Primary and secondary history books get updated in most schools on a 4 year schedule, depending on their condition.
I‘m willing to bet this fellow will be in the next edition of textbooks high schools use. Question is, which old white guy will be removed ? There is only so much a person can teach in a school year, something has to go.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Moses_(activist)
I am ashamed to admit I knew nothing about him until listening to a feature news program at the time of his passing.
The news program talked about his time in the south during the 1960s when there were literacy requirements to register to vote. He took the track of tutoring blacks so they could pass the tests. Seemed he got his head cracked open for doing it. I imagine all those racist ideas are long dead now.
What Mike is doing with chess reminds me of this fellow‘s “Algebra Project”. Working with kids always pays off, sometimes we just don’t get to see it.
”After returning to the US, in 1982 Moses received a MacArthur Fellowship and began developing the Algebra Project. The math literacy program emphasizes teaching algebra skills to minority students, based on broad-based community organizing and collaboration with parents, teachers and students, in order to improve college and job readiness.”
Wow mcfarmer, the story of this guys life is extremely powerful. I usually try to cut and paste portions of links but you just have to go to the link and read about it rather than me adding 100 lines here.
Thanks for sharing this!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Moses_(activist)
Since you mentioned my chess program, I have a great story to tell about one of my former students that I was telling both my sons earlier in the week, who both knew him......one of them was in his class every year, while he played chess.
One of my big joys was seeing the looks when the kids learned that the history they assumed was the true story turned out to be something other than all pie and ice cream.
I remember when Columbus day was being talked about as not a suitable day to celebrate and the kids all wondered why folks thought that way.
When they learned the true story of Columbus they realized he maybe shouldn’t be on the pedestal we placed him on.
Holy Cow mcfarmer!
I can't believe I didn't know about most of this related to Columbus.
He was a horrible person!
I strongly believe that we should not judge people from many centuries ago, based on todays more civilized standards..............when slavery and other primitive and dehumanizing situations were considered very acceptable.
However, Columbus seems to stand out with especially egregious violations of ethical standards that we use to treat other human beings.............bad even for the low standards of that day.
Reading about some of the things that he did is very disturbing.
Not sure if all of this is historically accurate and maybe the source is using some embellishment...........but regardless, even just part of it is appalling and possibly its all true.
Why do we even celebrate Columbus Day?
https://www.vox.com/2014/10/13/6957875/christopher-columbus-murderer-tyrant-scoundrel
metmike: My mind has just changed completely about Christopher Columbus. This SOB does not deserve to have a special day/holiday honoring him.
There are hundreds of people much more deserving.............actually its not even a matter of others edging him out with better qualifications.........Columbus should go.......period.
This is one of those rare times, when I find out something totally new that rocks my understanding of something that I thought that I knew for almost 6 decades.
Amazingly, people like you and millions of others already knew this but somehow, I've been in the dark all this time.
I love learning new things more than anything else. Learning this makes this a special day for metmike.
Learning about a real hero and humanitarian, Bob Moses at the top was just icing on the cake.........only the icing came first in this case (-:
Thanks mcfarmer!
Such a shame. You start with a good subject and turn it into a bunch of racist drivel. Saddest part, you don't and won't ever see it as racist drivel. Of course, if I made a comment like "This white guy will replace some old black guy in the history books", I'm nearly certain you'd consider it racist. But you appear to be of the mindset of "You can't be racist towards white people because white people are all racist", or some such nonsense.
But to make matters worse, you go on to brag about the joy it gave you to poison the minds of our youth with your anti-american leftist propaganda. Thank you for using Columbus, but there are dozens/hundreds of political figures that the left has maligned in the hopes of teaching their students that America as we know it is not worth preserving.
Anyway, the current leftist drivel is supported by the political hatchet job of an opponent of Columbus who in fact was actually guilty of the crimes that he himself had committed. See, that leftist tactic of blaming your opponents for crimes you've committed is at least as old as Columbus. But, when the nonsense fits your objective, actual scrutiny is not a requirement, right?
Here's a link to a page that actually gives honest treatment to the story of Columbus.
Lot's of info there.
Anyway, if I thought like you, I would argue that it would be common sense to censor you, but of course, I think it's far better to have you as an example.
Double Wow!
People can't even agree on history anymore!
" I would argue that it would be common sense to censor you, but of course, I think it's far better to have you as an example."
Tim,
Actually you are more out of line in turning this into a personal attack. Please leave it up to the moderator to make those decisions ...........and I don't take requests for censoring a person because they stated something that rubbed you wrong politically
Maybe mcfarmer is baiting you into making the more objectionable post................if so, it worked based on your response.
If that happens again, impress us next time by pretending it didn't bother you this much.........then, he'll have less reason to push your buttons.
