Well, like I said, I really don't care about the Civil War, what with it being a century and a half finished now. However. Their states had seceded; they were no longer citizens of the United States, which does complicate the question of treason.
Have a look at a Southern state's standards for teaching U.S. history sometime.
Maybe you can tell me what you're referring to there. I can only vouch for NC's, and I guarantee you as concerns the Civil War, what I was taught way back when was no different from what was being taught in any northern state (to wit, it was generic, textbook, and boring). I'll let you know whether they praise the valor and chivalry of the Grey when my third-grader hits history classes, but I really don't see it in the offing.
Apo, I'm not holding you personally responsible for the failings of the current South to reckon with ancient history. And for all I know, North Carolina is a beacon of unflinching integrity. But seriously, there's an emphasis issue with, let's say, a lot of Southerners and their understanding of the Civil War. Here's part of the Virginia History Standards:
4.4 The student will describe the social and political life of Virginians between the Revolutionary War and the end of the Civil War, with emphasis on * the contributions of Virginians to the establishment of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, and the success of the new national government; * conflicts between northern and southern states and within Virginia, including Nat Turner's Rebellion, and events leading to secession; and * Virginia's role in the Civil War, including major battles and leaders in the Confederate army, including Robert E. Lee, J.E.B. Stuart, and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson.
Now, okay, slavery gets mentioned, and presumably Virginia doesn't come off too well in the Nat Turner episode (although it's not too clear) but here you have Virginia's contribution to the Revolution (the Constitution!) unthinkingly bookended by Virginia's contribution to the Civil War (treason to the Constitution!).
59 I always arrive too late for the party, cause I had a great line about Joan Allen and sexual repression. I just watched Joan Allen in a movie masturbate in the bathtub and become a colored person.
As someone who moved around a lot as a kid, I object to the requirement of teaching state history in general. It seemed like every time we moved to a new state, it was the year they taught ___ State History. By the time I was in fourth grade, I had taken full years each of Kansas State History, Illinois State History, Nebraska State History, and Ohio State History but had never actually taken United States History.
I'm looking at the standards you link, and I'm not sure how you'd teach Virginia's history differently (4th grade is state history, not US history). The preceding section is from settlement to Rev. War, then a section on the Rev. War to the end of the Civil War, then a section on Jim Crow and Reconstruction. Is your complaint that they end the quarter with the Civil War? Or that they mention it at all?
I'm not trying to be Farber-Socratic here, I'm genuinely perplexed about where your objection originates here.
Seriously, apo, my objection is on the issue of emphasis. If I had to emphasize something about Virginia's role in the Civil War, I wouldn't emphasize the Sideburns 'n' Glory activities on the battlefield; I'd emphasize the ignominy of the government at Richmond.
Oh! Oh! Somebody else who knows Ohio history! Seriously, I learned a lot and remember a lot about that. Seventh Grade. I would read the book in Study Hall (which my kids don't seem to have; let's hear it for forced inactivity).
168: I have noticed that this state seems a bit full of itself.
I think I had Pennsylvania History at some point. Was that when I heard about the Whiskey Rebellion? Anyway, it sounds kind of cool that Becks knows about so many different states, so long as she got taught U.S. history at some point.
In 7th grade I got taught about Latin America, which was pretty cool. Don't know that I remember anything.
Because, you look at the guys on the battlefield, you say to yourself, "Support our troops!" and "Aren't they brave?" Which, yes. But is gallantry the point of Virginia's role in the Civil War? Or is the point that it was gallantry in a bad cause?
My kids do not appear to get any Illinois history. This bothers me. Altgelt, Jane Addams, Samual Insull, Ida B. Wells, Robert McCormick, Richard J. Daley are people whose personalities they should have an idea about.
169: Well, I'm sure the emphasis was much different before my time—I've seen old textbooks at my (Alabama) grandmother's and whatnot—but when I was coming through they weren't praising the CSA or soft on slavery. Quite the opposite, really. The public schools down here, teachers and students, have hefty Black populations, after all. I have no experience with private schools in the South.
