Karen, I think you have an excellent idea in recruiting teachers to help with the huge task of digitizing primary sources. Perhaps we should take digitizing the past as a serious national goal. If there is money to pay for digitizing, it should be easier to find folks to do the job. There is a layer of "baby-boomers" who are at the end of their "career", but not old enough to "retire" who could be tapped ... Anne Anne On 3/25/2012 11:31 PM, [log in to unmask] wrote: > 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. >> >> CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This email message, including any attachments, is for >> the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and >> privileged information or otherwise be protected by law. Any access, use, >> disclosure or distribution of this email message by anyone other than the >> intended recipient(s) is unauthorized and prohibited. If you are not an >> intended recipient (or an agent acting on an intended recipient's behalf), >> please contact the sender by reply email and immediately destroy all copies of >> the original message. Virus scanning is recommended on all email attachments. >> >> ______________________________________ >> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at >> http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html > "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 > > ______________________________________ > To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at > http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html -- Anne Pemberton [log in to unmask] http://www.educationalsynthesis.org ______________________________________ To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html