It's great that you provided a source that showed your side.
I'm sorry you took my observation as a personal attack, but in Mcfarmer's own words, We can debate whether censorship is common sense. That was his heading in a recent post.
I've made it quite clear that I disagree and I simply expressed that in my example.
History is always open to interpretation, and/or misrepresentartion as this thread clearly demonstrates. And of course, so is racism. Mostly for the same reasons.
“But to make matters worse, you go on to brag about the joy it gave you to poison the minds of our youth with your anti-american leftist propaganda.”
Tim, that is below you. But, I will take it for what it is and per Mike’s advice rise above it.
Mike saw right through me. Yes, I confess I did do a little fiddle playing but I was surprised at how easy it was to make folks dance.
I have three points, all surrounding the idea that we see what we want to see, or find what we are looking for, however a person wants to say it.
First let’s get rid of the current one. It is said that I am racist because I indicated an old white guy would be removed in order to add this person of color to the history books.
I cannot site a reference since this is my memory of a college lecture. Historians, probably many of them, have researched history books sentence by sentence and attached a person or group of people to the topic at hand. If memory serves me correctly something like 70% of history books in the US are made up of the exploits of white men. I think we can agree that more than 50% of the history we here in this group learned was about white men. Yes ?
So then, if we agree to that, and we agree there is only so much a textbook company can get into a history course, who is going to be the one standing when the music stops and a new person of any color will be added to the course ? Statistics would say it will be an old white guy. Demographics always prevail. Donald Trump will be added, what will the person look like that will be removed ? Again, statistics tell us it will be a white male. Tim, admit it, you made a racist assumption.
Tim saw racism, or reverse racism, because that is what he was looking for. Tim isn’t alone by any means, this is pervasive in our society today, always has been a human trait, but today it is on display like no other time.
I’ll get to the other points later, much work to do.
And Mike, I won the first round of shooting by one point.
What a wonderful job of rationalization.
A majority white nation has too many white people in the history books and that being somehow fundamentally wrong, must be corrected because, well, history is a finite subject and we have too much of it. If we add something, something else must be removed.
That about right?
Let's set aside the fact that you made the entire post about race instead of the great accomplishments of an individual. But again, I'm sure you can rationalize that.
Next. the entire mishmash of slander you took so much "joy" in using to indoctrinate your students was the result of a report from Francisco de Bobadilla who wanted Columbus' job. No need to spot check any of that, right?
But there are reams of data and libraries full of accounts that almost completely disembowel Bobadilla's account.
Was Columbus perfect? Certainly not. But he was an angel compared to the ambitious man's report.
A short synopsis.
Debunking Lies About Columbus: The Story of Francisco de Bobadilla – Ricochet
I was right Mike, it’s useless, but you asked me to try and I did. My last two points require even more open mindedness to process, I won’t try. I don’t envy you.
For some folks racism is like the nose on their face, too close to see. When a mirror is held up to them they still deny its existence.
Said state of affairs we are in, I don’t need my opinion of humanity lowered further.
And yes, history books written for schools are a finite universe, one thing is added, something has to go. There is only so much time the teacher has. History must be taught in context, it has to tell a story and that requires space in the book. Each book is filled with what it requires to do the job, there is no fluff that can be cut.
It's useless to try and defend an indefensible position. A shame you don't realize that your position is indefensible.
No one denies racism exists. But some see racism everywhere, even where it does not exist.
They think the US is still just like Mississippi in the 50's. I'll never understand the need to cling to such nonsense.
1. "Mike saw right through me. Yes, I confess I did do a little fiddle playing but I was surprised at how easy it was to make folks dance."
2. "And Mike, I won the first round of shooting by one point."
3. "I was right Mike, it’s useless, but you asked me to try and I did."
Thanks mcfarmer,
I sincerely pleaded with mcfarmer earlier in the week to stay via personal email, because we absolutely need intelligent people with his point of view to round this place out. He has made massive positive contributions, many are totally devoid of politics. He's my friend too and I don't want to lose that friendship.
1. Great post, however the tactic that you intentionally used(at least being honest about using it here) was right out of the vandenplas playbook "How to rattle the chains of the Right Wing Evangelicals" This is the ONLY reason that vandenplas came here...........and why Vandenplas got banned for life over 2 years ago but still compulsively sends me emails(3 just this week). mcfarmer is a massive, wonderful contributor and good person and friend and will NEVER be banned for using this tactic that is very much against what we stand for here because his huge positive contributions far outweigh the negatives of his tiff's with Tim and mcfarm.......... so I will strongly discourage the tiff tactics here, at a place where I'm trying to get people to get along.