Here are Texas's Grade 8 standards. 8.9 is about slavery, and 8.10 is about the civil war, and points 1-3 of 8.10 sure seem designed to obfuscate the fact that the South seceded in order to defend slavery. 8.11, on Reconstruction, looks OK. (IANAH.)
points 1-3 of 8.10 sure seem designed to obfuscate the fact that the South seceded in order to defend slavery.
I don't know that that's all that different in the North. In a very good public high school in NYC, I came out of the Civil War unit with the impression that it was rather naive to think that slavery was any sort of important cause of the war -- that it was all about economics and federalism. Having done some reading on my own, I think now that Mrs Eichler was smoking crack on that point. But it seems highly unlikely that she was doing it out of any personal inclination toward Confederate apologism, or that NY state standards slanted that way either.
Also, apo, let's not forget that you (I think) and I grew up during what now looks, in retrospect, like a high point for tolerance and diversity and Free to be You and Me in the country's history. So our southern educations might have actually been better than what kids get under the new standards. A large part of the cultural pushback beginning in the 1980s was, "aw, that's a load of liberal claptrap. Some of the old bigotries were not so bad!"
Well, and as LB points out, it's not just the South. New York City was pretty disloyal. And as long as I'm being fair, Sherman was not very nice about e.g. black people voting or Indians breathing.
Looking back on it, the weirdest thing I ever did in elementary school was when we studied World History in 5th grade. We had a day where all of our regular classes were canceled and they ran everything like it would be done if we went to school in the Soviet Union (of course, a totally inaccurate, jingoist depiction of life in the USSR) so we would know How Lucky We Were To Be American Instead of One of Those Godless Russians. This would have been around 1988.
183: Part of the problem is that it's relatively easy to understand the slavery issue, and most kids come to the table with at least a basic understanding of it, but the other economic and political issues are much more esoteric to a fourth-grader and require more teaching. I mean, explaining the concept of slavery to kids is a pretty straightforward endeavor. Federalism, not so much.
I do think that one problem with criticizing the south is that the north is, in many ways, as bad or worse about race relations. Nebraska wasn't part of the Confederacy, but they've just re-segregated public schools in Omaha, for instance....
New York history: I think that may be Southern standards taking over. Don't a lot of textbook manufacturers make all their textbooks conform to Texas board of ed requirements? Anyway, based on some articles I read in the NYRB it's pretty widespread and really wrong. And I think pernicious.
I hate it when Indians breath! Seriously, I think it's useful to learn that history itself is a battleground. In 11th grade I took a "History of American History" course, organized topically. Hence, about the civil war, I learned about "the era of good feeling," Birth of a Nation, the then-current centennial boom, etc. "Frontier" was another topic, where we read Turner, et al.
Pretty much the entire World History and Cultures curriculum in 5th grade was like that, by the way. We learned that Africa has no culture and all of its people are starving and hungry, people in India burn up their wives, Chinese people are forced to have abortions to keep the population down, there were a bunch of ancient people who built stuff in Latin America but nobody down there has done anything for the last few thousand years or so, and that we should dismiss people with religions other than Judaism or Christianity as weirdos. I swear to god, that's pretty much what they taught us at public school in Ohio in the late '80s. I should really check with my brothers to see if they've updated things since then.
the north is, in many ways, as bad or worse about race relations
When my former brothers-in-law, from Ohio and Michigan, came down to visit, they had trouble getting past the fact that rich and poor neighborhoods were often right next to one another. I believe the exact quote was: "Jesus Christ, don't you have zoning laws down here?"
Which brought to mind the old saw about the difference between southern and northern racism. In the north, whites are okay with blacks being uppity as long as they don't have to live near them. In the south, whites are okay living next to blacks as long as they aren't uppity.
Omaha school districts. Sponsored by the only black state senator, but a lot of white people voted for it.
This doesn't affect the main point, but does Nebraska count as Northern for purposes of the Civil War? I lump them in with Kansas, Kansas-Nebraska act 'n'at, as internally divided.
