I’ve gotta think about this case some more, but it’s not a good decision.
From my view as an Advanced Placement teacher, and as a teacher of history, the judge is contradicting Settle v. Dickson in saying, essentially, the student may claim religious exemption to get out of doing the hard work of thinking.
The judge’s ruling might fairly be said to call into question the entire issue of giving harder-studying high school kids college-level classes, if the serious issues in those classes may not be discussed.
Claiming that creationism is the root of Christianity is rather dictating Christian beliefs to Christians, and in this case, offensive and incorrect beliefs (most Christian sects do not favor creationism, and only a minority of Christians hold such views, generally contrary to their sect’s theology). Can judges order people to believe something? Can a judge dictate to the many sects of Christianity one false and crazy thing they all must include in their creeds?
The headline is troubling because it was a civil suit — no “guilty” verdict could be rendered under the law. But with a wacky decision like this, the reporter and copy desk must have been quite discombobulated, enough to let such a bizarre headline sneak by.
Will students flock to our AP classes now, hoping to be able to get out of the work by saying history offends their religion? Ooooh, we could hope!
It’s a very, very strange decision, insulting to scholars, academicians, historians and Christians. Go read it — what do you think?
How can you tell I’m behind the scope and sequence?
I was just reminded today of how neat this site is: Imaging the French Revolution. Good stuff comes out of George Mason University from time to time. This site is part of that stuff.
11. Le plus Grand, des Despotes, Renversé par la Liberté (Place Vendôme). [Place Vendôme, The Greatest of Despots Overthrown by Freedom] Source: Museum of the French Revolution 88.170 Medium: Etching and colored wash Dimensions: 17.2 x 24.4 cm Commentary (numbers refer to pages in essays): General analysis – Day-Hickman, 5 Reasonable crowd – Day-Hickman, 2
“Warsaw 1920, a quality read” – What? Your world history text didn’t mention Poland’s abortive attempt to liberate the Ukraine from the USSR in 1920, nor Lenin’s invasion of Poland and march on Berlin, nor the heroic stand at the Vistula described here as one of the most important military victories in history? You’e better read this post, too, and maybe buy the book.
“The coming anarchy – Kaplan’s piece and the blog” — Robert Kaplan’s article in the 1994 The Atlantic described the woes of Africa. 14 years later, it’s still a good read and full of insight. I wasn’t thinking of using that in world history in 1994 . . . I wasn’t thinking of teaching in 2008 in 1994. Eoin Purcell’s reminders and pointers prove useful and informative once again.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
The Maharajah of CashmereThe Illustrated London News December 18, 1875 (From a longer story on the Prince of Wales visit to India in 1875.) – “With regard to the Maharajah of Cashmere, whose residence and political relations, beneath the Himalayas and in the Valley of the Upper Indus, are very remote from Bombay, we defer any notice of him till the Prince of Wales goes to visit him in Cashmere. The portrait of this Maharajah is from a photograph by Messrs. Bourne and Shepherd, of India.”
World history teachers, bookmark this site: Harappa.com
It’s a rich site about India and Pakistan, and includes information and images about the Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro civilizations.
Great images for your classrooms, or for your students’ projects.
Tip of the old scrub brush to John Maunu teaching AP World History in Grosse Ile, Michigan.
(Full text of description of site from the Asian Studies WWW Monitor below the fold.)
It’s largely forgotten now, especially in history texts in high schools. After the Spanish-American War, when the U.S. wrested several territories from Spain, including Guam, Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, the U.S. quickly got mired in one of the original guerrilla wars in the Philippines. It took 15 years, but the U.S. finally put down the rebellion — 15 brutal, bloody years. The conduct of that war shocked many people, including Mark Twain.
This piece was written partly in response to that war.
Many Americans, like Twain, who questioned the war, in turn had their patriotism questioned. Why wouldn’t they get on board with the war, and kill off those Filipino rebels? the critics asked.
The slides show people in a lot of everyday activities, providing good, visual examples of how people lived then. An instructive comparison: Can your students find photos of Indians carrying out similar activities today? How has India changed, for how much of its population? I suspect you can find cases where Some Indians have leaped into the 21st century, and other examples where the lives of many millions of people have not changed all that much.
Several of the photos remind that they were taken 40 years or more before India won independence from Britain. These may pertain to discussions of empires and imperialism, and other economic issues, too.
