Seattle School System deconstructing Thanksgiving - cougarguard.com — unofficial BYU Cougars / LDS sports, football, basketball forum and message board

Archaea · 11-22-2007, 01:58 AM

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,312480,00.html

Yes it's from Fox, but apparently there is some controversy there. Sounds a bit odd, but that's what happens when you have administrators not educators.

il Padrino Ute · 11-22-2007, 02:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Archaea

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,312480,00.html

Yes it's from Fox, but apparently there is some controversy there. Sounds a bit odd, but that's what happens when you have administrators not educators.

More accurately, this is what happens when crybaby liberals decide that political correctness is the best way to handle everything.

Archaea · 11-22-2007, 02:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by il Padrino Ute

More accurately, this is what happens when crybaby liberals decide that political correctness is the best way to handle everything.

Accurate reporting of history is important. However, deconstruction of current traditions is not the role of educators/politicians. Thanksgiving provides a pause for our country to join with family and to be grateful. If some extremists don't wish to express gratitude, then that is their choice, but to strain any joy from anything in the name of political correctness is taking it too far.

il Padrino Ute · 11-22-2007, 02:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Archaea

Accurate reporting of history is important. However, deconstruction of current traditions is not the role of educators/politicians. Thanksgiving provides a pause for our country to join with family and to be grateful. If some extremists don't wish to express gratitude, then that is their choice, but to strain any joy from anything in the name of political correctness is taking it too far.

I agree that history needs to be told accurately. But I believe that if the true history bothers someone so much that he/she seeks to ruin something like Thanksgiving for everyone, then he/she needs to have a large glass of shut the hell up with an order of keep it to yourself. My kindergartener loved making her "Indian hat", as she calls it and really enjoyed telling me how the Pilgrims and Indians had dinner together.

I think we see it from the same point of view.

Mrs. Funk · 11-22-2007, 01:47 PM

I agree, history should be told accurately, but I think it needs to be done with some intellectual finesse. There's a reason we don't tell kindergarteners, "Now, children, Christopher Columbus was a greedy man who was willing to break the rules and did terrible things to a lot of people! Aren't you proud to be Americans?" Likewise, I think there's a place for understanding Thanksgiving in the a historically accurate context, but not at the expense of traumatizing children over political correctness.

Well, and at least in my experience, it's not like educators can be relied on to give a completely accurate telling of history either. I remember starting high school and the first day of class, my history teacher gave a twenty-minute schpeal on how the Declaration of Independence was a forged document and that Thomas Jefferson stole all of his ideas from Locke and that we were all based on a lie. I was pretty shocked as a 14-year-old and it made me question 8 years of teaching that said the Declaration of Independence was a great document that let to our freedom!

When I started college, I was able to read more of the works of Locke and study the Declaration of Independence in more details. Yes, it was heavily based on the works of John Locke, but they were concepts that would be familiar with many colonists. In many ways, it was more just a reiteration of popular political thinking. (DofI purports, of course "life, liberty, pursuit of happiness," Lock "life, liberty, and the pursuit of property." Jefferson changed it because the pursuit of land sounded too materialistic.) And let's be honest, in a lot of ways the DofI was political propaganda, too. But it's with years of study and research and a more sophisticated understanding of history to be able to reconcile these facts. It wouldn't be right to throw first graders into this debate and expect them to have the intellectual sophistication to work through it without growing despondent.

11-22-2007, 01:58 AM	#1
Archaea Assistant to the Regional Manager Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: The Orgasmatron Posts: 24,338	Seattle School System deconstructing Thanksgiving http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,312480,00.html Yes it's from Fox, but apparently there is some controversy there. Sounds a bit odd, but that's what happens when you have administrators not educators. __________________ Ἓν οἶδα ὅτι οὐδὲν οἶδα

11-22-2007, 01:47 PM	#5
Mrs. Funk Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 367	I agree, history should be told accurately, but I think it needs to be done with some intellectual finesse. There's a reason we don't tell kindergarteners, "Now, children, Christopher Columbus was a greedy man who was willing to break the rules and did terrible things to a lot of people! Aren't you proud to be Americans?" Likewise, I think there's a place for understanding Thanksgiving in the a historically accurate context, but not at the expense of traumatizing children over political correctness. Well, and at least in my experience, it's not like educators can be relied on to give a completely accurate telling of history either. I remember starting high school and the first day of class, my history teacher gave a twenty-minute schpeal on how the Declaration of Independence was a forged document and that Thomas Jefferson stole all of his ideas from Locke and that we were all based on a lie. I was pretty shocked as a 14-year-old and it made me question 8 years of teaching that said the Declaration of Independence was a great document that let to our freedom! When I started college, I was able to read more of the works of Locke and study the Declaration of Independence in more details. Yes, it was heavily based on the works of John Locke, but they were concepts that would be familiar with many colonists. In many ways, it was more just a reiteration of popular political thinking. (DofI purports, of course "life, liberty, pursuit of happiness," Lock "life, liberty, and the pursuit of property." Jefferson changed it because the pursuit of land sounded too materialistic.) And let's be honest, in a lot of ways the DofI was political propaganda, too. But it's with years of study and research and a more sophisticated understanding of history to be able to reconcile these facts. It wouldn't be right to throw first graders into this debate and expect them to have the intellectual sophistication to work through it without growing despondent.