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Filling our students' heads with 'mush'
The letters all dealt with Christopher Columbus and the celebration of Columbus Day.
Of the 20 letters, 16 were critical of Columbus and the colonization of the America's by Europeans. One of the letters that Steigerwald quotes stated "celebrations honoring Columbus reinforce a historical process of racism, theft, lies, murder, slavery and the destruction of the environment."
My intention is not to single out one of our classes or a particular group of students but rather to call attention to a serious issue that is pervasive within our school system and, from talking to friends from other communities, has become the norm throughout public education. This is the blatant trashing of America. Our history, culture and heritage are continually being distorted in the schools history and social study classes.
Having two children that attended our schools I know for a fact that this starts in the elementary schools and continues through high school. All too often when there is any discussion of our nation most of the classroom and homework time is devoted to wrongs or perceived wrongs that our country has done. For whatever reason many educators fail to realize that Americans, just like the rest of mankind, are not perfect.
Yes, mistakes have been made, but the people of our country have also done infinitely more right things. We are failing our children by not giving them the real opportunity to learn about the greatness and the goodness of our nation.
The first strategic plan that our district embarked on over 12 years ago included two very laudable goals. The first was to have our children become lifelong learners. And the second was to teach them critical thinking skills. While both of these are commendable goals, unfortunately we have not accomplished either one.
Using the Trib example, I wonder how 80 percent of an eighth-grade class could come up with such a bizarre conclusion if they had in their previous seven years of education even a smattering of the actual history of our nation. The truly disturbing thing about all this is that those students that leave our school with such a head full of mush will someday be voters. If they are not grounded in a true understanding of our nation, both good and bad, our nation will be in trouble.
I will soon be leaving the school board, and over the years of my service a number of board members as well as myself have voiced concern about the distortion and elimination of a more accurate explanation of our great nation's history. A few years ago an evaluation of our social studies program was done by outside educators. One of the issues they raised was the direction that our social studies programs had taken. Unfortunately, up until now I am not aware of any systemic change that has occurred within those programs.
I ask my fellow board members and those who will be newly sworn in this coming December to make this a priority item for the coming year.
Skip Kasky leaves the Mt. Lebanon school board in December after 12 years. This commentary is adapted from comments he made at last Monday's school board meeting.
