#103, August 18, 2006

The One Thing Needful

Richard Jensen, a journalism professor who hails from University of Texas, Austin, has published a very interesting article, which can be found at:

http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2006-08/13jensen.cfm

The article concerns a new education bill signed into law by Governor Jeb Bush, in which Flroida pronounces that “American history shall be viewed as factual, not as as constructed,” and that such history must be considered “knowable, teachable and testable.”

This is certainly scary stuff, though from what I have seen of high school history in public schools it is in large part making legislation out of what is common practice. As such, it may make such history more, rather than less, vulnerable. It will become common practice in Florida, I am sure, to have teachers, who are not blithering idiots like their legislators, say to their pupils, “This is what I am supposed to be teaching you, but you will need to develop your own interpretations.”

The Soviet Union tried the Florida approach to the teaching of history, and I am sure Jeb Bush would claim that that system failed.

Scary, though, nonetheless.