Monday, March 15, 2010

Texas Social Studies TEKS Revisions

I meant to write more about this but I just can't.  It's too upsetting, especially when I am surrounded by a system that cares not a whit.  It seems to me that schools would be buzzing frantically about this ... no such luck.  At least not here.  No one seems to care that our students will be further marginalized by this, when so many of them already feel pretty totally alienated from mainstream society as it is.

Someday I'd like to elected to the SBOE just so I can fight this stuff but I really can't do that kind of thing while still needing to support my children with a real job, and our representative is doing a good job in this area anyway, for all the good it does.  Yes, many members of the Texas SBOE are racist, religious right nuts and their bigoted insanity will now set the standard for the nation's textbooks again.   

I'm sorry - truly sorry.  I swear not everyone in Texas is like that.  Mary Helen Berlanga, the representative to the Texas SBOE from our part of the state, really tried her best to fight the bigots, as did Mavis Knight.  Kudos to them.  Not that it helped much, but it helped some.  Every bit counts.

In good news, the sixth grade TEKS came out fairly unscathed by bigotry, but for one thing:  it looks like we will be required to teach about the disadvantages as well as the advantages of multiculturalism.  I can't think of any unless you are a bigot, is the problem.  It was a lot worse for some other grades.

The Texas Freedom Network pretty much exists to monitor this issue and fight the good fight.  Their coverage is the best I have found.  Here is a link to their blog so you can see how bad it is. 

3 comments:

Andrea said...

I just read an article about this. Nauseating. It must be so hard to both teach and send kids to school in such an atmosphere!

gojirama said...

I am so furious. What will you as a social studies teacher do? Can you gloss over the bullshit?

Lone Star Ma said...

Think I'd best not comment on that.