"The Teaching of US History" Topic

Well, that last is sadly true. But the specific bit about GW seizing airports is on par with the lie that Palin said she could see Russia from her house. Somebody DID say that: Tina Fey, pretending to be Palin on SNL. Effective, as lies often are. In the case of Trump and airports, it counts ONLY if other politicians (other presidents!) are likewise held strictly liable for teleprompter flubs.

And anyone can watch the speech in question, see and hear the exact words as they were spoken. It is also in the White House transcript, I believe. That teleprompter did not cause any flubs, did not create this version of our history. You watch, you listen..it is what it is. Whataboutism is irrelevant to the facts, but we hold every leader accountable for all kinds of mistaken pronouncements already. And this occasion certainly related to the fundamental challenges of teaching history in America.

Our leaders have always embraced our history and the legacy of the Revolution. They have never lacked the background to comment on it with at least basic understanding. This means something to us, it reminds us of where we came from, what we have achieved. It is unsettling and discouraging to realize how little is known by so many across all walks of life in America. We are going to lose our history if we cannot figure this out.

How many now believe Washington's army secured the airports during the Revolution? Alternate facts about history abound as well.

Ignorance of history, especially American history, demonstrates a lack of reading and understanding of how important a basic knowledge of history is.

I always taught my students that the knowledge of the world is contained in books which is why I always had a library for research in my classroom of my own material for the students use.

This SHOULD be the final word on the Florida controversy, but of course it won't be:

link

The question of what the passage means is answered by basic grammar and logic. Unfortunately for Harris, her accusation doesn't have a leg to stand on; it is a classic case of the "false cause" fallacy at work. This is a sleight of hand in which condition is substituted for cause. The Florida standards do not say that slavery caused slaves to benefit; the passage asks how, in some cases, those in the condition of slavery took it upon themselves to use their skills to advance themselves. Harris's claim is also a non sequitur. If it were written as a syllogism, it would look something like this:

Major Premise: People often benefit personally from the skills they develop in their work

Minor Premise: Some slaves worked in trades requiring the development of specialized skills

Conclusion: Slaves benefited from slavery

Any schoolgirl can see that this conclusion violates the rules of logic. In fact, to my knowledge, no one involved in this debate has said or thinks that slavery was in any way beneficial to slaves. To accuse anyone of this is sheer malicious nonsense. The Veep and Politifact—and the myriad news sources, commentators, and civic leaders who have knowingly repeated such false, hurtful, and incendiary accusations – should know better.

I do agree with this: "Some people are offended by the presence of the word "benefit" in the same sentence as the word "slavery" because, even if the syntax and semantics do not bear it out, one might infer a causal connection between the two. Perhaps it would have helped to add to the sentence a phrase making clear the evils of slavery, modifying the passage to read: "how, despite the oppressive system of slavery, slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit." While this characterization of slavery as oppressive and inhumane permeates the Florida African American History standards generally, still, I am willing to grant that this added clarification, though unnecessary, may still have been valuable."

The "personal benefits" are just not much of a thing when you consider the reality of being owned by another human being and what that entails in a country founded on the principles of the equality of all men and their unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. At this point I don't really give a @#$& about whether some people learned skills while they were held in slavery. That's it for me.

What an egocentric attitude! I guarantee you that prisoners value small benefits far more than we who can take them for granted. Plus you strip the slaves of any agency, any self esteem, any human worth. Go and read Solzynetsyns GULAG. Men struggled and succeeded in preserving dignity under terrible conditions. Humans have a long sad history of oppressive systems, and there is also a long history of flowers growing through the cracks in the cement. And in the case of the African American slaves, we KNOW they developed a powerful religious faith, and moving songs, and other gifts (in DuBois' terms). You seem willing to strip them of that, to deny it. Acknowledging that slaves struggled, sometimes successfully, is essential. Really sorry that you feel otherwise

And what are Sheehan's background and political beliefs?

This SHOULD be the final word on the Florida controversy, but of course it won't be:

Brick by brick, with little or no planning and research…and definitely no foundation in fact.

And it should be noted that both Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, referenced in the article, were escaped slaves and their impact was felt after they freed themselves.

And quotations from others' work should be noted as such, usually with quotation marks.

One of my classmates in grad school was put on academic probation because he failed, by accident and not intent, to credit source material in one of his papers.

