Many of you know me only as a teacher but in reality, I was employed by print media for most of my adult life. I wrote, designed, proofread, answered the phone and developed a love of journalism that has not left me since the recession which cost me my job. I also received a BA from the university of South Florida in Political Science. Teaching is my second career and I love it as well. I hate watching what our politicians are doing to our educational system and there doesn't seem to be much that can be done.
I attended more professional development last week provided through Gilder Lehrman, a proponent of history education. The seminar was on the Electoral College and was for Florida teachers. The speaker was Alex Keyssar, a Harvard professor and historian who has written a book on this very subject. He argues for the elimination of the Electoral College and gives some compelling reasons why it should be abolished. He wants debate about it and wonders why we refuse to debate. I wish all my readers and everyone who votes had attended. He gave us lots of information about elections from the first disputed one pitting John Adams against Thomas Jefferson and yes, southern states and race place in many arguments to keep the Electoral College. You can see or order his book, Why do We Still Have the Electoral College?
Our politicians have decided to add more civics to our already overloaded students because they believe we need to indoctrinate them more to patriotism and our way of life before setting them loose on society. I call foul. We history teachers are already the red-headed, unwanted stepchildren of the educational world. We must already add other things in to our curriculum and schedule, on top of trying to teach children concepts which in many cases, they have no prior knowledge of or how to connect this to their lives. Instead of having classes to actually teach these new things, most school districts just throw them in Social Studies and expect the teachers to do it. Every patriotic holiday; every known historical human must be discussed when many teachers must be concerned with making sure their students pass an end of the course exam or test which reflects on whether they are a good teacher or not according to the politicians.
So back to my professional development and what that has to do with all this? While we were asking questions, I learned from a civics teacher that one of the new, proposed standards for civics is to be able to discuss why the electoral college is the best for the country and we should leave it as it is. Huh? What happened to discourse and debate? No pros or cons, just teach it to stay forever. This is ludicrous and dangerous. We have the ability to keep our democracy and change things if we need to. Can we not teach both sides?
When I was in high school in Florida, I had to take a semester course in Americanism vs. Communism. My teacher was a veteran who was injured during Vietnam. Not having the discussions we had in that class and were allowed to have in that class is unimaginable. Sometimes they became very heated. We all came away with a great appreciation for debate and an understanding of both political systems. I cannot say that about the students I teach today.
I will be retiring in a few years and the state of education in Florida is probably going to determine exactly when. It has nothing to do with the students or money or any other reason most people might think. It has to do with our elected officials and seeing exactly how low they will go before someone or some group of people actually stand up and say, "Enough is enough". I am not sure it will happen and that makes me very sad for the future students of this state.
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