so i was watching c's friend and his older sister, who is in 4th grade at c's school. (which is a christian school that uses the abeka curriculum). i had to help her with her homework.
chapter review question: what brought about the biggest change in the Indian's way of life? methinks- i know! i know! the white man and his diseases!! she says: the bible! methinks: huh? <flipping back a few pages> "the biggest change in the indian's way of life was when they were introduced to the bible. before they learned about god they prayed to false gods" (i'm summarizing)
it doesn't say anything about how white settlers brought disease that killed native americans or anything about the mistreatment of the indians at the hands of settlers. almost the entire chapter is a treatise on how the christian way of life impacted indians and preachers that nearly died to spread the gospel of christ.
they refer to these false gods in quotations, like "god of rain" etc. granted i'm not in 4th grade but i felt the way it was written was derogatory.
the people that establish this curriculum and write the books might feel that those are false gods, but that doesn't change the fact that they were (are?) an important part of the indian culture and way of life.
i read a few other sections to see if this extremely biased perspective continued and it does.
so...am i naive to not have expected this? is this typical of private christian school teaching? i really had not anticipated that a christian school setting would extend itself into "teaching" an extremely narrow perspective of things like, common history. i'm hard pressed to believe that such a narrow presentation of history is useful or conducive to a post primary education.
also... she has to memorize the declaration of independence. (which she has) i thought that was a bit much for a 9yr old but i was impressed that she managed to memorize it. so then i asked her what the declaration of independence was. "i don't know" me: "did your teacher talk to you about why it was created?" her: "no, i just have to memorize it." um, wtf? i hope that is her own faulty recollection.
i can't believe we start grade school next year. i might just die.
I went to a very strict(I thought so) Christian school for a short time and I don't remember history being presented like that. Science would of been the only area that was very different from a non Christian school. If they were teaching my child that I would have a problem with it Christian or not.
Ks school uses abeka as well. I havent seen the history books so I really dont konw but I expect her books to have a christian slant not rewrite history.
I work in a private Christian based school and we do not use that curriculum. I am not familiar with it, but I can say I am not sure I would be pleased with altering factual info.
I went to a carholic private school and from what I can recall we did not have that type of curriculum.
and i remember learning about europeans teaching/spreading christianity and certainly issues of faith are an enormous part of history- but its not the whole story, kwim?
i expected there were certain things that i would have to introduce on my own (evolution) but i certainly didn't expect to have to augment history lessons.
the asst principal teaches 4th grade and i'm going to ask her about it.
While as a Christian, I don't have a problem with some of that, like you said the "gods of rain" and others in quotations, to us, there is ONE God, so all the other "gods" are just that, false, so them being in quotations isn't a big deal to me.
Now, the part about the bible...while I think that did make a difference in their lives, that isn't the entire story, so I totally agree with you on that. Being in a Christian school, one would expect that to be a huge part of the teachings, BUT, they shouldn't leave out the rest of the story and rewrite history.
To me, it's the same thing as people taking the bible out of context, and writing only part of the story. That's just wrong.
Keep us posted after you talk to the assistant principal.
It was hs, but my ds went to a Catholic school and that did not happen. I think that you will have to either teach her those things yourself. I would be concerned that it would also give her a disadvantage in her later education and as you said, create some bias or instill the idea that some of those terms and views are not condescending and offensive to others.