I think you know what I meant doc. You know where I stand and that includes my personal empathy for people suffering enslavement. This is about the curriculum of Florida.

The problem is that the weight being accorded this facet of slave conditions is misleading and inappropriate in a curriculum guideline for a high school. We are lucky if these kids can find their own state on a map. If they are to conclude that this is a significant characteristic of slavery, it sounds a lot like the benign Lost Cause version of slavery is being institutionalized. If kids come away with one thing they remember about slavery and that it was not so bad, more like a career step for some, then some of the more salient realities will be minimized. It's a curriculum concern.

Well said, Tort. +1

If they are to conclude that this is a significant characteristic of slavery, it sounds a lot like the benign Lost Cause version of slavery is being institutionalized.

But it doesn't say it is a significant characteristic of slavery, or only to someone determined to see it that way. We are talking about one sentence in many pages of material. And a sentence has to be twisted to become bad. Were this not an election year and were not Desantis governor of Florida this whole silly episode would never even have happened. It's political through and through. But there's no point in talkign about it further.

But we might discuss the Holocaust and Shindler. Is it appropriate to teach about him? To show Shindler's List? He was part of the Nazi war machine. He himself said (at the end of the film) that he was a very bad man, and he was right -- though possibly he was better than John McBride. Shindler's rescues were a tiny point of light in an unspeakably evil situation.

You guys are too focused on one thing and that distorts, yes DISTORTS other important parts of the story. And your one thing -- that slavery was evil and inconsistent with American ideals -- is universally agreed to, including in the Florida standards. Johnny One-Notes do not make good music.

But it doesn't say it is a significant characteristic of slavery, or only to someone determined to see it that way.

Why not clarify it? Isn't that what education is all about?

We are talking about one sentence in many pages of material. And a sentence has to be twisted to become bad.

If it isn't important, then why not remove it? Why fight doggedly to keep it in?

Were this not an election year and were not Desantis governor of Florida this whole silly episode would never even have happened. It's political through and through. But there's no point in talkign about it further.

This is a two way street. Presumably if he weren't running for higher office, he wouldn't promote a teaching policy he knew would appeal to a certain voting demographic. I believe Mr Gillum said that it isnt so much that DeSantis is racist, it's that the racists think he's a racist. One would think that a man in a State with that sort of legacy around racial insensitivity would want to clarify or remove this point; its not being important and all that.

You are all for Moms for Liberty removing books from libraries because of objectionable content. Surely, again, this is a two way street? If a number of people think this teaching point is racist, then that should be enough to remove it, right?

But we might discuss the Holocaust and Shindler. Is it appropriate to teach about him? To show Shindler's List? He was part of the Nazi war machine. He himself said (at the end of the film) that he was a very bad man, and he was right -- though possibly he was better than John McBride. Shindler's rescues were a tiny point of light in an unspeakably evil situation.

it's not really the same thing. Schindler is a case study in a man's struggle with evil and final cathartic revelation towards good and justice while the skills that slaves learned were "taught" within an exploitative institution that the slaveholders believed was ordained by God and who had no intention of dissolving it without external force.

You guys are too focused on one thing and that distorts, yes DISTORTS other important parts of the story. And your one thing -- that slavery was evil and inconsistent with American ideals -- is universally agreed to, including in the Florida standards. Johnny One-Notes do not make good music.

Again, just remove it. Something else is at work if there is going to be a "digging in" to protect an unimportant objectionable "fact". As you point out, that level of detail is curious in a large course which seems to leave out the presumably larger set of much more important facts that led to the passage of the Jim Crow laws.

Other facts are likewise left out of the course, such as General Polk being split in two by shrapnel while hiding from Union artillery. Does that fact also need to be taught to the children? I would imagine not bending over in open ground and sticking your fingers in your ears to avoid artillery fire would be as useful a bit of advice as that which states that slavery also provided a slave with skills.

Using indoctrination as a teaching tool:

link

This is really scary…

Well, i suppose you have to fight indoctrination with indoctrination. I see Dinesh Dsouza is a resident content creator at Praeger. He hasnt a shred of integrity about him. He also said that Blacks were better off under slavery, a stance that both Praeger and the Florida School system seem to have adopted.

