TESTIMONY I GAVE IN 1996 BEFORE A TEA COMMITTE ON SOCIAL STUDIES TEXTS:

Testimony I gave in 1996 before a TEA committee of social studies teachers on a proposed American history text for fifth graders.  I print it here so that anyone can see how really ignorant the people who write books for students are!

                        REVIEW OF OXFORD TEXTS FOR 5TH GRADE STUDENTS 

Texts and Teacher’s Manuals reviewed include The First Americans, Making Thirteen Colonies, From Colonies to Country, The New Nation, Liberty for All?, War, Terrible War, Reconstruction and Reform, An Age of Extremes, War, Peace, and All That Jazz, and All the People written by Joy Hakim and published by Oxford University Press. 

I appreciate the opportunity to testify provided to us by  the Commissioner of Education, Dr. Moses, and the State Textbook  Social Studies Committee. 

My name is Mary McGarr.  I am a product of a Texas public education, from first grade through graduate studies at Texas Tech.  I was a high school teacher of English, American history, economics, and sociology at Irvin High School in El Paso for nine years.  I was also a teacher at Booker T. Washington High School in Houston ISD for two years and taught at Waltrip High School in Houston ISD for one year.  During those three years in Houston ISD, I taught English and government.  My husband and I have two sons, and both of them  have electrical engineering degrees from Rice University.  For the past five years I have been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Katy Independent School District. 

I have recently resigned my position on the Katy ISD board in protest of the dumbing down directives that have been coming to the Katy schools compliments of the DOE, the TEA, the regional service centers and board members who fail to educate themselves about the restructured education initiatives that are so harmful to the true academic education of children.  In reading the ten booklets put forward by the Oxford University Press  (and their accompanying teacher’s manuals) I am greatly dismayed by the faddish intent of the author.  These booklets are prime examples of the dumbing down template that is daily being put in place in our Texas public schools. 

Using a thematic approach, which creates confusion for students, historical narratives are strung together haphazardly in a fashion that belies comprehension!  Only at the end of each text where a timeline finally appears, is one able to visualize historical continuity.  Even  with that afterthought of an aid, I cannot imagine that an average ten year old will be able to grasp any concrete knowledge in any meaningful manner.  Of course, that lack of knowledge is the purpose of these texts, and that purpose is the one to which I object the most.  Stringing together anecdotal tales before the student learns the lessons of a chronologically based history is a backward approach.  

The English teacher in me cringed each time I had to stop in my reading to discern the topic of discussion.  I have never seen so many examples of faulty pronoun reference.  I fear that Ms. Hakim knows not what constitutes a one word antecedent of a pronoun!  On the first page of The First Americans (page 11) I found ten examples of faulty pronoun reference.  The use of pronouns as subjects without reference to a concrete noun continues to the very last paragraph in the last book of the series, All the People.  (“The information age demands thinking citizens--not rote memorizers.[sic]  That means new kinds of schooling.) Does anyone here believe the meaning of “that” in the previous sentence is clear?  Does anyone here believe a ten year old child will be able to figure out the meaning of “that”? 

The effect of this faulty usage combined with the constant use of  the familiar “you” in place of the proper  “one,”  as well as the improper use of contractions throughout the text  relegates these texts to comic book levels of literary effort.  Have I not heard at least a thousand times lately the expressions “literature rich environment” or  “quality literature” or “rich literature” or  some other seemly phrase to indicate the desired level of reading material for Texas  students?  Those desired levels of quality prose do not appear in these texts.  I must tell you that I fell asleep four times during the first hour that I committed to the review of these texts!  What will such mishmash do for our fifth grade students?  Facundity is not Ms. Hakim’s forte. 

My other major objection centers on the efforts of the author to inject at every opportunity her personal bias with regard to race and ethnicity.  Textbooks, especially, history textbooks must deal solely in fact.  There can be no quarter given  to social engineering efforts.  SBOE rules suggest that history texts must present positive aspects of America’s heritage and must be fair to all groups.  For Ms. Hakim to decide that the minority point of view is the one to be proffered to all children as correct, superior, moral, and without question constitutes a disservice to Texas children and is not in keeping with the SBOE rules.  Ms. Hakim portrays America as a place where opportunity does not exist for all of its citizens. She paints the Indians as total victims of civilized Europeans.  She undermines the Mormon religion by printing a cartoon showing thirteen women in a large bed crying for the recently deceased Brigham Young.  Hakim suggests that there is something inherently wrong with children working for their families on farms.  The list is endless with regard to the author’s attempts to depict the unfortunate circumstances of minorities  as somehow always someone else’s fault. 

With regard to minority coverage in these texts,  Ms. Hakim  in my mind does not have the authority, unless of course this committee and the State Board of Education give it to her, to foist upon innocent ten year old fifth graders the collective blame of all the ages for the suffering endured by the ancestors of the black community when they were enslaved.  That placement of blame is not her right or anyone else’s, and certainly that blame should not emanate from a textbook!  Depending on how far back one wants to go, all Americans had ancestors who were enslaved.  Who is going to decide that one group’s enslavement was more terrible than that of any other group or necessarily must be discussed at length in a fifth grade history text? To continue to dwell on the subject, especially with children, serves no useful purpose.  The purpose can only be to manipulate personal beliefs, and that is not the purview of a governmental entity.  The Texas Education Code stipulates that the curriculum must include an emphasis on the free enterprise system.  Ms. Hakim’s advocacy for one worldism (The First Americans, page 13), redistribution of wealth (War, Peace, and All That Jazz page 84 and 85), responsibility for the welfare of others (A History of Us, page 199), and other socialist doctrines are inextricably intertwined with her pro-minority narrative, and in my opinion constitute good cause for rejecting her texts. 

On a more mundane level, (and from a teacher’s point of view) I cannot imagine the  logistics of  disbursing and collecting ten texts for one subject area during a one year time span, but perhaps part of the plan is to take up students’ time with worthless activity.  I also am concerned with Ms. Hakim’s efforts to make her series fit the “Happy History” mold. The study of history is not necessarily entertaining.  Why should anyone think that it would be?  Hakim’s use of rhetorical questions for effect, tasteless cartoons, and silly riddles detracts from the seriousness of the subject matter.  Ten year old students are old enough to begin to study American history in earnest.  The consequences of our past behavior and activity weigh heavily and need to be presented and understood in a realistic manner if our future as a nation is to be as bright as our past.  Fifth grade students should not be forced to dwell upon irrelevant minutiae to the exclusion of meaningful and important historical events.  

Please reject this series.