Get Schooled

By HS Teacher Too

March 15, 2007 11:27 AM | Link to this

Not being a native Georgian (or even a native Southerner), I am not very familiar with when (or whether) the elementary and/or middle schools teach such regional history. In New York, we learned local and regional history extensively in fourth grade and again in seventh (or eighth, can’t quite remember). Naturally, in the Northeast we spent a fair amount of time on the region’s role in our country’s birth.

That being said, does the Georgia curriculum already incorporate the state’s role in the Civil War? And if so, why is there a need to pull it out as a commemorative month if it is covered in the standard curriculum? Goodness knows we didn’t have “American Revolution Month” in New England!

(Okay, — so we do have Patriots’ Day in Mass., but that’s also Marathon Monday and half the kids think it’s in celebration of another Superbowl win! hah hah)

By Jeff

March 15, 2007 11:32 AM | Link to this

THERE we go! A WHITE History Month (essentially). Sounds like a plan to me. Course, I can already hear the NAACP (A racist organization if there ever was one) complaining about it….

By HB

March 15, 2007 11:39 AM | Link to this

Oh, please! Isn’t Confederate history pretty much Civil War history? When I was in school, that was probably the single event that we covered most thoroughly in U. S. History class in high school. Not to mention in 5th U.S. History, and 3rd and 8th grade Georgia History classes.

As for honoring and memorializing, there are certainly plenty of memorials around the state, from statues and plaques placed in small towns to that giant rock with the carvings of Lee, Davis, and Jackson. You would think with only 40 days to get the year’s legislative work done that Sen. Mullis could find something more urgent to focus on…

By HS Teacher Too

March 15, 2007 11:51 AM | Link to this

Okay HB, so I am NOT crazy! I couldn’t imagine that the Civil War wasn’t covered extensively already …

And I agree with you entirely that really, there ought to be far more meaningful things for our legislators to work on.

By JustMe

March 15, 2007 12:16 PM | Link to this

Face it, folks. This is another ridiculous gesture by a politican to get votes from the extreme citizens here in GA.

When I was in Jr. High School (that’s what we called Middle School back then), we had an entire history course in GA History - that included all civil war events involving GA. In addition, there was the US History course in High School that included all civil war events. Do we need another course? I don’t think so.

A month for Confederate Memorial Day? Doesn’t our normal Memorial Day honor those fallen in the civil war? Why do we need to single out that particular war or those particular soilders?

Do we need an entire month to observe Confederate Heritage and History? I don’t think that it should be a law. However, I see nothing wrong with some small town having a local fair or celebration for Confererate Heritage and History. Maybe even someone can get Piedmont Park on some weekend for this type of event. Everyone can dress up like those in Gone With The Wind. Could be kinda fun!

By SET

March 15, 2007 12:32 PM | Link to this

Actually, having a White History month is a pretty good idea since the loonie lefties started things with the Black history month (formerly known as February). Confederate History is just as important to GA children (Black and White and Brown) as California History is to CA Kids.

Learning about the past is a good way to understand why everybody behaves the way they do in the present, and to be able to see what to expect from them in the future. Since your students live in what was the Confederacy they certainly need to know all about it, regardless of the race of the student.

And while they are at it they will presumably study current and historical data on racial disparity in IQ and behavior - to use in the context of discussing GA history, the civil war and current events. Maybe they will cover Thomas Sowell’s theories that feral black culture is actually an extension of White Redneck Culture (learned during slavery years presumably) - an interesting book. This contrasts with other theories that lower class black behavior is reversion to Africian norms (IE family formation, etc).

Maybe we should just skip Black History Month and concentrate on reading, writing, math and chemistry?

Or maybe we should have a college track where more material is covered faster and a proletariat track where you stick to the basics.

The hope of public education is to teach students enough of an educational foundation so that they can rise in society and move freely within society and industry. Confederate History helps that for students who will live within the remains of that civilization. So it needs to be taught. Exactly how it’s taught should be up to the locality.

By jim d

March 15, 2007 12:36 PM | Link to this

Since the term “Conferate” stirs such emotion why wouldn’t this esteemed legislator just suggest a “Southern Heritage” commemeration rather than introduce the term causing such a raucus?

Why indeed? Might it have to do with Sen. Jeff Mullis crossing the Southern Heritage P.A.C. and the Sons of Confederate Veterans groups over the flag flap a few years ago? I suspect he may be attempting to mend a few fences here. He knows this legislation will never make it to the floor for a vote. It’s a non-issue

Bridget, you generally do much better than this on blog topics. Gotta another one?

