Talk about heroes. You wouldn’t believe the courage shown by the brave souls who fought the Americans when they invaded Canada.
What in the hell am I talking about? You didn’t know the Americans invaded Canada in 1775 in an effort to force the Loyalists to join in the revolution against the British?
Actually, I didn’t either until I was traveling through Quebec and took the time to read plaques on cool landmarks. Like most of my peers who slept through high-school history in the 1970s, I probably did or should have read about this, but it somehow escaped me. The un-American, Canadian account of the American Revolution drove home the fact that as a kid, I was indoctrinated with a romanticized, propagandized view of our nation’s beginnings. The English hated freedom and turkey, and we wanted too much of it to share with the Indians, or something like that. History made much more sense as I learned more accurate accounts over the years.
That doesn’t mean the Canadians are anti-American. And learning a broader historical picture never makes me think poorly of America, but it helps me put current issues in perspective. In one of the most worrisome and dangerous turns in our own state history, the Jefferson County School Board is working to bend and twist high-school history curricula to benefit members’ own political agenda. It’s chilling.
I would have read past the news if it had come out of Kansas or Texas where academic integrity and creepy politics regularly make for scary stories. But Colorado? Jeffco Schools? What happened?
Three members of the five-member school board want to create a “Curriculum Review Committee” that would ensure that all school materials and lessons meet with their approval for putting American history in the right light, so to speak. If you don’t like it, just keep it to yourself. Quietly. Over there.
“Materials should promote citizenship, patriotism, essentials and benefits of the free enterprise system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights. Materials should not encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law. Instructional materials should present positive aspects of the United States and its heritage.”
Gulp.
No doubt Vladimir Putin would approve this message. It’s practically right out of the his old Soviet propaganda playbook, which he’s reprising right now.
When I got to college, I learned all kinds of things I either ignored or wasn’t taught in high school. U.S. slavery wasn’t just Chapter 10, it was a horrific obscenity. European immigrants didn’t make “deals” with American Indians, they lied, cheated and decimated them. But rather than turn me off to American forefathers and their ideals, understanding that our country was created by average joes in remarkable times made me appreciate U.S. government that much more. By seeing America through the eyes of experts who sought accuracy and meaning rather than consolation and propaganda, I was able to see current events much more objectively than those I knew with a “historical agenda.”
Despite a wave of local protests, mostly from teachers and students in Jeffco Schools, the tsunami of parental outrage this warrants is woefully absent. Modifying and controlling the school system’s view on history and making sure there are no dissidents sounds like a job for another era’s Brown Shirts.
Don’t think for second it couldn’t happen here. It already has. Living a lie and persuading others to follow along is how more than 100,000 Americans from Japanese descent came to live in internment camps during World War II. It’s how a sadistic group of McCarthyists unleashed a league of bullies as the majority of the country looked the other way.
The history of the United States, like that of humanity, is a mix of amazing accomplishments and sordid atrocities. If you don’t teach people that, they begin to think Americans have an elevated place and purpose on Earth. They begin to think that their interests should supersede those of others. They begin to marginalize and demonize those they disagree with. They begin to live in fear of the truth being revealed, and their self-proclaimed status being diminished or even revoked. They run for school board. They push to create “Curriculum Review” committees. But if they’d been better history students themselves, they’d know that in every instance, their plan has failed.
Reach editor Dave Perry at 303-750-7555 or dperry@aurorasentinel.com
You hit the nail on the head! Nuff-said.
Thanks so much for a well-articulated piece on the ambivalence many of us feel about claiming how wonderful America is. We have done much very well and have been people of our times in terms of slavery, labor rights, women’s rights, etc. Very well said!