the text book issue.

Last week we had a socratic circle discussion regarding history textbooks throughout the United States. According to "Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change" by James C. McKinley Jr., the group of people who come together to decide the context of the hitstory textbooks in the state of Texas are mainly Republican; therefore, the context chosen is biased. The books are more conservative, American capitailism is made superior, and Republican political philosophies are presented in a more positive light. The board only puts in the information that they want the students to learn about. They leave out anything that makes Republicans look bad or anything they believe to be unimportant. With these changes, the board believes that they are "adding balance." However, they are further tipping the balance to the right. The board should allow all of American history to be open to the public, unbiased. Students across Texas deserve the opportunity to learn about American history, whether thay are willing to take this opportunity or not.

Textbooks in Texas, and many other states, fail to include minorities consistently. Hispanic board members work to include more Latino role models for the state's large Hispanic population; however, they are constantly denied. It is important that minority groups, as well as caucasians, are a part of American history. The unique thing about America is that it is composed of many different cultures and ethnicities. In America, anyone can come and be free of discrimination. Furthermore, it was the Native Americans who had first founded America, and history textbooks do not digress on the matter. In the textbooks, students only learn about the struggles of Native Americans and how they were pushed off of their land. The books fail to mention their accomplishments and their heroic leaders. Even in Hollywood, they are portrayed as savages. In our socratic circle discussion, as we were talking about minorities discarded from our textbooks, I realized that i could name many important caucasian figures in American history, but it was quite difficult for me to recall more than one or two Hispanic figures. This only strengthens the point that the minority groups of America are being neglected in terms of history. A student in our discussion brought up the point that the reason most minority groups can not be included in the early American history is because they were not around at the time. This is a good argument; however, how do we truly know what groups were around at the time? The notion that only white people existed during the basic founding of America has probably been placed into our minds by people like the Republican board members of Texas. History has proven to be skewed when we were little as we learned that Christopher Colombus sailed around the world, when it was actually Ferdinand Magellan.

As we further discussed the textbook issue in our circle, we once again brought up the fact that the majority of the board members are Republican and these members come together to decide the context of our books. We realized that this board does not include historians. Furthermore, Dr. McLeroy, who seems to have a strong opinion on the textbook issue, is actually a dentist. Dentistry is completely irrelevant to history. It seems that the obvious way to resolve this issue is to have historians write the textbooks. They are unbiased and know the real American history. It was also called to attention that there should be separation of politics and education, just as there is separation of church and state. This a great idea. Why should politics get in the way of our education? It is important for students to learn all of American history in an unbiased manner. American history is important because it is a part of our culture as Americans. Furthermore, a student in our circle mentioned that it is important for us to learn history so that we do not end up repeating our mistakes. This is a valid point. If politicians get in the way and make their party appear superior and perfect, we will not know of their mistakes, and it is most likely they will take place once more in the future.