A national movement to mandate standards for the teaching of Civics and History is gaining momentum. No conservative should support it.

Quote:Americans dismayed by the mendacity and distortions of the 1619 Project are headed for a fall. A commendable desire to counter both civic illiteracy and the excesses of woke ideology has produced a new national movement to mandate history and civics standards. Unfortunately, that strategy will produce the very opposite of its intended effect. Far from restoring traditional understandings of American citizenship, the proposed history and civics mandates will entrench woke ideology nationally, imposing it on the reddest of red-state school-districts, and ultimately on private and religious schools as well.

The conservative-leaning American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is considering a model bill that would have state legislatures mandate history and civics standards. Bipartisan federal legislation to fund curriculum development and teacher training in civics has also been introduced. Comprehensive proposals to create de facto national history and civics standards on the model of Common Core are in the works as well, and likely to be adopted by a Biden administration. Every one of these initiatives will undermine the very ends they appear to promote. Conservative legislators who support them will one day find themselves facing an army of angry constituents. The blowback against these ill-considered civics mandates will make the battle over Common Core look like patty-cake. By then, unfortunately, the damage will have been done.

Sound implausible? It shouldn’t, because it’s happened before. The National History Standards fiasco of the early 1990s chillingly prefigures the trap into which traditionalists are about to tumble. Back then, America was in the early stages of our education culture war. The overthrow of Stanford’s Western Civilization requirement in 1988 had launched the newly dubbed movement for “multiculturalism,” which in turn provoked a counter-attack on what would soon be called “political correctness.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/be...l-be-woke/

Have your kids read all the Rush Revere books for starters. Read them along with them, don't just hand them to them and walk away--show them with YOUR TIME how important America is to YOU, and should also therefore be to them. Kids aren't stupid-if it's not worth YOUR valuable time why should it be to them? Show them by your example.

Next, sit down with them and hand-write out on paper together with them also doing so, the entire US Declaration of Independence and US Constitution and Amendments.

This will take you many nights together over several months, but I promise you it will be time well worth invested in establishing a firewall against the PC and Socialist culture the Dems will be propagandizing into your kids in school. The key to make this work for you (and for America) is to be sure to do the following:

1. Read all the books and documents ALOUD with your kids. Alternating every few paragraphs or sections helps promote discussion. If you are unfamiliar with a word, teach them to "look it up" in an actual dictionary, and discuss.
2. Stop for discussion with your kids on the topics you are reading together. Listen to their thoughts as well as sharing your own.
3. You will have to TURN OFF ALL PHONES and electronics for this to work. It will teach your kids (and you yourself) some important discipline. Putting the phones on vibrate will NOT work--you MUST TURN THEM OFF for the duration fo these learning sessions in order for them to work, and to teach your kids what is most important (hint: it's the reading of paper books and the paper documents, NOT the electronics and phones.)

Capisce? Now, go do it and make a difference for America's future (it's YOUR responsibility.)

(12-29-2020 08:43 PM)GoodOwl Wrote:  Have your kids read all the Rush Revere books for starters. Read them along with them, don't just hand them to them and walk away--show them with YOUR TIME how important America is to YOU, and should also therefore be to them. Kids aren't stupid-if it's not worth YOUR valuable time why should it be to them? Show them by your example.

Next, sit down with them and hand-write out on paper together with them also doing so, the entire US Declaration of Independence and US Constitution and Amendments.

This will take you many nights together over several months, but I promise you it will be time well worth invested in establishing a firewall against the PC and Socialist culture the Dems will be propagandizing into your kids in school. The key to make this work for you (and for America) is to be sure to do the following:

1. Read all the books and documents ALOUD with your kids. Alternating every few paragraphs or sections helps promote discussion. If you are unfamiliar with a word, teach them to "look it up" in an actual dictionary, and discuss.
2. Stop for discussion with your kids on the topics you are reading together. Listen to their thoughts as well as sharing your own.
3. You will have to TURN OFF ALL PHONES and electronics for this to work. It will teach your kids (and you yourself) some important discipline. Putting the phones on vibrate will NOT work--you MUST TURN THEM OFF for the duration fo these learning sessions in order for them to work, and to teach your kids what is most important (hint: it's the reading of paper books and the paper documents, NOT the electronics and phones.)

Capisce? Now, go do it and make a difference for America's future (it's YOUR responsibility.)

Good advice. Thankfully...My daughter is grown and I didnt have to deal with the competition of the current media paradigm as parents do now. I remember sitting my daughter on my lap as an infant..reading her the newspaper from front to back. My late mother was teacher and fostered her love for reading. She ended up with 2 undergrad degrees..History/Library Science and a Masters in Museum studies. I fully believe all of that was due to our family pushing the joy of reading on her from the start of her life. She still...despite all the distractions...reads a couple of books a week today. Most of it non fiction.