In 11th grade (at the School of Science and Mathematics, which obviously isn't a good template for NC public schools at large), my teacher used Zinn's A People's History of the United States as the main textbook. I didn't realize at the time just how subversive (and, in retrospect, courageous) an act that was.
172, 182- I made an incredibly elaborate model of a Mayan temple with clay and styrofoam, in 4th or 5th grade. A little styrofoam priest stood at the top.
In the north, whites are okay with blacks being uppity as long as they don't have to live near them. In the south, whites are okay living next to blacks as long as they aren't uppity.
The phrasing of this I know is "Up North, no one cares how high you get so long as you don't get too close. Down South, no one cares how close you get so long as you don't get too high."
The thing in Omaha is, to be fair, more potentially interesting than I've let on--the issue is that poor (black) schools are chronically underfunded, and the idea is that by returning black schools to local (black) control, that the bullshit rationalizations would stop and those schools would actually get some attention.
It will be very interesting to see if it works. I think about my initial reaction to Texas getting rid of affirmative action, and yet in the event it seems to me that the substituted 10% rule is more equitable and produces far better results.
Matt W: Don't a lot of textbook manufacturers make all their textbooks conform to Texas board of ed requirements?
Yes, because Texas and California vote to adopt textbooks as states, not as individual school districts, as is the practice elsewhere. So if you lose TX and CA, you've lost the two biggest markets in the country by far. Thus TX standards are necessary conditions. Or so I've been told by people in textbook publishing.
183- I recall reading lots and lots of stuff about slavery for US history, but I was doing the AP reading on top of the regular course (and meeting with Mr. Marien/hoff for the AP review on Saturday mornings!), so maybe that's why.
I grew up in Boston where Union monuments are common. I moved south of the Mason-Dixon line 20 years ago and I continue to be shocked by all the monuments to the (deservedly) Lost Cause.
I have to deal with some folks who glorify the the Confederacy and when they refer to the "War of Northern Aggression" (or such like) I quit calling it the Civil War and call it the War of Southern Treason. The southerners don't like that.
As LB noted what is really weird is the US Army honoring these traitors. The statues at the USMA are one thing, but some of our largest army posts are named after Confederate generals: Bragg, Hood, A.P. Hill. I'm sure there are more.
Those posts were named around WWI, the "Era of Good Feeling" so called. 90's through 20's. Former Confederate General Joe Wheeler was brought back to command volunteers during the Spanish-American War.
One of the civil war amendments, (13th, 14th, 15th) after the first paragraph we all know in substance, goes on at some length to assure public money will not be used to honor Confederates, nor pay them pensions.
Think of the 90s through Teens, of Plessy and the Wilson Administration. Theodore Roosevelt was relatively pro-black, by the standards of the day.
206 - I did! And promptly forgot them. I still get the "C" cities mixed up on the map. My most vivid memory of Ohio State History was giggling every time our teacher said that Akron was the rubber capital of the world.
Alas, I retain a great deal of that, probably holding space better used for other knowledge. Where do I empty my cache? Gerry Spence used to say a lawyer needs a "bathtub mind." My drain is clogged.
I think I took two years of NM history (one in elementary school and one in middle school). I kind of wish I'd taken more--NM history is very interesting (Texas invades twice!).
if idiot Southerners didn't keep talking about the horrors of Sherman
As little use as I have for Confederate nostalgia, remarks like these do get my back up just a little. League of the South nutters notwithstanding, Sherman's March was horrible. His army burned cities to the ground in your basic 19th century shock and awe. Homelessness, disease and starvation followed. Maybe that was necessary at the time, but it didn't (and still doesn't) make the ruin any less traumatic or shameful. I'm not surprised that the descendents of those people aren't likely to exactly revere Sherman, even if they believe in the justice of his cause.
I live in a city, itself a victim of Sherman's March, that considered making "We're on fire!" the city advertising motto, until enough people remarked that that whole fire business really hadn't worked out so well last time.
Seriously, sure, Sherman's march was awful. Was it more awful than Petersburg or Shiloh; Andersonville or a thousand incidents of slavery itself? Do we really want to play misery poker, here?