2. mcfarmer has declared himself the winner of round one.............umm, no the score keeper is metmike, not mcfarmer. metmike declares both Tim and mcfarmer the losers. In a conversation like this BOTH parties ALWAYS lose. Since mcfarmer started this to bait Tim to rattle his chain(otherwise known as PICK A FIGHT) , I declare him the bigger loser of the contest using forum etiquette/rules. If you note the tone of my early posts, I was in mcfarmers corner and am actually leaning towards giving him the benefit of the doubt here on most things since we need more left sided views...........so this is NOT bias by the scorekeeper. I badly want mcfarmer to stay. Tim and I had enough tiffs/disagreements in the past, that I know that he is very capable of going on to the next subject and eventually just forgetting the last one. Also, mcfarmer, being our lone representative from the left most of the time, should remember that when he conducts himself here. If I were applying for a job that required me interacting with people that have different opinions, I would definately not include this thread as part of my resume. and showing my employer that
3. mcfarmer. I don't see this as your best effort to get along. I'm hopeful and really, really in favor of you continuing here with posts that define the best of mcfarmer and there is tons and tons of it.
It may be frustrating for you to come to a place that has a majority that disagree with your political ideologies. I totally get that.............but that's one of the huge problems in society today.
People go to their echo chambers to hear others repeat things they want to hear.
You have messages that need to be heard and discussed here. As I said in my email, if they are based on solid ideas, which is often the case, I will back you, regardless of others that disagree.
Most important of all. We all should strive to become better people and better communicators, more open minded and attempt to see the views of others..........despite the world being the ideal environment for the exact opposite..... pushing us to become more divisive, intolerant and tunnel visioned. This is destroying us and this country.
I can tell that you are a self improvement sort of guy. Where else can you go to get training to work towards the positive objectives in the previous paragraph............seriously!
Mike, I was referring to the shooting competition I talked about in our email conversation. I ended up winning the first phase by one, with two to go.
Discussions are never about winning or losing.
Perhaps I owe McFarmer an apology.
Please tell me which statement(s) you've made in this thread that you don't actually believe.
TUA.
Sorry that I misinterpreted your message about shooting mcfarmer............congrats.
I agree that discussions are not about winning.........they are about communicating/sharing thoughts/ideas in a respectful way, ideally to help others to understand how you feel and ideally, to provide them with opportunities to learn or understand something new.
Interesting that you are using a gun for your competition and Tim, just happens to be a gun expert........gun collector sorts, is that right Tim?
We would love hearing details of your unique experience mcfarmer.
I was in a brief shooting contest a couple decades ago when I was helping out at my sons Boy scout camp at the Old Ben reservation......... using a muzzle loader. Everyone will find the story absolutely hilarious.
Tell you in a few minutes.
They nicknamed me "Daniel Boone" afterwards.
yes, quite well armed here abouts. Never knew much about nuthin before basic. learned a lot during and since then.
Depending on the weapon. I'll group a silhouette from a variety of ranges.
Almost forgot.
I didn't have a great deal of experience shooting targets with firearms(I had a couple for personal protection) but when my oldest son was in Boy Scouts, I went to Summer camp with his troop the first year, in 1999.
They had shooting sports and the shot gun merit badge and all sorts of things.
I had my first experience skeet/clay pigeon shooting. It was great fun.
I've been to the shooting range a few times since then but that's all so its not a huge deal for me today.
However, on a Tuesday evening at that Summer camp at the Old Ben scout reservation, they had a muzzle loader shooting competition for all the adult leaders(that wanted to be in it).
I had never even shot a muzzle loader before but it sounded like big fun!
They had 3 big cans that were separated by around 6 inches horizontally, and attached to the same skinny wire that came together in the center, that was hanging from the same 1 skinny wire vertically above....if my faded memory is close.
I honestly don't remember how it was determined who was the best shot but it was my turn to use a muzzle loader for the first time and I had no idea what I was doing except to listen to the experienced veterans telling me how to hold it and shoot it and after watching them go before me.
When it was my turned, I aimed it for a few seconds, then pulled the trigger. A muzzle loader can have a lot of smoke that comes out of the gun, which was the case this time so the smoke plume completely blocked my view of where the shot went for several seconds but I heard everybody cheering and laughing and several yelled "Daniel Boone!!"
When the smoke cleared, all 3 cans were gone and I asked my experienced buddy, "what happened?
I had missed all the cans completely(the objective) but hit the skinny wire they were hanging from and caused all 3 cans to fly off their wires.
They were totally aware of it being the opposite of skill and a really bad shot so I didn't win anything thing except for a really good laugh for everybody and this funny story.
I see they still have that great place active today:
https://www.buffalotracecouncil.org/old-ben-scout-reservation