I guess if this is an insignificant facet of the history of slavery then why does it even appear in the teaching guidelines? I keep asking if this kind of detail, and also the warning about indoctrination, appear in other guidelines, in other states. I am not determined to see it one way or the other. I am looking at it as an issue that is raising questions for more than one person. Allen is wrong.

People like Booker T Washington did not gain their skill until they had been freed. According to the Tampa Bay Times, almost half the 16 skilled people cited by the Task Force as examples were born as free. And,it seems that a number of Task Force members did not know their group had written the standards until they came out, per NYT.

There seem to be good things in the guidelines. Some easy fixes could take the politics out of them and make them neutral.

In putting this into law, how was the need assessed? Where is the data? Focus groups from all stakeholders? How many kids were actually feeling uncomfortable? How many felt guilty? Who felt indoctrinated? Who are the people who are raising these concerns and on what basis? Surveys? Outreach? No info from the state Dept of Ed to these questions.

Students, teachers? In MA one of each serve on the state board of Ed. Just in case they might have something to contribute.

There is a difference between acquiring a skill and benefitting from it oneself. A slave blacksmith on a plantation had scarce skills, (and almost certainly gained to terms of status and probably better conditions etc. as a result.) AS a freedman he could work for himself -- and be in competition with white blacksmiths who often tried to restrict the new competition. Freedom always beats slavery in the abstract (all other factors held constant) but there are reasons why freedmen often returned to work at their former owners' plantations. Slavery was an incredibly complex system, with vast differences within it, and freedom is, of course, at least as complex and even more varied. But a person with a scarce skill is better off than an unskilled person, under either system.

link

Political Lies, a Slave's Story, and a Damn Good Whiskey

JOHN A. LUCAS

Political Lies, a Slave's Story, and a Damn Good Whiskey

JOHN A. LUCAS

All this proves is that this fool would rather write a 1275 word rant defending teaching a racist talking point as "true" rather than just advocating to remove it in one sentence. Is this supposed to prove your point? Which is those who approve of this talking point will push back all day against the "enemy" to tell them they're worrying too much?

He also rants against trans people and Hunter Biden, what a shock. Claims to be a West Point man, wonder if Brechtel knows him?

Slavery was an incredibly complex system, with vast differences within it, and freedom is, of course, at least as complex and even more varied. But a person with a scarce skill is better off than an unskilled person, under either system.

Slavery was complex? Freedom is complex? Sure, a lot of things are complex, torture, rape and lynching are complex too.

This is some serious jibber jabber. There is no reason to teach children that slavery has benefits. None. Anyone who wants to teach this is part of the problem.

I don't know Lucas-never heard of him before. He graduated in 1969 seven years before I did.

This is some serious jibber jabber. There is no reason to teach children that slavery has benefits. None. Anyone who wants to teach this is part of the problem.

Agree. Definitely serious jibber jabber with little or no brick building…

Regarding simplicity, the opposite of complexity, Napoleon once stated that 'The art of war is like everything else that is beautiful and simple. The simplest moves are the best.'

Seems to me that people who insist on making things 'complex' do so only for obfuscation and a lack of understanding as well as fear of their inability to understand. Merely an observation, not an accusation.

But I've been studying military history for over fifty years and writing about it for over twenty, and simplicity is a virtue where the idea of 'complexity' makes things harder than they need to be.

The teaching of history:

'The historian must not try to know what is truth, if he values his honesty; for if he cares for his truth, he is certain to falsify his facts.'-Henry Adams.

This idea should be drummed into the head of every historian, history teacher, and writer of history.

This excellent article summarizes the important scholarship on slavery. All those books I said people need to read. Well, read this instead:

link

Glenn Loury

What Florida Is (and Isn't) Teaching Students about Slavery
A guest essay by Robert Cherry

The Conclusion: Slavery in the United States was a dehumanizing practice. It is remarkable that so many enslaved people managed nevertheless to preserve their humanity and to work for their own betterment and that of their families. Writing these efforts out of our history would do a profound disservice both to them and to our students.

As to Adams, I'm having trouble with the distinction between honesty and truth. Of course total truth is humanly impossible, but I always thought trying to tell the truth was the same as being honest.

(When one is confessing one's sins, there is a point at which the priest, or the Holy Spirit, says "just be representative, we don't need every detail. Tell the three things you are most ashamed of and we'll let that stand for the rest."

(I have been on both sides of that process.)

