How did this slip by?

Selective Amnesia or Purposeful Bias: Education

There's another current thread on civics, failure in the schools to teach, posted in political or current events about this same time.
Reference there is made to www.americancivicliteracy.org/ and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute or www.isi.org/
There a brief but broad survey test is offered which tests the general understanding of civics, which includes the constitution, government and organization, economics, history: The online presentation tests the general Internet Participants and adds optional demographic information as to zip code identification of residence and highest level obtained in education. However, this test is an off shoot of a more thorough survey test which was given to students entering college and those graduating..... with comparisons drawn and assumptions made as to whether the college experience added more to their understanding of civics: It was found that some colleges did contribute but others actually seemed to reverse understanding of civics. However the general contribution to understanding civics seemed to be equal to a spread of less than 10 points gain..... with most gains under 5 points..... which is hardly a significant increase and contribution over the baseline knowledge.... which tested out to be inadequate..... failure to borderline failure. The oddest things however, when those universities and colleges were compared.... their scores with each other...... those who attended the schools held as ivy-league or which seem to have the most influence in positioning for success in areas of business, politics, research...... actually had no gain or reversals on their scores by time of graduation...... all though it is here noted that those reversals were a loss under 5 points from the entering level of knowledge.

So what am I trying to present here?
Evidence of a sort...... that our education system is failing. And, given the other articles and research linked in the OP, it is due a rational consideration to suspect there are biased influences upon what is taught and how it is taught which many parents, students, and even teachers and scholars are not aware. Unless a student's or a professor's inquiry and research crosses a line of bias.... he is not likely to be aware that there is more to be learned and more to teach than that which he has received from his own experience in education. That which has been selectively hidden from public education and the text books then forms a pov in the products of the education system built upon selective narrowing of information presented and available...... and also creates a class of citizens arrogant with their academic credentials who have been lead to believe ..... and supported by society's recognition of them in that belief..... that they have obtained the 'well rounded knowledge and understanding' necessary for decisions which they will make and influence upon others to make.... in work, in government, in their duties as voters and spokespersons.

Salty, I'm glad you presented this information regarding the civil war, slavery, and the truth which also carries within it the regionalization which had formed differences and competition in economic strengths and dependencies between "north" and "south". Slavery was actually used more as an emotional wedge to drive the conflict (accompanied by a pretense of moralistic hypocrisy .....which was NOT later supported when the conflict ended, but popular history texts do not reveal) and served to divert attention away from the real reason of one region's attempt to keep and hold onto an economic advantage to dominate another.... by force, if required.

The conclusions and research at your link, exposes the facts behind stories I'd often heard from my elders who were born during or shorty after the civil war... and passed on to me. To them the recovery was still fresh. They grew up with childhood friends.... black and white together in the deep south... the newly freed man with the man who was once his master... as neighbors working together.... some contracting together with the division of lands and homes so that both could survive as neighbors and friends... and both coming under controls by the government which had forcefully prevented their separation and independence and was in charge of healing the broken body under a cloud of suspicion....lest that independence rise again.

Truth lies somewhere between the stories which were shared and the history which has been popularized.

The Negro has more than proved himself in many instances.... capable of intellect, compassion, spiritual understanding and sensitivity and great faith, and leadership, invention and hard work. There are no differences between black and white concerning superiority or inferiority, based upon color of skin or origin of country. Unfortunately, the Negro has also been used as a divisional pawn..... by the influence of history.... both true and biased ..... by those in his own race who wish to master and control each other as a block by whatever techniques (maintaining emotional biases, separation, discouraging understanding, discussions, intellectual honesty) and by others who find it useful to manipulate history, economics, law, politics..... subjectively used around the singular objective observable difference which is unchangeable ... color of skin. Some are able to cross the boundaries of bias and emotion which have been supported by outside influences which use them and those influences within who wish to maintain separation and control of both the weakness and power of 'keeping the difference'.

The foundations of our culture, our religion, our beginnings, our society (morals and values) and government...... are not passed on by inheritance from one generation to the next: These are only passed on through instruction, experience, and HISTORY (which also includes HIS story).

 

Google come up with 10 million hits to "slavery in the north."

Towards the top of the list is

http://www.slavenorth.com/

The author seems qualified to have an opinion

http://www.slavenorth.com/author.htm

ABOUT the AUTHOR
Douglas Harper is a historian, author, journalist and lecturer based in Lancaster, Pa. He is the author of "If Thee Must Fight:" A Civil War History of Chester County, Pa." (Chester County Historical Society, 1990); "An Index of Civil War Soldiers and Sailors from Chester County, Pa." (Chester County Historical Society, 1995); "The Whitman Incident: Revolutionary Revisions to an Ephrata Tale" (Lancaster County Historical Society Journal, 1995); "West Chester to 1865: That Elegant & Notorious Place" (Chester County Historical Society, 1999). . . .

 

Oh, Salty. I can't believe you brought this up. I literally just came from another forum where I tried to educate a poster there about the War of Yankee Aggression. All he could do was to just repeat "it was all about slavery".

Did you know that New Jersey, that bastion of Southern white cracker racism, had slavery as late as 1865, and many of the other Northern states had it well into the 1840's?

Officially, it was outlawed long before then, but they kept "grandfathering" slave owners to allow them to keep their slaves.

Also, did you know that the first black congressman was a sailor in the Confederate Navy and was elected to his first office of state senate in South Carolina, in 1868?

 

Most all of us are now slaves. When gas hits four bucks, wages are down another 5 bucks, and the unemployment is still over 9% some of you might catch on.

 

Do you see a 2nd secession looming on the horizon??----and if so--what will become of all the folks who have "pledged" their allegence to the US?? When it may be quiet clear that the secession will be away from the US's current direction under its current leadership in the house and senate??

 

>Do you see a 2nd secession looming on the horizon??

NO, because "the devil we know is preferred to the devil we don't know."

I would like to see the Constitution rescinded and an updated Articles of Confederation adopted. The USofA under the Articles was supposed be 13 sovereign nations under the Articles which would function as sort of a UN Charter. The Philly Convention produced a revolution which reduced the 13 states from sovereign nations to 13 provinces of the USofA.

The primary deficiency of the Articles was the inability of the federal government to raise funds, yes? That problem could have been solved without castrating the states. The most important function of our national government is as a mutual DEFENSE pact. Yes? That could have been financed under a revised Articles.