There is a serious movement to rewrite history.  In particular, I am talking
about Texas, and their move to delete historical figures and events from
textbooks to meet their personal political agenda.  And I would think that
Virginia would especially be concerned about this movement seeing that Texas
wants to move Thomas Jefferson out of the textbooks, as well.

As a former history teacher, I think that moving in the direction of using
primary sources to teach history, moving away from textbooks that have factual
errors, and become political weapons of propaganda that have a lasting effect on
our children is something that should be discussed.

Districts can create their own digital libraries of primary sources.  The
American Memory collection has over 8 million records.  The National Archives
has billions of records.  Instead of spending outrageous amounts of money on
books, why not pay teachers to come to D.C. and digitize records, go back and
create some wonderful lesson plans to use with those resources.

Karen Needles
Director
Lincoln Archives Digital Project
http://www.lincolnarchives.us


On March 24, 2012 at 2:09 PM David Kiracofe <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Certainly in a free society, one is allowed to embrace whatever private biases
> one wishes and to share them with anyone who will listen.  But the matter of
> the history textbooks is an imposition of someone's biases, through the medium
> of public education, on society at large.   This is wrong.  The state has an
> obligation to provide as full an account of the past as is appropriate to the
> age group of the students.
>
> David Kiracofe
>
> ________________________________________
> From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
> [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Walter Waddell
> [[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Friday, March 23, 2012 6:33 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: 03232232Z12 Re: Textbooks
>
> We all want the same things in life: Trouble comes; we all want them on our
> terms. I often exercise my bias by just ignoring this or that. Might that be
> the case at the Temple University? And then again, I often exercise that
> same bias by developing outrageous attacks on human events to suit my own
> perception of how things should be.
>
> For example: I proclaim synchronized swimming as a non-Olympic sport. What
> idiot let it into the arena? It’s splendid entertainment. But it’s not a
> Olympic sport. Why? Because you can’t judge a “wet smile” objectively.
>
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"The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person who is
doing it."   Karen Needles

"Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed, is more important than
any other one thing."
Abraham Lincoln to Isham Reavis, Nov. 5, 1855
Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 2, p. 328

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