By fed up

March 15, 2007 1:15 PM | Link to this

Confederate history month? I dunno. I would like to see a White History Month as well as Hispanic and Asian History Months. Either include all the races or forget it. To do anything else is racist.

But then, certain races in this country are allowed to be a racist as they please. They consider it their right.

By V for Vendetta

March 15, 2007 1:47 PM | Link to this

(Sigh)

Will we ever look like anything more than redneck idiots down here in the South? Will we ever shake our hick images that the rest of the country (world) has stereotyped us with?

I fear not.

This is a completely idiotic suggestion and in my mind and so is the notion of a “white” history month to be quite honest. I certainly don’t condone the use of February as “black history month” (oops, er, I mean “African-American history month or whatever), but to start designating certain times of the year for different racial and cultural observations sounds like a waste of time to me.

We ignore so much of history because we must - there IS a lot of it you know - so to say we are going to narrowly focus on something for a certain period of time seems wasteful. We know what’s important and what’s not. Georgia was one of the first colonies here in the States, our history can be covered and worked in as we move through the colonial period, revolutionary war, early 1800’s, civil war, and reconstruction.

Consider literature: Most high schools study a generalized mish-mash of works in 9th grade, 10th grade is “world lit”, 11th grade is American lit, and 12th grade is British lit. So the whole stinking world only gets one year compared to one just for America and Britain? Are there no writers of any merit in places like Asia, India, the Middle East, or South America? Or are there so few they can all be squashed into one or two semesters?

Somebody slap some sense into Jeff Mullis, he’s making us all look like A$$ HOLES. I often complain that black people tend to have trouble getting over the whole slavery thing (c’mon, you don’t hear Jewish people still complaining about the Holocaust do you? A far greater human tradgedy in my opinion), but in the South it’s the WHITE people who need to “get over it”.

Listen to me now, as a Southerner born and bred …

GET OVER IT!!!!! We were wrong, they were right. We screwed up and things ended up how they SHOULD HAVE ended up. I LOVE living in the South, but if there was one thing I could change this would be it.

By HS Teacher Too

March 15, 2007 2:09 PM | Link to this

V,

You know, or I hope you know, that I tend to agree with 99% of what you say. However, yes, you do still hear Jewish people with regard to the Holocaust. May they never be quiet, either, lest the world forget.

By lopro

March 15, 2007 2:32 PM | Link to this

Teaching a broader context of Confederate history is not making Georgia a “redneck” state. It is those who abuse and warp the state’s history for their current racist themes that portray this redneck image. If people had a better understanding of Georgia’s history and succession from the Union, there would probably not be so much ignorance to point out. Crafting a Georgia History Month would be a better idea. Actually, lowering taxes and cutting wasteful spending is a better idea than creating a law that doesn’t actually mandate anything.

As far as everyone feeling there is “plenty” of confederate memorial pieces around the state, look where you are. It’s Georgia, a very historic state with a proud tradition of leaders. Please people, educate yourselves on the subject before claiming all instances of Georgia history to be racist. The entire population of the Confederacy were not slave owners. The Confederacy was about much more than slavery (which was and is wrong).

Where are the NAACP and othe race pimps on the current slavery issue regarding the many countires of Africa? It’s funny how they only want to look back. It’s a lot easier that way I suppose.

By jim d

March 15, 2007 2:45 PM | Link to this

lopro,

Lest we forget “History is written by the victor”

By V for Vendetta

March 15, 2007 2:58 PM | Link to this

HS Teacher Too,

I meant no disrespect, they have every right to bemoan what happened during that time period. What I meant was, that they tend not to seek reparations and compensations with the same vigor that certain other minority groups do. I completely see your point, I hope that my comments were not misconstrued as impassionate. Thanks for poiting that out.

By lopro

March 15, 2007 3:22 PM | Link to this

jim d,

By lopro

March 15, 2007 3:22 PM | Link to this

jim d,

By lopro

March 15, 2007 3:22 PM | Link to this

jim d,

By lopro

March 15, 2007 3:22 PM | Link to this

jim d,

By HB

March 15, 2007 3:24 PM | Link to this

I just want to clarify that earlier when I said there are plenty of memorials, I didn’t mean to imply that those should be removed or that they are all racist, or anything of that nature. To me, though, Sen. Mullins’ proposal implies that the Confederacy is not honored, rembered, taught, etc enough. I’m just saying — we’ve got it covered. There’s certainly no shortage. No need for this nonsense resolution he’s bringing forth to pander to a few voters as jim d described. I also believe it’s very important to teach Georgia history in local schools. But you know what? We already do! It’s in the curriculum.

