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History See other History Articles Title: Florida Bans "Revisionist History" In Public Schools Florida Bans "Revisionist History" In Public Schools June 15, 2006 Bryan McKay Straight from the tip of America's wang comes the report that the Florida state government has officially banned the teaching of "revisionist history" in public classrooms. Well, not quite, but the bill, recently signed into effect by Governor Jeb Bush, maintains that American history shall be viewed as factual, not as constructed, shall be viewed as knowable, teachable and testable, and shall be defined as the creation of a new nation based largely on the universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence. Aside from a missing serial comma (which, while technically not incorrect, always tweaks me a bit), let's examine just what's wrong with the above statement. First of all, American history, as pointed out by Zimmerman in the above article, is necessarily constructed. He points out what should have been obvious to the lawmakers: A factual account of history is conceptually impossible. The best we can do is - wait for it - construct a logical and relatively objective account based on the available testimony and records. It is practically impossible to understand history as separate from this process of construction. The idea behind "revisionist history" is that historians revise and update our recorded history based on new ideas and knowledge. (Not unlike the bit of revisionist history that occured during the 2000 election, eh?) Oh, but maybe this is all a big fuss over a few words that didn't even end up in the final phrasing of the law. The actual law printed above did carry the declaration that the teaching of American history "shall not follow the revisionist or postmodernist viewpoints of relative truth." Ah, now it gets interesting! Is this law aimed at history or contemporary philosophical thought? Boy, those conservatives really hate that crazy liberal postmodernism. Let's forget all about terrorism for a moment, for it's clear that the real threat to homeland security comes by way of Lyotard, Baudrillard, and Jameson. But let's not think about that for a moment. After all, those words never made it into the final bill, right? Someone along the line obviously realized that these anti-intellectual rumblings weren't really getting anywhere and the bill was then revised to disguise the real intent of the lawmakers! Now back to the law itself; what's this deal with the "knowable, teachable and testable" bit? What makes history knowable or unknowable? Or teachable or unteachable, for that matter? If one means knowable in a strictly literal sense, then I suppose history can never be truly knowable without having lived through it. We can make assumptions and inferences from the historical texts at hand, but we can never really know what the past was like. And as far as the second matter goes, isn't anything essentially teachable? Maybe middle schoolers won't grasp the finer nuances of some "postmodernist" (re)interpretations of historical events, but we're talking about all public education from kindergarten through the upper levels of state universities. If a concept isn't teachable, by definition it can't be taught. Only a state like Florida would manage to pass a law banning the non-teaching of unteachable material. And what was that last thing? Testable? Oh, well, now it makes more sense! Jeb Bush is simply following in the Shrub's footsteps in this "no child left behind" thing. All knowledge should be quantifiable in a one-hundred question multiple-choice test. I'll take the essay option, please! It's so much easier to make things so there is one right answer than to explore and interrogate the subtle nuances of history and revisit and reevaluate our primary source material. History is a constant process, not a definitive set of facts. It's maybe even a bit more verb than noun. To deny teaching the aspects of history that contribute to the making of history is incomprehensible. In order to train a new generation of competent historians, they need to understand how the stories that make up our histories are crafted. Equal parts anthropologist, investigative journalist, and storyteller, a good historian should have the tools required to refine and expand our understanding of the past. In our lives, we aren't consciously "making history," we're simply living out the events that constitute our existence. No, history is what we do when we sit down and try to sort things out and make a bit of sense from them, and sometimes that takes more than one try.
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#1. To: Mind_Virus (#0)
I guess I'd have to say what they're doing is obviously (and probably intentionally) too vague. I wonder what specifically they're trying to prevent or encourage?
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
------------------------------------------ I guess I'd have to say what they're doing is obviously (and probably intentionally) too vague. I wonder what specifically they're trying to prevent or encourage? They are trying to avoid teaching about 170 years of the CHRISTIAN foundation of this country [Ezekiel 34:11-13, etc., John 10, First Charter of Virginia 1606, CROSS AT CAPE HENRY 1607: http://www.nps.gov/colo/ca peheny/capeheny.html ] , which PRECEDED CorpUSA's "Declaration of Independence" [Ezekiel 17:7-10; Matthew 15:13; http://ww w.sweetliberty.org/perspective/jewishpersecution18.htm ]. The "universal principles" of the Declaration of Independence were a mere stepping-stone in the Jews' historic mission of destroying Christianity and Christians, and replacing them with the "superiority" of the "universal law" "enshrined" in the "principles of the 7 Noahide Laws" which "are the bedrock of society" [all B.S., btw. Their "rock" is not as our "Rock", as time will tell.]: "Globalists Adopting Jewish Laws" http://www.thetruthse eker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=2234 It's the Word of God http://www.teamlaw.org/PL97-280.htm vs. the word of the Pharisees http://www.cephas- library.com/nwo/nwo_noachide_judge_and_courts_will_replace_ours.html Ezekiel 38-39/ Revelation 20:7-10 http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/Jer/Jer023.html#29 Micah 4/Psalm 2.
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