11 Responses to “Histrionics”

1. Anonymous Says:
   October 25th, 2007 at 4:40 pm

   I’m sure Billo would cite as proof of his point that an education blog linked to Media Matters. I guess now Eduwonk is run by America-hating, Soros-funded communists. Or something like that.

   Seriously, I love how he mixed up ‘preach’ and ‘teach.’ That says it all, doesn’t it?

2. Matthew K. Tabor Says:
   October 25th, 2007 at 8:23 pm

   I’ll say this in advance – what’s below is not a partisan comment in any way. It’s about scholarship.

   I’m going to defend Mr. O’Reilly here.

   He didn’t say it clearly and he relied on anecdotal evidence, but he could have easily supported his argument. I haven’t read a study that measured the political inclinations only of high school history teachers, but there are reams of data about the professoriate’s leanings.

   And here’s an interesting Zogby release about the attitudes toward professorial bias:

   http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1334

   We have more than a generation of public school history teachers who were weaned on Howard Zinn et alii – proponents of an individual sort of history. I was checking out an iTunes University class a few weeks ago in which the professor teaching the course [UC Berkeley, female - I've forgotten her name but that should be plenty of info. to find the course] explains very well this relatively recent shift in how we approach history.

   The texts support his claim, the data leans in his favor and there’s no shortage of testimony from practitioners of history education to corroborate the both of them.

   For better or worse, the everyman’s history is not the stuff of great heroes, strong leaders and a clearly-defined national identity. The ‘people’s historians’ who created this tidal wave and are now riding it are incredibly critical of how Americans should view our past and the particular guilt/pride we should feel in the present.

   Compare an old US History text like Ridpath’s “History of the United States” [approx. 1905] to the recent “Out of Many: A History of the American People” – if you can say with a straight face that there isn’t a dramatic shift in how we present our country’s history to high school and college students, your will is far stronger than mine.

   Again, this isn’t a partisan stance – this is the reality of a shift in the discipline. If you just can’t stomach hearing it from Bill O’Righty, hop on iTunes and listen to that Berkeley leftie prof say virtually the same thing. The only differences is that she’s not indignant about it – she’s quite comfortable with it.

   MediaMatters dropped the ball on this one and EduWonk appears to have picked up the fumble and jogged a few yards toward his own end zone. Anyone reading the MM piece should have questioned it when MM didn’t provide data to refute O’Reilly’s claims. They just portrayed him as a jerk.

   I find it a bit funny that MediaMatters asks readers to “Take Action!” in the right sidebar when they themselves can’t be bothered to hit up Google for some data or even to call an academic source for comment.

   The point of all this? O’Reilly’s generally saying the correct thing here. If you hate O’Reilly, fine – have at him. But don’t perpetuate an erroneous conclusion about an academic discipline because you’ve got a gripe with the messenger. It’s petty and irresponsible.

   Erroneous? Maybe I should’ve used “fatuous…”

3. Anonymous Says:
   October 25th, 2007 at 8:48 pm

   I think there’s no question that most social studies teachers are left wingers. I challenge anyone who had a majority of conservative SS teachers in HS to come forward (yeah it’s anecdotal, but note worthy). Whether or not they are espousing a anti-American agenda is less certain, but more likely than conservatives talking anti-American.

4. Michael Says:
   October 25th, 2007 at 9:41 pm

   I didn’t see the O’Reilly segment, but I’ve been circulating among humanities teachers in High Schools for year, and I would say the anti-American bias is so automatic that most don’t even recognize it.

   The main thing to know about the Puritans is that they killed witches–nothing about how covenant theology leads to concepts of the consent of the governed or fundamental ideas of equality. The main thing to know about the Founders is that they owned slaves. The main thing to know about America in general is that its racist and imperialistic. My experience of most high school history teachers is that they don’t think they’re really teaching if they are debunking.

5. Michael Says:
   October 25th, 2007 at 9:45 pm

   What a mess. Here’s a proofread version:

   I didn’t see the O’Reilly segment, but I’ve been circulating among humanities teachers in high schools for years, and I would say the anti-American bias is so automatic that most don’t even recognize it.

   The main thing to know about the Puritans is that they killed witches–nothing about how covenant theology leads to concepts of the consent of the governed or fundamental ideas of equality. All Jonathan Edwards “Sinners in the hands of an angry God” and no John Winthrop “A model of Christian Charity.”

   The main thing to know about the Founders is that they owned slaves. The main thing to know about America in general is that it’s racist and imperialistic.

   My experience of most high school history (and literature) teachers is that they don’t think they’re really teaching if they aren’t debunking. Patriotism is one of the intellectual sins, and most can’t imagine it as love of one’s place and one’s people, without necessarily leading toward a hatred of other peoples.

   They seem a leftie lot to me.

6. Anonymous Says:
   October 26th, 2007 at 1:45 pm

   Anecdote upon anecdote upon anecdote. Couple that with a basic misunderstanding of ‘people’s history,’ and … here ya go.

7. Matthew K. Tabor Says:
   October 26th, 2007 at 1:57 pm

   Anonymous,

   Having received my undergraduate education and continued with PhD coursework in the department that housed Zinn, I’m not entirely unfamiliar with “people’s history” as it relates to his specific book or the general approach.

   But I appreciate your thoughts.

8. Anonymous Says:
   October 26th, 2007 at 2:21 pm

   Reading these comments where is the evidence to support what O’Reilly claims?

9. Matthew K. Tabor Says:
   October 26th, 2007 at 2:34 pm

   Anonymous #2,

   Political Orientation of Faculty Members — 7 Categories

   Extremely liberal – 9.4%

   Liberal – 34.7%

   Slightly liberal – 18.1%

   Middle of the road – 18.0%

   Slightly conservative – 10.5%

   Conservative – 8.0%

   Very conservative – 1.2%

   Those numbers are taken from The Social and Political Views of American Professors, a recently released working paper/study by Neil Gross of Harvard and Solon Simmons of George Mason. Of the similar studies/papers I’ve read, this one portrays the professoriate as the most moderate – and, in my opinion, that breakdown is skewed to the left.

   You can read a summary of this report at InsideHigherEd.com – their treatment is available at the following URL and gives some more statistical evidence from the paper as well as a fair discussion of the trends it’s showing:

   http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/10/08/politics

   Your comment was posted at 2.21pm and as I write my reply, my computer’s clock says 2.29pm. It took 8 minutes to call up recent data on the issue – and that included refilling my glass of Diet Pepsi and finding my cat [she was hiding under a blanket].

   The point is not that I’m an amazing researcher, but that anyone with a moment and Google can see decent data to support O’Reilly’s statements.

   That way it isn’t “Anecdote upon anecdote upon anecdote,” as the other Anonymous put it.

10. Anonymous Says:
    October 26th, 2007 at 2:53 pm

    he was talking about high school teachers

11. Matthew K. Tabor Says:
    October 26th, 2007 at 2:59 pm

    “[I]t seems to me, and the studies indicate, that most teachers — high school and college in the United States — are left-wingers.”

    His comments were about both – the specific direction he went in looked at the consequences on K-12 history education.

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