civic education study 2009

Two people landed on this blog today by doing searches on “civic education study 2009″.
I think I’ve had browser windows open for the last few days on what they probably were looking for, but I hadn’t had the time to save those items, much less post anything about them.
Anyway, the most substantial source on that [...]

new Lowe standards for Texas Social Studies

An AP article on Gail Lowe, successor to Donald McLeroy as chair of the Texas SBOE, can be found now on the websites of the Houston Chronicle and the Lufkin Daily News.
The story quotes Chairman Lowe expressing her agreement with the preachers who have been appointed by the Board as “Experts” to advise them in [...]

NY Times: “Flexbooks” displacing textbooks

Lewin reports that “Textbooks have not gone the way of the scroll yet, but many educators say that it will not be long before they are replaced by digital versions — or supplanted altogether by lessons assembled from the wealth of free courseware, educational games, videos and projects on the Web.”

This is interesting in many ways. For one thing, it underscores the necessity of having teachers who understand their subjects well. “Flexbooks” could greatly increase the importance of the teachers relative to state boards and legislatures.

TX “experts” and revision of the state Social Studies standards

Unlike school “Science,” the school subject(s) of “Social Studies” has no such well established recognized identity. If the Texas State Board of Education succeeds unchallenged in accepting people like David Barton to serve as “experts” on Social Studies, this reinforces the establishment of Social Studies as a school subject in which political, ideological, and religious agendas can be played out on the basis of sheer political power, unchecked by anything like the authority of experts in the disciplines.

Update: appeal v. U Cal win on admissions policy

The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) has posted an update on developments in the case of Association of Christian Schools International [ACSI] et al. v. Roman Stearns et al. [The University of California].
The suit was brought against U.Cal. by Christian schools complaining that UC’s refusal to count certain courses in their schools for purposes [...]

The Pueblo, me, and Washington, DC

Last January was the 40th anniversary, capture of the U.S.S. Pueblo – as commemorated then on Ed Darrell’s blog.
More recently, Ed’s added a post on the continuing repercussions of that event, even reaching to last week’s negotiated agreement between North Korea and the Bush administration over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
This new post includes a [...]

¿ against teaching the controversies (or “strengths and weaknesses”) ?

While the ridicule is well deserved, I want to take exception to something possibly implied in Curmudgeon’s response, where he says that “High school students don’t know how to reach ‘their own conclusions’ about science. That’s why they’re in school! That’s why we call them students! “

high school student finds conservative bias

added May 2, 2008
For links to other posts on LaClair, see this post on the Five Public Opinions blog. Click here for a transcript of his acceptance speech for the FFRF 2007 Thomas Jefferson Student Activist Award, and click here for an audio recording of the speech.
In a new (April 27, 2008) Op-Ed piece in [...]

history, social memory, identity

An inquiry posted on the xmca list asks for bibliographic references to help a student who
… wants to study how memories of significant events (in this case events during the period of political violence here during the 80s) are transmitted between the generation that experienced them and the generation following. He also would [...]

“World-class” standards for Florida?

thanks to Michael Berson of the University of Southern Florida for this item:
http://www.tbo.com/news/metro/MGBK5AH201F.html
The spin on Social Studies is interesting; but there’s a lot more emphasis in this article, at least, on education in World Languages –  for which the rationale appears to be exclusively commercial.

Kenneth Burke on the unending conversation

In The Philosophy of Literary Form (three pages linked here), Kenneth Burke writes
In equating “dramatic” with “dialectic,” we automatically have also our perspective for the analysis of history, which is a “dramatic” process, involving dialectical oppositions. (p. 109)
We might consider how this also applies to the analysis of curriculum. Burke writes: 

Howard Zinn on BookTV (video online)

On BookTV Howard Zinn talks about themes in his new book, A Power Governments Cannot Suppress. His talk includes comments that are relevant to the attack on Zinn by Lynne Cheney (discussed earlier here).

Zimmerman on Historians and the Public

Zimmerman to fellow historians: If we really want to improve historical understanding in this country, we’ll create new venues—and new incentives—for public engagement and instruction. Or we can continue to speak exclusively with each other, acting shocked—shocked!—when nobody else understands us.