Your comment reflects such a sensible sensibility, Paul—"justice of his cause"—that you must know yours is not the kind of feeling I was referring to. There are plenty of righteous weepers for Confederate victimhood roaring for the Lost Cause. See e.g. Lindsey Graham above.
Crap, I had only just caught up and was going to answer 166. I think there must have been a third game we played besides Number Munchers and Oregon Trail, but can't remember what.
Well, like I said, I really don't care about the Civil War, what with it being a century and a half finished now. However. Their states had seceded; they were no longer citizens of the United States, which does complicate the question of treason.
Have a look at a Southern state's standards for teaching U.S. history sometime.
Maybe you can tell me what you're referring to there. I can only vouch for NC's, and I guarantee you as concerns the Civil War, what I was taught way back when was no different from what was being taught in any northern state (to wit, it was generic, textbook, and boring). I'll let you know whether they praise the valor and chivalry of the Grey when my third-grader hits history classes, but I really don't see it in the offing.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 2:20 PM
Sherman is hands down the one of those guys I would like to meet, talk with, know socially, or be in business with.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 2:25 PM
Apo, I'm not holding you personally responsible for the failings of the current South to reckon with ancient history. And for all I know, North Carolina is a beacon of unflinching integrity. But seriously, there's an emphasis issue with, let's say, a lot of Southerners and their understanding of the Civil War. Here's part of the Virginia History Standards:
Now, okay, slavery gets mentioned, and presumably Virginia doesn't come off too well in the Nat Turner episode (although it's not too clear) but here you have Virginia's contribution to the Revolution (the Constitution!) unthinkingly bookended by Virginia's contribution to the Civil War (treason to the Constitution!).
Like I said, it's emphasis.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 2:34 PM
59 I always arrive too late for the party, cause I had a great line about Joan Allen and sexual repression. I just watched Joan Allen in a movie masturbate in the bathtub and become a colored person.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 2:42 PM
As someone who moved around a lot as a kid, I object to the requirement of teaching state history in general. It seemed like every time we moved to a new state, it was the year they taught ___ State History. By the time I was in fourth grade, I had taken full years each of Kansas State History, Illinois State History, Nebraska State History, and Ohio State History but had never actually taken United States History.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 2:50 PM
Bob, what movie was that?
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 2:52 PM
I'm looking at the standards you link, and I'm not sure how you'd teach Virginia's history differently (4th grade is state history, not US history). The preceding section is from settlement to Rev. War, then a section on the Rev. War to the end of the Civil War, then a section on Jim Crow and Reconstruction. Is your complaint that they end the quarter with the Civil War? Or that they mention it at all?
I'm not trying to be Farber-Socratic here, I'm genuinely perplexed about where your objection originates here.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 2:52 PM
165 -- I was in Texas my entire childhood, and still took like seven years of Texas history. I mean, Texas is cool and all, but please, people.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 2:54 PM
Seriously, apo, my objection is on the issue of emphasis. If I had to emphasize something about Virginia's role in the Civil War, I wouldn't emphasize the Sideburns 'n' Glory activities on the battlefield; I'd emphasize the ignominy of the government at Richmond.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 2:54 PM
Oh! Oh! Somebody else who knows Ohio history! Seriously, I learned a lot and remember a lot about that. Seventh Grade. I would read the book in Study Hall (which my kids don't seem to have; let's hear it for forced inactivity).
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 2:56 PM
I don't think I ever had a day of NY history.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 2:56 PM
168: I have noticed that this state seems a bit full of itself.
I think I had Pennsylvania History at some point. Was that when I heard about the Whiskey Rebellion? Anyway, it sounds kind of cool that Becks knows about so many different states, so long as she got taught U.S. history at some point.
In 7th grade I got taught about Latin America, which was pretty cool. Don't know that I remember anything.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:02 PM
Because, you look at the guys on the battlefield, you say to yourself, "Support our troops!" and "Aren't they brave?" Which, yes. But is gallantry the point of Virginia's role in the Civil War? Or is the point that it was gallantry in a bad cause?