One commenter asked the blogger to share the slides, but I don’t see a positive response.
Don’t ask me to explain the music the blogger selected for the slides.
Events in Congo trouble at so many levels. Reports in The New York Times and other places document unspeakable violence: 27,000 sexual assaults in South Kivu Province in 2006, just a fraction of the total number across the nation of 66 million people. The assaults are brutal. Women assaulted are often left so badly injured internally, they may never heal.
Map of Congo, highlighting province of Bukavu where violence against women is epidemic, from New York Times
Genocide you say? Many assaults appear to be spillover from the Hutu-Tutsi conflict in next-door Rwanda. But assaults by husbands on wives also are epidemic. Result of civil war? Then how to explain the “Rasta” gang, dreadlocked fugitives who live in the forest, wear tracksuits and Los Angeles Lakers jerseys, and who commit unspeakable crimes against women and children? What nation are they from, and against whom do they fight, if anyone — and for what?
The facts cry out for action:
Nightly rapes of women and girls. The violence appears to be a problem across the nation.
Huge chunks of Congo have no effective government to even contend against the violence.
Killers with experience in genocide in their native Rwanda moved into Congo; they live by kidnapping women for ransom. The women are assaulted while held captive. Sometimes husbands do not take back their wives.
The oldest rape victim recorded by one Congo physician is 75; the youngest, 3.
Surely intervention by an international group would help, no? However
Congo hosts the largest single peacekeeping mission of the United Nations right now, with 17,000 troops. Congo is a big nation, bordered by nine other nations. How many troops would it take to secure the entire nation, or the entire border? No one knows.
2006 saw an election that was supposed to remake history, end the violence and start Congo on the road to recovery; but was the $500 million it cost enough to change Congo’s history of a string of bad governments?
International attention focuses on other crises: Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan and Darfur, Iran, Korea, Chechnya, Turkey and the Kurds, Palestine and Israel. Congo, constantly roiling since the 1960s, is way down the list of world concerns, no matter how bad the violence.
Americans looking for a quick resolution to the situation in Iraq might do well to study Congo. At Congo’s independence in the 1960s, there was hope of prosperity and greater peace. Foreign intervention, including meddling from the U.S., regional civil wars, bad government and long international neglect, ate up the hope. Achieving what a nation could be is difficult, when so many forces align to prevent it from being anything other than a violent backwater. Pandora’s box resists attempts to shut it. Quick resolution is unlikely.
So the violence in Congo continues.In this world, when is the “never” in “never again?”
How many other such cases fall outside our textbooks, and off the state tests?
Or, until that account is unsuspended by the forces supporting Donald Trump: Follow @FillmoreWhite, the account of the Millard Fillmore White House Library
We've been soaking in the Bathtub for several months, long enough that some of the links we've used have gone to the Great Internet in the Sky.
If you find a dead link, please leave a comment to that post, and tell us what link has expired.
Thanks!
Retired teacher of law, economics, history, AP government, psychology and science. Former speechwriter, press guy and legislative aide in U.S. Senate. Former Department of Education. Former airline real estate, telecom towers, Big 6 (that old!) consultant. Lab and field research in air pollution control.
My blog, Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, is a continuing experiment to test how to use blogs to improve and speed up learning processes for students, perhaps by making some of the courses actually interesting. It is a blog for teachers, to see if we can use blogs. It is for people interested in social studies and social studies education, to see if we can learn to get it right. It's a blog for science fans, to promote good science and good science policy. It's a blog for people interested in good government and how to achieve it.
BS in Mass Communication, University of Utah
Graduate study in Rhetoric and Speech Communication, University of Arizona
JD from the National Law Center, George Washington University
Posted by Ed Darrell 
![The Maharajah of Cashmere The Illustrated London News December 18, 1875 [From a longer story on the Prince of Wales visit to India in 1875.] With regard to the Maharajah of Cashmere, whose residence and political relations, beneath the Himalayas and in the Valley of the Upper Indus, are very remote from Bombay, we defer any notice of him till the Prince of Wales goes to visit him in Cashmere. The portrait of this Maharajah is from a photograph by Messrs. Bourne and Shepherd, of India.](https://i0.wp.com/www.harappa.com/engr/gif/kashmah.gif "Maharaja of Cashmere 1875, Harappa.com")
Map of Congo, highlighting province of Bukavu where violence against women is epidemic, 
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
