State education board members push back on proposal to use "involuntary separation" (Texas)

[brooklynite]

Source: Texas Tribune

A group of Texas educators have proposed to the Texas State Board of Education that slavery should be taught as “involuntary relocation” during second grade social studies instruction, but board members have asked them to reconsider the phrasing, according to the state board’s chair.

“The board -- with unanimous consent -- directed the work group to revisit that specific language,” Keven Ellis, chair of the Texas State Board of Education said in a statement issued late Thursday.

The working group of nine educators, including a professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, is one of many such groups advising the state education board to make curriculum changes. This summer, the board will consider updates to social studies instruction a year after lawmakers passed a law to keep topics that make students “feel discomfort” out of Texas classrooms. The board will have a final vote on the curriculum in November.

The suggested change surfaced late during its June 15 meeting that lasted more than 12 hours. Board member Aicha Davis, a Democrat who represents Dallas and Fort Worth, brought up concerns to the board saying that wording is not a “fair representation” of the slave trade. The board, upon reading the language in the suggested curriculum, sent the working draft back for revision.

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06/30/texas-slavery-involuntary-relocation/

[TygrBright]

1. Paging George Orwell: Newspeak Alert! n/t

[Igel]

17. Perhaps.

Drafts of TEKS revisions are typically posted at the TEA site, the nice staff at TEA apparently haven't posted K-8 drafts. Served on such a revision committee, lots of decisions are constrained by the need to "get to yes." Sometimes we needed to placate a single person, sometimes the text proposed made nobody especially happy, but we all grumbled at the same volume and had no additional time to find phrasing anybody much liked. Usually when we hit a phrase we considered a hot-button topic or which would invite bruised sensitivities we used more abstract phrasing to semantically bleach out emotions or politics. (Which, of course, runs the risk of those offended by having emotions and politics stripped out. My committee's draft proposals were argued over but the SBOE didn't ask for a single word to be changed. High school science.

https://tea.texas.gov/academics/curriculum-standards/teks-review/2021-2022-social-studies-teks-review is a hook into it. I assume Work Group B is K-8.

Review committees are mixed--teachers who have taught the course, scholars and professionals in the field. Looking over the review committee membership list, it apparently includes counselors for lower grades.


Current standards for 2nd grade start on page 7.

Slavery isn't mentioned in the current Grade 2 TEKS even by inference, as far as I can see. Wonder if that's an SB3 driven addition? (Haven't read the text of the bill.) Can't imagine the SBOE actually charging the committee to add specific content, but K-2 was charged with "add more content knowledge ... will result in more emphasis on historical facts through stories of key people, paces, events, and ideas in order to improve the ability of students to remember this key background knowledge as they proceed to high school." That's from the PPT on the initial review page (the "framework&quot .

On edit: Looked at SB3, it pushes teaching slavery as part of US history, so arguably the bill pushes for teaching slavery in a grade where it hadn't been taught before.

[DBoon]

24. defense of the indefensible

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.

Politics and the English Language, George Orwell

[bucolic_frolic]

2. How about theft of your body instead of theft of your mind like they're doing now? /nt

[paleotn]

3. Why does anyone with any sense still live in Texas? Why?

[ShazzieB]

14. I don't know if this is a rhetorical question.

But tbh, it's not always easy for people to just pick up and move, especially if they have a partner and/or kids. For those who have lived in a particular place all their lives, pulling up stakes can be an upheaval of major proportions, and if it means leaving an area where all their extended family is, it can be even harder.

Relocating to a different state also costs money (unless you have an employer that's paying for it), and not everyone has the cash reserves to bankroll a major relocation, much less support themselves and their partners, kids, etc., until the breadwinner(s) are fully employed in a new place.

I have all the sympathy in the world for people who are firmly rooted in a place that's going in a bad direction, like Texas, and I think that is what they need from the rest of us, rather than the implied criticism of a question like, "Why on earth would you stay THERE?"

