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Hello everyone, and welcome back to America Under the Microscope, advanced episode. Hi Lulu.
Hi, James.
Let's continue our talk about text books and curriculum, and let's get into the more controversial issues related to textbooks in America.
Oh, yes. I've heard about some of the issues.
Yeah. So let's go and talk about some of that textbook content that people find to be questionable.
As we talked about in the last episode, so the states choose the standards and the textbooks that can be used. But this also leads to political influence because different states have like different views of what should or should not be taught.
Different political leanings.
And this can reflect into the textbooks for use and what get taught. Good example of this in America would be the American Civil War.
Oh, American Civil War, I thought now is pretty much settled like people have a generalized leaning on this, or people still disagree on which side should be supported?
Well, in general you're not going to find people arguing that because slavery was bad. It's more of like in some states, more commonly in the Southeast will still frame it as like a war against Northern aggression.
I see.
Instead of a war about…
Abandoning…abolishing slavery.
So, I mean, they still talk about the abolishing slavery, but they also talk about some of the atrocities that the Northern armies did, and they focus more on that.
They're not teaching incorrect information, but they're just skewing it and putting a kind of a spin on it.
I think it was history textbooks, it’s always… perhaps it attracts more debates because history is one of those, the facts might be the same, but how you spin it, how you interpret it will directly affect people you are teaching.
And the other subject that this is really noticeable in are biology and English.
Biology and English?
Yes. Biology, the big one in biology is evolution.
Oh, yes, because there are people who don't believe in evolution.
There are quite a few Americans, due to their religious beliefs, don't believe in evolution and don't want evolution to be taught in schools. Or if it is taught in schools, it needs to be taught alongside something called intelligent design.
Intelligent design?
Yeah, it's a religious idea. I don't quite understand it. But it is…
Is it just creationism?
Yean, it is, under a new term.
Can I just clarify this? It is against law to teach students, directly teach students religion in public school, right?
Yes, separation of church and states. So the schools cannot do any kind of religious activity or religious indoctrination in schools. What they can do is they can teach about the religions as in this is a religion, this is what people believe, this is where it is practiced as an you know just general cultural knowledge.
But you cannot tell a student that is like there is one god, that you will get you fired.
But now it sounds like you're saying people who are religious are saying if you teach, if you teach evolution, if you teach that human came from monkeys, then you must teach religion as well.
In some states, yes, not in all states. I was lucky in my state that did not happen. My state is like you learned evolution, that was what you learned.
Yeah. The other thing I would imagine is sex education.
That's another big one. But mostly it’s just whether it is taught, how much it's taught, or is it not taught. So some places they just don't teach it.
At all?
At all. Some places teach it really well. So it depends.
And I suppose when.
Yeah, also when they teach it too.
And you also mentioned English language, what's that about
Ha, a big part of the issue and English is like the novels you read.
Oh, the book list.
So a lot of parents don't want their kids read certain novels because they contain themes they don't like, or language they don't like.
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