Personally, I think if anything should have a special month of interest, it’s local history. Take a little time to learn about your home town/county/region and some of the events central to building your community that aren’t mentioned in any mass-produced textbooks. Encourage families to venture out to local historic sites, stop and read those rodaside markers, etc. Plan a field trip to that company, mill, or orchard that has provided so many local jobs for decades. Encourage people to look around their own backyards a bit.

By lopro

March 15, 2007 3:24 PM | Link to this

jim d,

“History is written by the victor” is a dangerous premise on which to base knowledge of history. This may only add to your ignorance of the world.

By Nikole

March 15, 2007 3:52 PM | Link to this

Georgia history in middle school and US History in high school cover Ga’s role in the Civil War as well as the Confederacy. However, blacks that have contributed to this society are kept secrets and that is why we have Black History Month. Asians and Hispanics are never mentioned in history courses, so perhaps the history curriculum should be changed so that we have no need for special months.

By jim d

March 15, 2007 4:02 PM | Link to this

lopro,

to believe History is NOT written by the victor is an even more dangerous premise on which to base knowledge of history. This may only add to your ignorance of the world.

By jc

March 15, 2007 4:13 PM | Link to this

here’s an idea….How about just plain old AMERICAN MONTH ..the way it’s going at the borders it may not be to long before amonth is all we will have….BUILD THE FENCE

By jim d

March 15, 2007 4:16 PM | Link to this

Ipro,

The truth of the matter is that the North won that war and wrote the hisory that is why we rarely hear that Lincoln was an opportunist of the highest degree, who argued in court as a young lawyer to have a slave returned to his master, and began a war that had nothing to do with slavery—for which he had ambivalent feelings—except in terms of enslaving the country under his iron grip. We rarely hear that Lincoln’s war was simply an opportune way of instituting high tariffs and corporate welfare, which brought to America income taxation, conscription, paper currency, and massive censorship, and meant the government responding to antiwar activism by closing down newspapers, deporting war critics, and ordering the army to suppress a draft riot in New York by shooting 1,000 rioters dead. We rarely hear that Lincoln had no intention to free any slaves, and his phony Emancipation Proclamation failed to free any slaves, and when his generals tried to free slaves, Honest Abe sent them back to their masters. We rarely hear that Lincoln allowed chattel slavery to thrive in four Union states and in Washington, DC, and instituted a new form of slavery called conscription through which millions of young men were forced to kill their brethren in the most shameful four years in American history, all while slavery was in the last stages of peacefully dying out throughout the rest of the western hemisphere.

And we pretty much never hear the thesis of historian Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, who points out that all the North had to do to end slavery was to repeal the Fugitive Slave Law and refuse to subsidize the peculiar institution. Instead, the North spent more money that it would have cost to buy every single slave and give each 40 acres and a mule, all in order to wage a war in which 625,000 Americans died murdering each other for no good reason.

And you think the victors don’t write the history?

By HS Teacher Too

March 15, 2007 4:26 PM | Link to this

V, No worries — in fact in my post I originally pointed out the same thing regarding the “vocalness” of seeking reparations, etc., but then in the end deleted it.

I just didn’t want people to think that because certain groups go about their purpose with, shall we say, more somber tones and fewer battle cries of “entitlement,” that they didn’t still voice their concerns at all.

By scott

March 15, 2007 4:52 PM | Link to this

The ignorance demonstrated by the bloggers mirrors that of a public official asking for a confederate history month. Can anyone tell me or everyone the reason Black History Month was established and why it is in February?
As far as the implication that Blacks ask for reperations far more than other groups who were abused and taken advantage of by the white power structure of this country; maybe it has something to do with the continued resonance of slavery through institutional racism. Native Americans have casinos and tax breaks. Japanese Americans received reparations. The Jews had help in creating the state of Israel. America gave Blacks another broken promise of forty acres and a mule. P.S. if I read one more time by the blogger who always links every subject to the hogwash bell curve theory I am going to puke. This is a person who has self esteem issues and focuses on stereotypes and personal opinions rather than facts. Bottom line, this country’s cut off its nose to spite the face attitude towards Black america is part of the reason we are overrun with illegal immigration and will soon be taken over by the new super powers of China and India.

Next thing you know someone is going to try to bring back the confederate flag as part of the state of Georgia’s flag.

By lopro

March 15, 2007 4:55 PM | Link to this

jim d,

I’m glad to see you DO know the other side. Well stated. My point was that is is dangerous to base your perceptions of history on the “victors” message only. I was suggesting that history is written by the “losers” as well. With this, one must dig for this history and not ignore it as part of the overall scheme of past events.

