Florida Law Undermines Critical Thinking & Promotes Propaganda

[Minnesota_Lib]

Sorry if this has already been covered (I have had lots of problems connecting to the DU the last two days).
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Published on Monday, July 17, 2006 by CommonDreams.org

Florida's Fear of History: New Law Undermines Critical Thinking
by Robert Jensen

One way to measure the fears of people in power is by the intensity of their quest for certainty and control over knowledge.

By that standard, the members of the Florida Legislature marked themselves as the folks most terrified of history in the United States when last month they took bold action to become the first state to outlaw historical interpretation in public schools. In other words, Florida has officially replaced the study of history with the imposition of dogma and effectively outlawed critical thinking.

Although U.S. students are typically taught a sanitized version of history in which the inherent superiority and benevolence of the United States is rarely challenged, the social and political changes unleashed in the 1960s have opened up some space for a more honest accounting of our past. But even these few small steps taken by some teachers toward collective critical self-reflection are too much for many Americans to bear.

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Florida’s lawmakers are not only prescribing a specific view of US history that must be taught (my favorite among the specific commands in the law is the one about instructing students on “the nature and importance of free enterprise to the United States economy”), but are trying to legislate out of existence any ideas to the contrary. They are not just saying that their history is the best history, but that it is beyond interpretation. In fact, the law attempts to suppress discussion of the very idea that history is interpretation.

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Complete article: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0717-22.htm
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So it starts....propaganda taught as fact with no opposing viewpoints allow.

[mcar]

1. FL students aren't taught history at all

until high school anyway. The state mandates 90 minutes each for reading and math each day; low performing readers then get an extra 30 minutes of instruction each day. Figure in lunch, recess and PE, Art, Music or Media center (which rotate on a weekly basis in DS's school) and there's literally no time for science or "social studies" in the average FL elementary school.