Comments from many Texans have been sent to the State Board of Education ("SBOE") concerning the social studies textbooks now being considered. The comments received through June 24, 1996 are compiled by the SBOE and entitled: WRITTEN COMMENTS FILED REGARDING INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS TO BE REVIEWED BY THE STATE TEXTBOOK SOCIAL STUDIES COMMITTEE, 1996 ADOPTION. A complete copy of all such WRITTEN COMMENTS may be obtained from the Texas Education Agency, Division of Textbook Administration, 1701 North Congress Avenue, Austin, TX 78701. The following are excerpts from those comments. Only three of the books being considered are discussed below.
A History of US, books 1-10, Joy Hakim, Oxford University Press:
...I do not think these books present an accurate account of our nation's history. Pictures
from the Vietnam war are incorrectly described as contributing to a sense of disgust for
our American troops. The book refers to Christian missionaries as 'arrogant' and
promotes hatred between the races...
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...appalled by the general tone of these books [5th grade social studies textbooks]....It is
our mission to see that tax dollars are used wisely to best educate the children of Texas.
The content of these social studies books do not meet that criteria....We wish to be
notified of all public hearings concerning the adoption of these books...
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...The tone is socialistic and extremely unpatriotic....Our great founding fathers are made
to appear shameful...
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...left me speechless. I honestly do not know what to say when reviewing them...
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...same themes as found in original National History Standards which were rejected
unanimously by the U.S. Senate.
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The 10 volume paperbacks by Joy Hakim were the absolute worst...in my opinion
frightening for children it is so unbalanced...
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Undermines the deeds of American heroes.
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Presidents Reagan and Carter talked about government as if it were a bad thing. Which
was harmful, because, like it or not we need big government.... [example of bias presented
without factual basis]
America's Story, Boehm, et al., Harcourt Brace School Publishers.
...would not produce a student who would be proud to be an American, hold dear "The
Pledge of Allegiance" nor the singing of "The Star Spangled Banner"....
Build Our Nation, Bednarz, et al., Houghton Mifflin.
Over emphasis on oppression of minorities...
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Editorial bias cannot be missed
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The book describes Timbuktu as being in the center of trans-Sahara trade which
developed as early as A.D. 900. We are told that in 1324 Mansa Musa made a journey to
Mecca and when he returned he brought Arab scholars with him, and for the next 200
hundred years Timbuktu was rich in gold, learning, and the arts. (p. 76- 78). Note:
The rest of the story: Mansa Musa was a tyrant in the fullest sense of the word. The lot
of the common man in Timbuktu was barely above that of a slave, the lot of women was
worse, if possible. There were terrible tribal wars. Western values such as individual
rights, freedom of speech, religion, freedom from torture, raising the lot of the common
man and women, and democracy did not exist. The main commodities of trade were people
(slaves), ivory, salt, and gold. Chancellor Williams, Howard University has this to say:
"The modern city [of Timbuktu] was founded by the Tuareg [a Caucasoid sub-group of
the Berbers] people [whose main commerce was slavery] during the 11th
century...Situated at the southern end of a major caravan route across the Sahara, it
became a notorious center of the slave, gold, and ivory trade...Largely by passed in
modern times, the population declined to less than 7500 persons...His [Mansa Musa's]
pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324, with its lavish display of wealth, emphasized Mali's position
as a world power. The [Mali] empire began to decline after 1400, when, under weaker
successors, the Ghana story of internal disunity and strife repeated itself...There followed
the usual array of numerous small and independent states, each ripe for easy conquest by
a stronger power."
When you compare what Chancellor Williams has to say with what Chapter 3 of the book
tells us, the conclusion is inescapable that they both cannot be describing Timbuktu.
I also note that Mansa Musa, Mali, and Islam are covered over six pages, but the
following, which had a significantly greater impact on western civilization and America,
are omitted entirely from the index: Plato, Socrates, Cicero, August Caesar, Jesus Christ,
St. Paul, John Locke, Sir Thomas Moore, Douglas MacArthur, Amerigo Vespucci,
Shakespeare, Benedict Arnold, and Edmund Burke. It is not an adequate explanation to
say that "we had space to cover the former, but none of the latter."
Black history, women's history, Hispanic, and Asian history should be taught, but taught
as history, and not as filiopietistic commemoration. Although the omissions are designed
to "improve" upon the story of Mali and Mansa Musa, students who later discover the
"rest of the story" on their own, will find their educational experience to be akin to that of
the clock which strikes thirteen times - without credibility. It is unbalanced
anti-intellectual presentations such as this, which caused the original national history
standards to be rejected by every member of the United States Senate. The book lacks
that one quality without which it cannot succeed - credibility.
Texas, Its Land and Its People, Jarrett Publishing Company:
Jarrett Publishing Company ("Jarrett") breaks us up into six generic ethnic groups of
Caucasians, Africans, Inuits, Asians, Native Americans, and Aleuts and asks "which
racial group do you think you belong to?" (p. 185), but it does not put us together again as
the "American people". There is no discussion of "e pluribus unum," the melting pot, or
how peoples from diverse cultures, religions, and ethnic groups became one people.
Historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., in his essay, The Disuniting of America, has written
eloquently of why it is essential that assimilation and the firm concept of what it is to be an
American, be taught in our schools:
"One reason why Canada, despite all its advantages, is so vulnerable to schism is that, as
Canadians freely admit, their country lacks such a unique national identity...Canadians
have never developed a strong sense of what it is to be a Canadian.
