Southern states were planning secession prior to his election. What were the Northern states planning to do to the South? What was the South defending themselves from?

aychedee 8y ago

Why kind of effed up country votes on history?

falcor84 8y ago
This sounds very strange to me too, but I assume that in other countries history teachers also have to follow a curriculum given to them by some central authority, no?
krapp 8y ago
Politicizing history and the teaching of history is hardly an American-only problem, particularly where that history is contentious.
tonetheman 8y ago
The US. https://www.jacksonville.com/news/national/2017-08-22/how-civil-war-taught-school-depends-where-you-live https://www.jacksonville.com/news/national/2017-08-22/how-ci...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
znahz 8y ago
As the two world wars have shown us, history is written by victors. That also applies to democratic votes.
SteveGregory 8y ago
Just wait until you hear about science.
evgen 8y ago
Every country does, it is just the case that in most of them you do not vote on the people who set curriculum standards directly. Who decided what would be in your history textbook and how it would be presented? I can promise you that some politician is at the top of that food chain. In some ways the UK is far worse because it is carefully hidden behind layers of ossified class hierarchy and centuries of a toxic mix of arrogance and prejudice.

GhostVII 8y ago

They already learned that slavery played a central role. They new changes are going to have it listed as the only cause, rather than one of three causes.

gameswithgo 8y ago
Do you have a source for your claim? Slavery was the first order cause, so it would be correct to present slavery as having a central role. source: Texas Declaration of Secession: http://www.civil-war.net/pages/texas_declaration.asp http://www.civil-war.net/pages/texas_declaration.asp
- jjeaff 8y ago
  Wow, I had no idea they were so blatant about it. I thought it was all caped in "state's rights" at the time. But right near the top: "maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery - the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits"
  - thechao 8y ago
    Texan here who was educated in the "state's rights" regime and had to learn about the slavery 'angle' in college... As opposed to most wars, where history was written by the victors, in the US Civil War was mostly written about by the losers. They immediately went about reinventing the war in order to ease their conscience. I mean, the South deliberate started the war to defend an absolutely evil act (slavery), and in the ensuing conflict brought utter ruin on their society. The North was complicit in this rewriting because their main interest was in reintegration and reunification of the country. Unfortunately, fast forward 100+ years, and now we have people talking about state's rights, and not about slavery. Counterrevisionism, in this case, is more than justified.
    - kodablah 8y ago
      Also Texan, we learned slavery was the primary motivation and the discussion concerning states rights was based on the outcome dovetailing into a pattern of federalism henceforth.

rurban 8y ago

Let's see what they'll tell about the Texan Oil War and the Coal Wars. The university in Austin teaches it right, but even Wikipedia is wildly censored to spread the government POV there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_oil_boom#Discoveries_spread https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_oil_boom#Discoveries_spr... > These efforts at controlling production, intended to protect both the independent operators and the major producers, were largely unsuccessful at first and led to widespread oil smuggling. The largest producers demanded the governor to shutdown competition. They did this with the help of the Texan National Guard to protect their cartel and thus the Railroad Commission was born. Upton Sinclair or Howard Zinn are much more accurate than Wikipedia. The other prominent high-profile Texan criminals are either still alive or just died, so their rosy view of history is still censored in their favor. On the other hand the Coal Wars Wikipedia article is pretty accurate, but this didn't happen in Texas.

jacobmoe 8y ago

Last time I visited Austin I went to the state capital and was pretty surprised to see how history was told on the monuments there. I don't remember the wording exactly, but there were references to the "war of northern aggression" and Confederate soldiers who died "protecting states rights". I wonder how this disconnect between how civil war history is told in school and how it's told in public spaces will play out in the long run.

jacobmoe 8y ago

Considering that the country seems to be getting farther apart when it comes to the culture war, this news is pretty surprising.