Aquinas, Calvin and Buckminster T Fuller
Oh, Texas, Texas, Texas.
The Texas school board has been fixing up the standards for the curriculum.
9:30 – Board member Cynthia Dunbar wants to change a standard having students study the impact of Enlightenment ideas on political revolutions from 1750 to the present…9:45 – Here’s the amendment Dunbar changed: “explain the impact of Enlightenment ideas from John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Thomas Jefferson on political revolutions from 1750 to the present.” Here’s Dunbar’s replacement standard, which passed: “explain the impact of the writings of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and Sir William Blackstone.”
That’s wonderful, isn’t it? From a list that makes sense to one that’s just a demented ragbag. But they got that horrid Enlightenment thing out, and that’s the main thing.
Here’s an amendment to the proposed amendment: ““explain the impact of the Endarkenment writings of Samuel Marsden (known in the New South Wales of his time as ‘The Flogging Parson’) and Jimmy Swaggart.”
That should be all any young Texan needs to come face to face with reality.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1OXAi7rNMg
Here’s an amendment to the proposed amendment: ““explain the impact of the Endarkenment writings of Samuel Marsden (known in the New South Wales of his time as ‘The Flogging Parson’) and Jimmy Swaggart.”
That should be all any young Texan needs to come face to face with reality.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1OXAi7rNMg
NB: The above inadvertently posted twice. But I’ll keep repeating it anyway.
More to the point, maybe, they got rid of that bad boy Thomas Jefferson, who first used the phrase, “separation of church and state”.
The original list is pretty impressive – more demanding than the reading I was required to do at school.
I can see why Blackstone would be a useful addition. But replacing Jefferson with Aquinas and Calvin? And of course removing the dangerous words ‘Enlightenment’ and ‘revolution’. Can’t be having any of that, can we?
Haha – good one, Jeff D.
Jeff D?
Emily,
I made a little joke about Texas barbecue and a different activity, involving fire, with which John Calvin had some connections. I guess my comment got removed or disappeared.
The Jeff D item must have been one of the ones I accidentally chopped on Sunday. I don’t remember what it was, either. Phooey.
P.S. Sorry Jeff – a spam-deletion accident!
Well, Ophelia, since it was an accident, and since I’ve already telegraphed the joke . . .
I wrote [paraphrasing],
The Texas Board’s inclusion of John Calvin in the new history ed standards makes a kind of demented sense, because John Calvin, like many Texans, was known to be fond of barbecue.
:- )
I liked that. I’m glad it’s immortalized.