This excellent article summarizes the important scholarship on slavery. All those books I said people need to read. Well, read this instead:

link

Glenn Loury

What Florida Is (and Isn't) Teaching Students about Slavery
A guest essay by Robert Cherry

Presumably these weren't electives and the skills were taught according to the whim of the "instructor". This sounds a lot like the old Soviet practice of assigning careers to people without regard to their interests or abilities. It hadn't occurred to me that the Soviets, like the Nazis, might also have modeled their skills training on the antebellum South. And if this is not the case, then are we teaching communist values to school children?

Hiding behind this as factual without any good research on it seems to be a waste of time to point out to the kids. Why not tell them that we are the only country where slave holders started a war to protect slavery? Or is that unique fact not as important?

The point I made earlier in this thread is that the inclusion of this minor detail, yes – minor for a high school guide, should not be the one thing about slavery a kid remembers. There is just no way to soften the images of slavery as it relates to the founding principles or human behavior in general.

Your premise is flawed. Kids remember far more than one thing. If they have already learned the stories of heroes such as Harriet Tubman and Robert Smalls -- which I would have them doing in early elementary -- then they know several important things. My curriculum has them reading, e.g. Jefferson's description of slavery as a school of tyranny corrupting white children. And they should certainly be singing some of the songs. All it really takes is showing a class the first few minutes of AMISTAD. And in the midst of all of that, a lesson that some enslaved people managed nevertheless to retain agency is one well worth teaching. Unless you WANT to create a victim mentality. Some do.

Our middle schoolers read and discuss this (among other relevant things):

There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the existence of slavery among us. The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or his self love, for restraining the intemperance of passion towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to the worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious pecularities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances.

This has nothing to do with creating a victim mentality. That's politics, which is what is driving Florida's culture war. None of us are slaves or slaveholders.

I sure hope kids remember more than one thing and I was not being literal. But I am not sure what they will remember from this plan or what they see around them.

Nobody -- and certainly nobody connected with the Florida standards -- is proposing anything other than a comprehensive curriculum on slavery, from its inception through emancipation and beyond. Nor is anyone proposing to teach that slavery was good in any way. I've looked at the Florida material quite closely and it is good-to-excellent. This is an imaginary tempest in an imaginary teapot.

Okay, Tort (or anyone): the quote below is from the Loury piece I linked to above. Please tell me which of these FACTS you object to including in a middle or high school unit on slavery:

The hiring of white overseers was expensive so only a minority of plantations employed them. On three-quarters of plantations with no white overseers, there was only one white male of working age. This required extensive employment of enslaved blacks in supervisory and craft positions.

Planters also found it profitable to provide positive inducements to instill loyalty and improve work efforts. During winters, enslaved workers were hired out, and often they were able to keep some of the payments made. On many plantations, enslaved workers who performed well were awarded private plots of land on which they could farm and sell their surplus. Fogel documented that top field hands and top craftsmen were often rewarded for their efforts with material and cash payments.

Not only was the Elkins-Stampp view wrong about the place of the nuclear family in slave lives, it was wrong about the black work ethic. In the agricultural sector, Fogel estimated 20% of enslaved blacks were employed in management, skilled artisan, and semi-skilled positions. As a result, the early-twentieth-century researcher Charles Wesley claimed that, at emancipation, black workers made up over 80% of the artisan class in the South. Indeed, in The Negro Artisan, DuBois commented on the potpourri of occupations available to black workers in the South compared to the North, where craft unions almost universally embraced racially exclusionary practices.

I believe it was Plato who commented that the nice thing about an education is that nobody can steal it from you. Steal the fruits of it, yes, but not the skills themselves.

The difficult thing about teaching a complex topic such as slavery is that there was so much variety: not just among categories like upper and lower south, urban and rural, various crops, large plantations vs small farms, etc, but also within a given category such as large plantation. It becomes very difficult to make valid generalizations when the exceptions may outnumber the rule, if you can tell whch is which. So do you stress the worst, or the best, or some of each?

A similar topic: when one teaches the Holocaust, how much attention does one pay to Oscar Shindler, or to the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto? These are uplifting or heroic stories. Is one "making light of the Holocaust" in telling them? Presumably not, as the larger horror is there plain to see.

Nobody -- and certainly nobody connected with the Florida standards -- is proposing anything other than a comprehensive curriculum on slavery, from its inception through emancipation and beyond.