By Bionic Blonde

March 15, 2007 6:18 PM | Link to this

It might be good for Georgia to start looking forward instead of seemingly having a tendency to be looking backward. The positive and negative aspects of Georgia’s heritage should be taught as part of a regular history curriculum. Is this going to impact student learning by helping to provide richer and robust curriculum—or is it there to support ideas that are some kind of propoganda?

By KA

March 15, 2007 6:33 PM | Link to this

All aspects of history; Ga. US and World need to be taught to our kids. those that don’t study the past are doomed to repeat it. Apart from slavery, there were many economic issues that drove the South to secession from the Union. Who here can discuss them?

By jim d

March 16, 2007 8:10 AM | Link to this

KA,

You might actually be surprised to know that while I was raised quite some distance north of the M/D line I do have a pretty good knowledge of many of the issues leading up to the “War of Northern Aggression.” Seems I had a HS history teacher that was over zealous in his teaching on the subject. (he may have been from the south) We spent almost my entire freshman year on the subject studying both sides and the complexities that fueled the war.

As I recall those lessons, economic issues were not burning issues in the North-South relations and did not cause the war. There were several groups on both sides that tried to find compromises to avert war. However, they did not turn to economic policies since both the economies of the north and the south really did compliment and depend largely upon each other. The bankers and merchants in the north were quite vocal against any restrictions or tampering with the status quo.

With the sole exception of slavery which I suppose was an economic institution, economics didn’t play a significant role in causing the Civil War. To the contrary economics may have postponed it for a while. Economics did however play a large role in the outcome. But then that’s a whole nuther subject.

The burning issue was really one of States rights, not economics or slavery. Slavery only became a major issue after Lincoln realized making it one would provide a means to solicit blacks to fight on the side of the north. We could go into state rights and the south’s reasoning but then I suppose we’d use up the entire bandwidth allocated to this blog.

Just for the record, I believe enslaving another human being is never right and in this instance, the institution of slavery was destined to die. While the war may have ended slavery sooner it was over 100 years later before the descendants of the emancipated slaves began to realize many of the freedoms the rest of us enjoy. Without the war I honestly believe this would have happened sooner and that we wouldn’t still be facing many of the issues we find ourselves confronted with yet today in regards to racial issues

By V for Vendetta

March 16, 2007 9:26 AM | Link to this

Jim d,

Thanks for the posts. I fear many people down here know little more about the Civil War era than what they saw in Glory and/or Gettysburg. It is a time in history filled with interesting change. I don’t see how singling out one side of it (or one aspect of it) will help people understand it better.

And I’m a Southerner by birth who grew up watching The Dukes of Hazzard!

There’s my Southern credibility! :-)

By Lee

March 16, 2007 9:34 AM | Link to this

Unfortunately Jim D, our students rarely hear about the issues you cited in your two previous posts. Indeed, if you ask any graduating high school senior what was the cause of the War Between the States, the vast majority will tell you slavery.

What our students of today are receiving is the Politically Correct version of history. A great disservice, IMHO.

As far as a Confederate History Month, I’m all for it. This is one of the two most defining events in this nation’s history. It is appropriate that we recognize it as such.

By jim d

March 16, 2007 9:43 AM | Link to this

Thanks V,

I kind of suspect that one of the primary reasons we spent so much time on the subject was because of the era I was attending school, the turbulant times we were enduring, the changes that were taking place in our society at the moment and the changes that would be taking place in our lifetime.

In my opinon, This particular teacher did an excellent job of preparing us for what was to come and it took me many years to appreciate what he did. (shall we say he was somewhat less than one of my favorite teachers at the time?)

By jim d

March 16, 2007 9:51 AM | Link to this

Lee,

I’ll favor it provided I get hired to teach it.

By KA

March 16, 2007 10:07 AM | Link to this

jim, I didn’t say the issues that drove them to war, but secession. You said, “The bankers and merchants in the north were quite vocal against any restrictions or tampering with the status quo.” And that is correct, as the Southerners were smothered and covered by Northern economic bullying.

By dondon

March 16, 2007 7:05 PM | Link to this

We are one country now and forever. Although, the south should take pride in the civil war era. A confederate history month seems a little silly.

By landsaf

March 22, 2007 1:23 PM | Link to this

If a Confederate History Month would teach kids the real History of the Confederacy (as opposed to the slavery side of things) then I’m all for it. I’m a southerner born and raised, but I was NEVER taught in school that the slavery was the reason for the Civil War (it was not). Its a shame others see it that way.