[paleotn]

15. I get it. It's rhetorical.

[Ishoutandscream2]

27. Thank you. You nailed it.

My daughter and SIL just bought a house in Oregon. They'll never live in a state like Texas again, they say. Until it becomes a blue state, they won't move back. But my wife and I - too much we have here to leave. Family, obligations, etc. If I were my daughter's age, I would be getting out. But it ain't happening. At least for awhile.

[Girard442]

4. Manacles will be called "freedom bracelets..."

Whipping will be called "love lashes." The slave trade will be called "No-frills, one-way cruising" and slave auctions will be called "group relocation negotiations"

[iluvtennis]

8. Exactly. This is absolute nonsense. n/t

[bringthePaine]

5. wow, anyone for some REAL "whitewashing"? fuck these shitbags!

[iluvtennis]

6. WTF - "involuntary relocation". Sailing ships to the West African course, and hunting down

people like they were animals, chaining them up, cramming them layer upon layer in the bottom of the ship, and bringing them to America to work on your land without pay, without adequate food, without adequate housing, without education, etc, etc, etc is NOT involuntary relocation.

This shit has got to stop. Kids need to be taught the history of this country - the good, the bad, and the ugly.

[groundloop]

7. Totally fucking ridiculous.

Jesus fucking H Christ...... they don't want to make students "uncomfortable"!?!?!? I bet slavery sure the shit made more than a few people who were subjected to it "uncomfortable".

If we don't make people uncomfortable talking about our past then it's never going to fucking change!!!!

[katmondoo]

9. What happens if the parents set the kids straight. I would do it.

Some parents know the truth. I found out when I made my first visit to S.Carolina in the 50's.

[rickford66]

10. They will twist themselves into knots

What's the saying about telling lies ?

[LoisB]

11. I hope enough of us are still around to push back on this nut fuckery. Next they will try to pass

off slavery as "illegal immigration" or voluntary servitude because Africans were just so excited to come to America they sold themselves to almighty white men.

[progree]

12. What would make this student "feel discomfort" is finding out I've been lied to for years and years,

and that now as an adult I have to pay school taxes to further propagate such big lies.

a year after lawmakers passed a law to keep topics that make students “feel discomfort” out of Texas classrooms.

[mountain grammy]

13. Holy shit! the race to the bottom.

[LudwigPastorius]

16. The Texas group also recommended referring to the "Trail of Tears" forced march as...

Last edited Thu Jun 30, 2022, 11:19 PM - Edit history (1)

the "Trail of Happy-Fun Times".

[keithbvadu2]

18. Is it time to rewrite the Bible?

Slavery is mentioned there.

[Marcuse]

19. Enslaved people are now relocated sub minimum wage workers.

[sindri]

20. we need more of us to move to texas

to vote these crazies out of office.

[Ziggysmom]

21. Kids are not stupid and ignorant. They are becoming savvy at a younger age, compared to my

childhood in the 1960's. I see children as young as 8 or 9 watch “R” rated movies at home with their parents, or just online unsupervised alone. They know far more about sex and violence than I did at that age. Why can’t they get the whole truth about the treatment of African Americans and Native Americans? Education should tell the truth the first time. They can handle it, IMHO.

[Paladin]

22. Voluntary Irish immigration and "Involuntary Separation" of Africans?

To hell with such cringe-worthy comparisons. To what purpose? The kids will figure it out---Texas grandpas like me will see to that.

[DBoon]

25. the Irish were "voluntary" migrants

only in the sense they were otherwise free to stay and starve to death during a famine engineered by their English colonial masters. The Irish did not however become someone's property for purposes of lifetime forced labor.

[Paladin]

26. I am familiar with the background history.

School kids should be familiar with it, as well.

[Bayard]

23. "involuntary relocation"

That's a hoot! I guess TFG was involuntarily relocated from the White House.


Do they also whitewash Hitler? The Inquisition? Witchcraft accusations? Manifest Destiny? This isn't political correctness. It isn't about making second graders feel discomfort, its about teachers and parents feeling discomfort about their kids learning the truth.