(Weiner, is it itself that it's full of?)
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:04 PM
My kids do not appear to get any Illinois history. This bothers me. Altgelt, Jane Addams, Samual Insull, Ida B. Wells, Robert McCormick, Richard J. Daley are people whose personalities they should have an idea about.
So who's buried in Grant's tomb, LB?
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:05 PM
Texas was its own nation for a while, you know. They've got a right.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:06 PM
169: Well, I'm sure the emphasis was much different before my time—I've seen old textbooks at my (Alabama) grandmother's and whatnot—but when I was coming through they weren't praising the CSA or soft on slavery. Quite the opposite, really. The public schools down here, teachers and students, have hefty Black populations, after all. I have no experience with private schools in the South.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:07 PM
Here are Texas's Grade 8 standards. 8.9 is about slavery, and 8.10 is about the civil war, and points 1-3 of 8.10 sure seem designed to obfuscate the fact that the South seceded in order to defend slavery. 8.11, on Reconstruction, looks OK. (IANAH.)
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:07 PM
Weiner, is it itself that it's full of?
I thought it was Mexicans.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:08 PM
So were Vermont and California. You don't get quite the same messages from them.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:09 PM
173: Large parts of it don't seem to be full of anything else.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:09 PM
179 to 175.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:10 PM
I read The Island of the Blue Dolphins and made a play-doh topological model for California history. I think that's about it, though.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:11 PM
points 1-3 of 8.10 sure seem designed to obfuscate the fact that the South seceded in order to defend slavery.
I don't know that that's all that different in the North. In a very good public high school in NYC, I came out of the Civil War unit with the impression that it was rather naive to think that slavery was any sort of important cause of the war -- that it was all about economics and federalism. Having done some reading on my own, I think now that Mrs Eichler was smoking crack on that point. But it seems highly unlikely that she was doing it out of any personal inclination toward Confederate apologism, or that NY state standards slanted that way either.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:12 PM
a play-doh topological model
Yeah! Yeah! I did that. The red was the mountains, the yellow was the piedmont, and the green was the coastal plains.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:13 PM
Also, apo, let's not forget that you (I think) and I grew up during what now looks, in retrospect, like a high point for tolerance and diversity and Free to be You and Me in the country's history. So our southern educations might have actually been better than what kids get under the new standards. A large part of the cultural pushback beginning in the 1980s was, "aw, that's a load of liberal claptrap. Some of the old bigotries were not so bad!"
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:14 PM
Well, and as LB points out, it's not just the South. New York City was pretty disloyal. And as long as I'm being fair, Sherman was not very nice about e.g. black people voting or Indians breathing.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:16 PM
Looking back on it, the weirdest thing I ever did in elementary school was when we studied World History in 5th grade. We had a day where all of our regular classes were canceled and they ran everything like it would be done if we went to school in the Soviet Union (of course, a totally inaccurate, jingoist depiction of life in the USSR) so we would know How Lucky We Were To Be American Instead of One of Those Godless Russians. This would have been around 1988.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:18 PM
183: Part of the problem is that it's relatively easy to understand the slavery issue, and most kids come to the table with at least a basic understanding of it, but the other economic and political issues are much more esoteric to a fourth-grader and require more teaching. I mean, explaining the concept of slavery to kids is a pretty straightforward endeavor. Federalism, not so much.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:19 PM
I do think that one problem with criticizing the south is that the north is, in many ways, as bad or worse about race relations. Nebraska wasn't part of the Confederacy, but they've just re-segregated public schools in Omaha, for instance....
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:19 PM
Creepy, Becks.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:20 PM
but they've just re-segregated public schools in Omaha
Wait, WHAT?