This is not true. There are several selective omissions. Additionally, there are some irrelevant facts introduced to act as a smokescreen for American slavery, to purposefully mitigate its wrongs and suggest that it was a common, human thing to do. This carries the impression that slavery really isnt such a bad thing, really.

A few omissions, just a few, include laws like the Casual Killing Act which allowed slave owners to kill slaves with impunity. Thus, you could learn a skill but if it displeased your owner or his agents, they could beat you to death in an instant.

Or lynch you.

Here are some more facts that are omitted from the course. Postcards of lynched blacks

link

link

I didnt see these facts in the course. I guess there's just so much good stuff about slavery, it couldnt make it in.

but why arent they in there? I mean theyre facts arent they? It would be a counterbalance to the "Colonial Williamburg" theme park view of skills learning slaves, wouldnt it?

And it's relevant considering the Florida Course guide says:

Clarification 2: Instruction includes acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans but
is not limited to 1906 Atlanta Race Riot, 1919 Washington, D.C. Race Riot, 1920 Ocoee Massacre, 1921
Tulsa Massacre and the 1923 Rosewood Massacre

Maybe this Florida board could produce this evidence of equal black violence against whites? I mean the facts probably abound…only, for some reason, I just cant find the postcards to back it up.

Nor is anyone proposing to teach that slavery was good in any way.

Inaccurate. By the very virtue of relating that slaves learned useful trades/skills, it is teaching that there was a net value to slavery.

People join the army to learn skills, are you suggesting that this isnt good?

I've looked at the Florida material quite closely and it is good-to-excellent.

Youre setting yourself up as an objective standard? Can you tell us in all honesty that you dont possess a strong affinity for the Confederacy and a desire to countermand harsh condemnation of Southern attitudes towards slavery? Of course you are free to hold such opinions but I submit that this eliminates you as an impartial judge of what makes a fair review of how Southern slavery should be taught to children.

Your premise is flawed.

Oh really? Please explain how when you object to factual content, you think it should not be provided to children but when you approve of it, it's good to excellent? Otherwise, you no doubt approve of mention in the course that American whites enslaved blacks? Or is that premise also flawed? You said the kids can learn many different concepts at once, are you afraid this one would have more staying power than the others? Additionally, shouldnt white children take pride in the fact that whites taught blacks skills?

This is an imaginary tempest in an imaginary teapot.

See, this premise is flawed. If this were the case then the offending teaching point would be withdrawn. However, there is a viewpoint doggedly and gleefully defending its remaining in the course. This defense has nothing to do with the children's welfare and more to do with a cynical and sinister pride in the old south and all her traditions.

Them more I hear this course's defense, the more convinced I am that it is unwholesome and requires a thorough revision.

Like the man, or woman, the skills were effectively owned by the slave owner When, where, and how any skills were learned or employed was at the discretion of the slave owner.

The imparting of skills or positions of oversight were in no way institutionized to provide an aspirational pathway. It's was not a right or a career choice. Skills were imparted to benefit the slave holder, did not include the dignity of personal freedom and self determination that gave them their ultimate meaning.

Plato doesn't work for this. As long as slaves were slaves, any skills came with that burden hanging over them. Nobody could steal your skills? But you did not own them as a slave.

Tort, what you say is correct, and is part and parcel of why slavery is/was evil. But you refuse to weigh -- I don't say consider, as I know you have -- the two other points, extraneous to slavery but far from extraneous to the individuals involved. Secondly, slavery ended, and the skills remained to be used by their possessor freely for his own benefit. But PRIMARILY it is evident -- from the points I cited above and much more -- that slaves -- AND whites, often through not often enough -- were both able to, and often encouraged to, improve themselves by developing skills. OF COURSE this made them worth more, both as workers and as capitalized labor. Obviously, and so what? If a large employer (Volkswagon in Chattanooga, to my personal knowledger) says to local schools, we need you to teach THESE technical skills so we can hire workers who have them, everyone benefits. Of course that is voluntary. But the laws requiring school attendance are NOT voluntary, and are justified both politically (informed voters -- HAH!) and also economically because a literate workforce is a very good thing for everybody.