"The historic idea of a unifying American identity is now in peril in many areas - in our
politics, our churches, our language. And in no area is the rejection of an overriding
national identity more crucial than in our system of education. "The schools and colleges
of the republic train the citizens of the future. Our public schools in particular have been
the great instrument of assimilation and the great means of forming an American identity.
What students are taught in schools affects the way they will thereafter treat other
Americans, the way they will thereafter conceive the purposes of the republic.
"Watching ethnic conflict tear one nation apart after another, one cannot look with
complacency at the proposals to divide the United States into distinct and immutable
ethnic and racial communities, each taught to cherish its own apartness from the rest. One
wonders: Will the center hold? or will the melting pot give way to the Tower of Babel?"
It is apparent that the authors of the book are more involved in making war upon the
concept of "one American people" and have little interest in "e pluribus unum", one
country, one people.
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... the authors create groups that do not exist. No distinction is made between Japanese,
Vietnamese, Malays, Northern Chinese, Cantonese, Fukienese, etc., all are lumped
together as Asians as if they were one people with one mind. Differences of languages,
customs, religions, and cultures are ignored, as are tensions between these groups.
Further, the Aleuts and Inuits belong in the same ethnic group but in different cultural
groups, e.g., one culture is a nomadic culture and the other is not. People from Africa
include Caucasoid Semites, Caucasoid Berbers, and Negroids, however, these distinct
ethnic groups are lumped together in this book as one people, i.e., "African. Black or
brown. Descendants of people from Africa." (p. 185).
An American student of Chinese ancestry wrote this thoughtful message about people
who profess to be learned about other cultures but know little of them:
"I say if they don't know about this, the cultural differences or conflicts [among the
Chinese and Japanese, etc.], it's hard for me to believe they really care."
...this book is unique in that it includes world history as part of Texas history. See
dropping the atom bomb on Hiroshima (p. 126). The student is requested to conduct an
oral interview with a person living at the end of WWII, but is given no background
essential to conduct an intelligent inquiry, p. 126 does not even mention the date the atom
bomb was dropped. This type of exercise requires the use of higher order thinking skills
(analysis, judgment) but the necessary lower order skills (knowledge) are absent. The
student's time would be better spent in engaging in a serious study of the subject with
his/her teacher, and reading the works of important writers on the subject, such as
Winston Churchill, unless the purpose of the paragraph is to sign up/indoctrinate the
student to the conclusion that the atom bomb shouldn't have been dropped at all, which, of
course, is what this exercise is all about.
Explore Texas, Bednarz, et al., Houghton Mifflin.
See p. 309, Whose Land? the theme of the chapter is that the land of Texas belonged
either to the Comanche or to the settlers, and the inescapable conclusion is that settlers
"stole" the land from the Commanche. This was one of the many concepts in the original
national history standards which were so decisively rejected. Bias is created against the
settlers but the real story is not told and the chapter is its misleading and deceptive.
Missing are some of the following:
Title to Texas land was claimed by the French (1695-1700), until they were dispossessed
by the Spanish, by the Spanish (1700-1821) until they were dispossed by the Mexico, by
the Mexico (1821-1836) until the battle of San Jacinto, by the Republic of Texas
(1836-1846) until it became one of the United States, and thereafter by the State of
Texas. The right of the French, Spanish, Mexicans, and Texans to the Texas plains was
contested by the Comanches, Apaches, and other plains Indians.
The Comanches were a mountain people until they were able to "liberate" horses from
the Indian tribes and enter the plains. They descended from the headwaters of the Green
and Snake rivers eastward into Kansas, through Utah, Idaho. Colorado, and Wyoming.
The Apaches occupied most of the Texas plains until the coming of the Comanches. The
Comanches drove them off the Texas plains into the remote corners of Texas and
attempted to exterminate them. The mutual hatred of the Comanches and the Apaches for
one another extended beyond the grave and far exceeded their hatred of the western
settlers. Mexico encouraged settlers to come to Texas because it was incapable of
protecting its citizens, immigrants, Apaches, or other Indian tribes from the Comanches.
"Many Amerindian wars began as territorial disputes, struggles to seize or hold desirable
lands. Frequently, tribes were driven by some natural disaster such as drought to invade
more fertile territories. These invasions and displacements caused endemic wars and
lasting hatreds. Conflicts crystallized: when the white men arrived, there were enmities so
old among many peoples that Amerindians no longer remembered their beginning.... It
was the nature of primitive men not to fear total strangers and even to offer them
hospitality; true hatred was revered for familiar peoples close at hand with whom there
had long been war." Comanches, The Destruction of a People, Fehrenbach, T. R, Alfred
A. Knopf, New York, 1983, p. 52.
The story of the Spanish, the Missionaries, French, Mexicans, western settlers, Apaches,
and Comanches to own and control the Texas plains is a story of high drama, and
Houghton Mifflin's book has reduced this great story to a bizarre sound bite, the end
result of which it is misleading and deceptive, and not worthy of reading by the school
children of Texas.
Note: The comments set out above are abbreviated. Not all were negative, some felt the
books were fine and filed their written support. Full comments of all persons filed as of
June 24, 1996, may be obtained from the Texas Education Agency, Division of Textbook
Administration, 1701 North Congress Avenue, Austin, TX 78701.
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