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:21 PM
New York history: I think that may be Southern standards taking over. Don't a lot of textbook manufacturers make all their textbooks conform to Texas board of ed requirements? Anyway, based on some articles I read in the NYRB it's pretty widespread and really wrong. And I think pernicious.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:21 PM
I hate it when Indians breath! Seriously, I think it's useful to learn that history itself is a battleground. In 11th grade I took a "History of American History" course, organized topically. Hence, about the civil war, I learned about "the era of good feeling," Birth of a Nation, the then-current centennial boom, etc. "Frontier" was another topic, where we read Turner, et al.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:22 PM
In 11th grade I took a "History of American History" course
Remember when we had education in this country? That was nice.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:23 PM
Pretty much the entire World History and Cultures curriculum in 5th grade was like that, by the way. We learned that Africa has no culture and all of its people are starving and hungry, people in India burn up their wives, Chinese people are forced to have abortions to keep the population down, there were a bunch of ancient people who built stuff in Latin America but nobody down there has done anything for the last few thousand years or so, and that we should dismiss people with religions other than Judaism or Christianity as weirdos. I swear to god, that's pretty much what they taught us at public school in Ohio in the late '80s. I should really check with my brothers to see if they've updated things since then.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:24 PM
the north is, in many ways, as bad or worse about race relations
When my former brothers-in-law, from Ohio and Michigan, came down to visit, they had trouble getting past the fact that rich and poor neighborhoods were often right next to one another. I believe the exact quote was: "Jesus Christ, don't you have zoning laws down here?"
Which brought to mind the old saw about the difference between southern and northern racism. In the north, whites are okay with blacks being uppity as long as they don't have to live near them. In the south, whites are okay living next to blacks as long as they aren't uppity.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:26 PM
Omaha school districts. Sponsored by the only black state senator, but a lot of white people voted for it.
This doesn't affect the main point, but does Nebraska count as Northern for purposes of the Civil War? I lump them in with Kansas, Kansas-Nebraska act 'n'at, as internally divided.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:26 PM
From that link:
a man who has fought for the abolition of capital punishment and the end of apartheid in South Africa
Far out, dude!
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:28 PM
In 11th grade (at the School of Science and Mathematics, which obviously isn't a good template for NC public schools at large), my teacher used Zinn's A People's History of the United States as the main textbook. I didn't realize at the time just how subversive (and, in retrospect, courageous) an act that was.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:29 PM
172, 182- I made an incredibly elaborate model of a Mayan temple with clay and styrofoam, in 4th or 5th grade. A little styrofoam priest stood at the top.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:29 PM
In the north, whites are okay with blacks being uppity as long as they don't have to live near them. In the south, whites are okay living next to blacks as long as they aren't uppity.
The phrasing of this I know is "Up North, no one cares how high you get so long as you don't get too close. Down South, no one cares how close you get so long as you don't get too high."
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:30 PM
The thing in Omaha is, to be fair, more potentially interesting than I've let on--the issue is that poor (black) schools are chronically underfunded, and the idea is that by returning black schools to local (black) control, that the bullshit rationalizations would stop and those schools would actually get some attention.
It will be very interesting to see if it works. I think about my initial reaction to Texas getting rid of affirmative action, and yet in the event it seems to me that the substituted 10% rule is more equitable and produces far better results.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:31 PM
Control appears to be the big issue for him. It is important.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:32 PM
Matt W: Don't a lot of textbook manufacturers make all their textbooks conform to Texas board of ed requirements?
Yes, because Texas and California vote to adopt textbooks as states, not as individual school districts, as is the practice elsewhere. So if you lose TX and CA, you've lost the two biggest markets in the country by far. Thus TX standards are necessary conditions. Or so I've been told by people in textbook publishing.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:34 PM
183- I recall reading lots and lots of stuff about slavery for US history, but I was doing the AP reading on top of the regular course (and meeting with Mr. Marien/hoff for the AP review on Saturday mornings!), so maybe that's why.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 3:35 PM
So Becks: did you learn, and maybe map the Ohio rivers?
Muskingham, Hocking, Hochocking?
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 4:39 PM
I grew up in Boston where Union monuments are common. I moved south of the Mason-Dixon line 20 years ago and I continue to be shocked by all the monuments to the (deservedly) Lost Cause.