For a planter to see that a slave was trained as a cooper or blacksmith, or as a leader of a work crew, was obviously for the benefit of the plantation as business. Duh. And of course the increased earning power benefitted the owner first and most. Duh. That's what slavery IS, the expropriation of labor; we KNOW that. But the new blacksmith is also a secondary beneficiary, even while enslaved, and primarily so once freed.

This is all so obvious I don't see how anyone can deny it.

And human motives are far more complex than you acknowledge. Planters trained slaves, or taught them to read, for all sorts of reasons, not restricted to economics. Greed is a powerful force, but so is honor and humanity and mercy and love. That is visible in prisons, in the Gulag, and it was visible in (some) plantations. Not because slavery is anything but evil, but because people may and often do struggle to mitigate in small ways a great evil that is beyond their power to correct in toto. Shindler. You think there were no Shindlers in the ante-bellum south?

Met a distinguished gentleman that I knew when he was in more affluent circumstances. I was willing enough to speak to him, but when he saw me advancing for that purpose, to avoid me, he suddenly dodged around a corner—William, Mrs. de Saussure's former coachman. I remember him on his box, driving a handsome pair of bays, dressed sumptuously in blue broadcloth and brass buttons; a stout, respectable, fine-looking, middle-aged mulatto. He was very high and mighty. Night after night we used to meet him as fiddler-in-chief of all our parties. He sat in solemn dignity, making faces over his bow, and patting his foot with an emphasis that shook the floor. We gave him five dollars a night; that was his price. His mistress never refused to let him play for any party. He had stable boys in abundance. He was far above any physical fear for his sleek and well-fed person. How majestically he scraped his foot as a sign that he was tuned up and ready to begin! Now he is a shabby creature indeed. He must have felt his fallen fortunes when he met me—one who knew him in his prosperity. He ran away, this stately yellow gentleman, from wife and children, home and comfort. My Molly asked him "Why? Miss Liza was good to you, I know." I wonder who owns him now; he looked forlorn.

Chesnut, Mary Boykin Miller . A Diary From Dixie (pp. 8-9). HarperCollins Canada. Kindle Edition.

Obviously this account reeks of Chesnut's privilege and condescension. But I suspect the man kept the $5 USDs. And clearly he enjoyed high status, and then fell, while within the slave system. It may not matter to YOU, a century later, but it mattered to HIM, and it also mattered to Mary Chesnut.

Another story:

John Chesnut is a pretty soft-hearted slave-owner. He had two Negroes arrested for selling whisky to his people on his plantation, and buying stolen corn from them. The culprits in jail sent for him. He found them (this snowy weather) lying in the cold on a bare floor, and he thought that punishment enough; they having had weeks of it. But they were not satisfied to be allowed to evade justice and slip away. They begged of him (and got) five dollars to buy shoes to run away in. I said: "Why, this is flat compounding a felony." And Johnny put his hands in the armholes of his waistcoat and stalked majestically before me, saying, "Woman, what do you know about law?"

Chesnut, Mary Boykin Miller . A Diary From Dixie (p. 10). HarperCollins Canada. Kindle Edition.

That sounds like a fairly loose situation. Were the two men in jail slaves? They were plainly entrepreneurs! And persuasive. This story begs for further details, which we don't have, but it indicates, again, that cracks form in the concrete and flowers grow through. (And of course Mary found it funny enough to recount.)

Recall that the Chesnuts saw the ending of slavery, which they hated, as a silver lining to the dark cloud of failure to win southern independence.

"My" prison has a fire department. A dozen men, selected from many eager volunteers. They wear a different uniform (red shirt of course!) and sleep in the fire house with their two trucks. They are part of the county's overall fire service, and get called out 24/7. If there IS an alarm they get in their trucks and go. One of the guards is supposed to hop in and ride along, but they are told to go without him if necessary. They are trustees, obviously, and enjoy a high status within the prison. Plus of course they are possessed of marketable skills when they get out.

Still felons and inmates? Yes. Eager to be free? Of course. But they are benefitting NOW and will benefit more later. The SYSTEM may be oppressive but humans often do what they can to ameliorate it.

Tort, if you want to see the ante-bellum south as a giant prison, it is okay with me. And it is okay to remind people of that. But not as the final word. Because people and societies are immensely complicated and you seem not to acknowledge that.

Here is what I think. It is a very different viewpoint that you have as a well educated man from an era when education was a respected, noble attribute. The depth you bring to your consideration of this point is beyond todays high school students for the most part. It speaks to a much different level of commitment and attainment, whereby you have the skills and knowledge to be able to place the matter in appropriate context.

