African "History" Month

[Galt'sGultch]

This month has been hell at school. Rather than focusing on true achievements - Philosophy, Science, Individualism and all the accomplishments of the West - we have been learning the morally bland 'achievements' of African 'Civilization'. Those of African decent have accomplished a great deal - to the extent that they have embraced our values - but that is not what is being taught.

My school is embracing the so called proud history of Africa - its primitivism and irrationality - as the Good!

Putting witch doctors and barbarians on the level of Socrates or Aristotle does no one service, except those who hate our Civilization, the Post Modernists who would rather lie in the moral squalor with the 'Hood' and 'Bloods' than face the light of reason and therefore see their own decrepid reflections.

This is a sick joke being committed in our schools and must be opposed!

[Ninth Doctor]

"African decent"? Yeah, whatever. Great school you're going to.

St. Augustine was African, so were plenty of other influential people. Good ones too. In fact, you could argue that all people are:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wko_kMyljVU

Hope they included that in the lesson plan.

[Steve D'Ippolito]

I imagine he is thinking of something a bit more recent than Dawkins was thinking of, or even a bit more recent than St. Augustine.

Still wrong, however.

[Ninth Doctor]

He doesn’t give us enough information to make a judgement. What grade level is he in? How much of the day is being spent on this African business? What is the content of it? History of ancient Egypt? Or do they make the students sit through clips from Powaqqatsi, then listen to the teacher babble about how much happier these people are, carrying crap uphill on their heads, than we are using machines?

[softwareNerd]

... ...- we have been learning the morally bland 'achievements' of African 'Civilization'. Those of African decent have accomplished a great deal - to the extent that they have embraced our values - but that is not what is being taught.

These days, it's typical to focus on the differences between different breeds of humans, and to attempt to "celebrate" differences with a view to promoting tolerance. What types of things do they focus on?

Of course, there are aspects of more primitive cultures that we celebrate as human achievements, even while knowing modern man has improved on them since. There are also optional values -- like food and clothes -- where differences are fun, and also point to how different conditions and materials gave rise to some things somewhere and other things elsewhere. And then, there is also a subjectivist notion that all values are fine...not good or bad, not open to judgement and analysis, ... just different.

Edited February 14, 2012 by softwareNerd

[John Link]

I thought February was African-American History Month or Black History Month, not African History Month. Am I mistaken? Anyway, here's what Morgan Freeman had to say about this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLg7D7zxTrA

[IchorFigure]

These days, it's typical to focus on the differences between different breeds of humans, and to attempt to "celebrate" differences with a view to promoting tolerance.

How else are do you reinforce the idea that every race is the same if you don't continuously point out how different they are

[Hairnet]

My advice to the OP is to stop considering the opinions of teachers, or the opinions presented in their materials Just concentrate on learnin how to write well, math, chemistry, and/or the basics of a foreign language. Those are the things you can get out of highschool (usually), and the rest is typically mythology, which you don't need to waist time thinking about or getting angry about because math, chemistr, and writing are all hard enough to learn without being distracted by mythology.

High School psychology, history, social studies, everything else, can be learned about more easily from the internet. So just bring your math book to history class.

(Of course don't sink your grades, but honestly in high school I could get an A on a history test after having not shown up to class for a week).