I have to deal with some folks who glorify the the Confederacy and when they refer to the "War of Northern Aggression" (or such like) I quit calling it the Civil War and call it the War of Southern Treason. The southerners don't like that.
As LB noted what is really weird is the US Army honoring these traitors. The statues at the USMA are one thing, but some of our largest army posts are named after Confederate generals: Bragg, Hood, A.P. Hill. I'm sure there are more.
Posted by md 20/400 | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 4:48 PM
207:
Those posts were named around WWI, the "Era of Good Feeling" so called. 90's through 20's. Former Confederate General Joe Wheeler was brought back to command volunteers during the Spanish-American War.
One of the civil war amendments, (13th, 14th, 15th) after the first paragraph we all know in substance, goes on at some length to assure public money will not be used to honor Confederates, nor pay them pensions.
Think of the 90s through Teens, of Plessy and the Wilson Administration. Theodore Roosevelt was relatively pro-black, by the standards of the day.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 5:23 PM
206 - I did! And promptly forgot them. I still get the "C" cities mixed up on the map. My most vivid memory of Ohio State History was giggling every time our teacher said that Akron was the rubber capital of the world.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 6:13 PM
Alas, I retain a great deal of that, probably holding space better used for other knowledge. Where do I empty my cache? Gerry Spence used to say a lawyer needs a "bathtub mind." My drain is clogged.
Pickawillany?
Blennerhasset?
Vallandingham?
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 6:20 PM
You will remember my name. Guys in basic training with me kept pointing out there is a Ting/ley Rubber Co. in Plainfield NJ.
They make waders and industrial protection garments, btw, not condoms.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 6:25 PM
I think I took two years of NM history (one in elementary school and one in middle school). I kind of wish I'd taken more--NM history is very interesting (Texas invades twice!).
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 6:40 PM
I somehow made it through school without ever once playing The Oregon Trail.
The only thing I ever knew about Ohio in elementary school had something to do with height and roundness, I think.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 6:41 PM
Wait, there's a New Mexico now?
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 6:42 PM
You totally missed out, eb. Oregon Trail was the best part of elementary school by far.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 6:48 PM
Texas invades twice!
So far, punk.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 7:04 PM
Not counting the current and ongoing economic invasion, of course.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 7:25 PM
Oregon Trail was the best part of elementary school by far.
Uh, Number Munchers? Hello?
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 7:41 PM
I don't think I've heard of that, either.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 7:45 PM
166 Pleasantville
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 7:48 PM
Number Munchers was good, but Oregon Trail was better.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 7:58 PM
if idiot Southerners didn't keep talking about the horrors of Sherman
As little use as I have for Confederate nostalgia, remarks like these do get my back up just a little. League of the South nutters notwithstanding, Sherman's March was horrible. His army burned cities to the ground in your basic 19th century shock and awe. Homelessness, disease and starvation followed. Maybe that was necessary at the time, but it didn't (and still doesn't) make the ruin any less traumatic or shameful. I'm not surprised that the descendents of those people aren't likely to exactly revere Sherman, even if they believe in the justice of his cause.
I live in a city, itself a victim of Sherman's March, that considered making "We're on fire!" the city advertising motto, until enough people remarked that that whole fire business really hadn't worked out so well last time.
To his credit, William T. has inspired two delicious drinks.
Posted by Paul | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 8:38 PM
His army burned cities to the ground in your basic 19th century shock and awe.
As a great man once concluded, though....
Seriously, sure, Sherman's march was awful. Was it more awful than Petersburg or Shiloh; Andersonville or a thousand incidents of slavery itself? Do we really want to play misery poker, here?
Your comment reflects such a sensible sensibility, Paul—"justice of his cause"—that you must know yours is not the kind of feeling I was referring to. There are plenty of righteous weepers for Confederate victimhood roaring for the Lost Cause. See e.g. Lindsey Graham above.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 9:31 PM
Crap, I had only just caught up and was going to answer 166. I think there must have been a third game we played besides Number Munchers and Oregon Trail, but can't remember what.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 9:32 PM
Hit it, Rockapella.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 04-17-06 9:45 PM