The facts of skill levels of certain slaves cannot be accorded much weight in light of their over-all condition as slaves. Post war, these facts take on a different meaning. Despite the terrors of violent racism, skills and the free man with unalienable rights, the man who can choose his own destiny, becomes the story you may be looking for, including the long battle against the racism that followed slavery.

Slavery is the ultimate denial of self determination. If you teach that some slaves benefited, while enslaved, from the skills they attained, but you must tread carefully to make sure you do not make a kid who had nothing to with slavery become uncomfortable with the much larger dark side of slave life and the betrayal of the founding principles this represented, then this is indoctrination. Ironically prohibited.

And what of the governor's intent and motive with all of this? A man with a degree in history from an elite school… more irony. Again, this is a high school curriculum question.

@Tort I am asking, in a high school history course, how much time is really spent on any one period of time in US history? Most classes are a gloss of people, places, dates, inventions, constitution and perceived causes. Maybe a teacher would spend additional time on some period that appealed to them and then gloss over another because of time. So most of the time for say the civil war, we would get causes, slavery bad, the 1860
Election, a brief mention of a few key battles, Union wins, Lincoln shot, slavery ends and then were into reconstruction. Very little in depth. For WW2 almost nothing on the actual war, very disappointing.

Sadly most students could have cared less anyway.

So if it interested you, you read books and articles on your own and learned more.

I did have one who spent a lot of time on the causes of the CW, but then we didn't get to modern history by the end of classes.

It wasn't until college you could take specific courses geared to a period.

"The facts of skill levels of certain slaves cannot be accorded much weight in light of their over-all condition as slaves." Even though they themselves gave it weight?

I am currently and comprehensively engaged in developing a curriculum to teach US history to middle and high schoolers. The students who use our books will get a wide-ranging and nuanced understanding of slavery as a great stain on the nation -- and its irradication as a great triumph. And there were small triumphs within the evil system as people, black and also white, worked to ameliorate its evils and eventually to remove them altogether.

A key point, not original to me, but I use it: We today do not agree with nor approve of George Washington's views on slavery. But if we lived then we would regard him as far-looking, as he tried to free his slaves against great legal and economic obstacles. And if GW were alive today, he would agree with US about slavery and feel validated in his doubts about it. And that change, over a 200 year period, was difficult, and we live on the other side of a great divide from his day. And the POINT of history, in part, is to show students that divide and to appreciate the effort required to get over it.

35th, yes, and curricula vary. Ours devotes one chapter to slavery but also parts of others -- for example, the chapter on writing and ratifying the Constitution is titled "Success -and an Awful Price." The price, of course, was the continuation of slavery. The teaching materials include extensive documents dealing with many different aspects of slavery. Lincoln's speech on the Dred Scott decision, for example.

Oh, and we also have GW's Trenton-Princeton campaign, and Travis' letters from the Alamo, and Spruance's after-action for Midway.

Tort, any problem with this?

The institution of slavery was already thoroughly enmeshed in one segment of the national economy, and the Constitution could not help but reflect this fact. It is tragic but true, that there was no way that the nation could have held together if the antislavery states had insisted that the Southern states abandon the practice. And if the country had not been able to hold together, there is little likelihood that the parts could survive and thrive and defend themselves, even in the short run. No, unity was all-important to the nation's very survival as a separate political entity. That meant protecting the institution of slavery in some respects while working toward its eventual extirpation in others. There was no denying that this represented a failure to live up to the high ideals set forward in the Declaration of Independence. Americans would be living inside this moral inconsistency for many years to come.

No problem, with that last part especially well put. The follow up would be that consensus on extirpation could not be reached and the matter was resolved by a terrible war. The great paradox of a complex and imperfect nation striving to meet the high ideals it was founded on.

35th you are spot on here. Although without cell phones progress might improve! All along I have said that the level of detail in this teaching guide is unusual and makes me wonder what is really going on.

Cell phones change face to face teaching in many ways, almost all bad.

we also have GW's Trenton-Princeton campaign

A good reference for Trenton is Samuel Smith's The Battle of Trenton.

This will be a map exercise for students to follow the complex movements, marking in red and blue. Tricky to do because it has to fit on one page. Facing page has description and instructions.
For middle school.