48
votes
New Florida standards in schools
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- Title
- New Florida standards teach that Black people benefited from slavery because it taught useful skills
- Published
- Jul 20 2023
- Word count
- 691 words
How can anyone think this is acceptable?
Good question. My family's ready to move once we can actually afford a new place. I hate this state. Desantis and his lackies are lunatics.
It seems like every few days something new comes from his administration that elevates itself to the "they can't get any worse" level, and then he says, "hold my meatball". It seems like it's snowballing with people coming here because of all the bad behavior from the state leadership.
Moved out of Florida back to Michigan just before the pandemic, and I count my blessings every f*ing day. I'm absolutely grateful to pay a state income tax that supports decent public education and other government services, including clean water, public health, fantastic parks, drivable (if potholed) roads, regulated (increasingly renewable) electricity, human rights enforcement, and other repairs of the damage done by thirty years of Republican Party mismanagement. Gov. Whitmer for President in '28!
It's embarrassing that a lot of the Republicans' current lunacies were seeded in Michigan from the DeVos/Hillsdale College/Cooley Law/Mackinac Hotel crowd, but there's been an awakening to the miseries that style of governance brings (Flint water contamination, high-cost/poor quality utilities, declining schools, union-busting, atrocious roads, inadequate public health services, among other things).
Well, as far as I can tell, you start from the premise that being a straight white male is default, and anything that deviates is points taken away.
I don't understand how the same group of people who want to prevent children from learning about atrocities that the United States perpetrated in the past because it might make those children feel discomfort, or shame about who they are, can be the same group wearing "Fuck your Feelings" t-shirts.
Projection
Here’s what else is weird about this:
Most people believe that the government has done bad things but a lot have a very simplistic view of what this even means. In fact, Trump got broad support from exploiting this. All his slogans like “lock her up”, “drain the swamp, “build the wall” were appealing to the idea that the government has bad people doing bad things or aren’t acting in your interests. These people think government steals your freedom by forcing you to wear a mask during a pandemic caused by an airborne virus.
This same group of people has no concept of how government really works or what happened even in recent history. And they put their fingers in their ears and scream if you try to tell them. Imagine them living in the 1940s and having to ration sugar or turn off lights at night so enemy planes couldn’t target them.
They apparently are people who got their ideas about how government works by watching Men in Black and not paying any attention in school, or went to a Florida school I guess.
Adding insult to injury they list examples of people who benefited from on-the-slavery professional training that includes John Henry, a man whom we are not entirely sure existed and who’s claim to fame is literally working himself to death.
Maybe they meant the white dude who owns the Red Sox, Liverpool FC, and the Boston Globe.
My (very fucking clueless) relatives just moved to Tampa. With 2 young children. One of whom has autism.
The long term psychological damage living in that backwards shithole is going to do to him is immeasurable.
We were visiting with my husband's extended family. My two kids, one a baby and the other a toddler at the time, were putting together a floor puzzle of the United States. The pieces were on the carpet and the puzzle board was mostly empty as they worked to fill it, so the country was an online. My husband's niece (she was a teenager) could not point to where Florida would go on the puzzle. My husband, a teacher, was flabbergasted - his niece was born and raised in Florida and had to have seen images of the state her whole life. It's not like we asked her to locate Tallahassee (not saying it would be acceptableif she couldn'tfind the capital of her home state, just that it would be a little more understandable). I would say the majority of Americans who do not live in Florida could point to Florida (maybe I am very wrong in this belief). She went to Florida public school her whole life. My understanding is that anyone who can afford it has their kids in private school if you live in Florida.
All of this is to say I would look into moving out of the state if I lived in Florida. There are other states that really care about all children's education and genuinely value public education. I also can't imagine the future arguments with people, currently five years old, who will insist that slavery was great because it taught valuable skills and, hey, Black people massacred people, too! ETA: OMG, I just realized those future adults are going to "both sides" slavery.
But no state taxes! 😉
Seriously, though, I lived there long enough to know that Florida is dominated by the politics of real estate development and extractive agriculture - a very Old South mentality about feudal hierarchies. Education is only important to the extent it creates useful workers there, which illuminates the propagandistic nature of the curriculum changes proposed.
Teacher pay in Florida ranks 48th in the U.S. I know at least three public school teachers who quit because they had to work extra jobs to make ends meet, teaching class sizes of 35 - 40 kids.
If you want no state taxes, you can always move to New Hampshire.
Granted, not as sunny or as many beaches and the attitude isn't much better but at least they're not complete idiots.
anecdata, but part of my 7th grade social studies curriculum was being able to name every state on a map. Including spelling every state name right, and also knowing the 5 Great Lakes. You had to retake the test until you passed it (took me 2 tries cos I misspelled "Michigan" as "Michigin" on the lake but not the state lol)
We had to learn every state and every country in the world in seventh grade. It can be shocking how different curriculums can be.
Hot damn. I'm not sure I'd even recognize the names of every country in the world, nevermind memorize them.
We learned every state and state capital in 5th, and then every country in 9th.
I'm pretty sure I've known where Florida was since much younger though. First state I learned to find, because out of all the contiguous 48, it is quite literally the easiest to point to and remember.
Every classroom I've been in 1st through 5th grade had both a US and world map posted. Staring at it was the default thing to do when bored. Learned a lot of states and countries that way.
That's because locating or even naming all 50 states isn't on the yearly standardized testing. Same as cursive and finances.
I literally get into a heated debate with my soon to be FIL when he starts with "participation trophies" and "kids these days don't know how to do (write cursive/fix lawnmowers/_____)". My answer is always "And who is/was handing out those trophies? It wasn't the kids!" and "Maybe your generation should have taught them that then.." respectively.. It isn't like the kids are going to teach themselves how to write in cursive.
This is a bit silly and I wouldn't judge the schools of Florida based on this anecdote. You'd be hard pressed to not know the shape of Florida based on signs and car stickers alone! That being said, the right and especially DeSantis, is doing his best to tear down the quality of public schools and inject them with his disgusting politics as well as move to funnel public school funding to for profit private schools.
Crap... I feel really bad for the child that has autism in that state.. :(
yeah I get mad about it a lot. I'm really hoping we can convince them to move soon because he's at a really pivotal time in development and I do not trust that the schools down there are ANY good.
How old is he if you don't mind me asking?
Funny, I have a child with autism and we're moving out of the Tampa area in a month or two. One thing that DeSantis did that was lost in the sea of other evils is that he radically cut the headcount of the department that grants services for people with disabilities in Florida. The wait list was always long, now it is essentially eternal. This isn't the the only reason we're leaving (that list is looooong), but it is important.
Woo, bell hooks made the list! Here's hoping it gives her the Streisand Effect. Love her work.