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smltwnrckr

Another Dr. Seuss FAIL

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12 minutes ago, halfmanhalfbronco said:

Huh @smltwnrckr I guess Suess actually did write about the cold war and the uncertainty of nuclear standoff in The Butter Battle Book.  

https://theoutline.com/post/5601/dr-seuss-the-butter-battle-book-history

 

Planning is an exercise of power, and in a modern state much real power is suffused with boredom. The agents of planning are usually boring; the planning process is boring; the implementation of plans is always boring. In a democracy boredom works for bureaucracies and corporations as smell works for skunk. It keeps danger away. Power does not have to be exercised behind the scenes. It can be open. The audience is asleep. The modern world is forged amidst our inattention.

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6 minutes ago, AztecAlien said:

No you don't!! I don't know how old your kid/kids are, but obviously not old enough to grasp what you are spewing. Then you spin a children's book by adding this-

"I think in a children's book about how inventions made the world a better place, if we don't want to get into the brutality of slavery, I'm OK with it. (No You're Not) I mean, we don't have the name of the guy who invented the chain gang. We don't have the name of the guy who invented the iron maiden, or the guy who invented the machine gun. Why isn't there a page for Oppenheimer?"

Smltwnrckr.

You know exactly what you are doing here by creating this thread. Just more division from people who claim they are not woke. And your kids are f****ed!! Go sit in the corner with your game console, your phone and think about what you did. Am I right? Go burn some books!!

You know what's funny? I argue til I'm red in the face with the extreme lefties that I know that the concept of "white fragility" is bullshit. I really do. But you're really making me re-think this. 

Planning is an exercise of power, and in a modern state much real power is suffused with boredom. The agents of planning are usually boring; the planning process is boring; the implementation of plans is always boring. In a democracy boredom works for bureaucracies and corporations as smell works for skunk. It keeps danger away. Power does not have to be exercised behind the scenes. It can be open. The audience is asleep. The modern world is forged amidst our inattention.

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The invention of the cotton gin led to an increased demands for slaves,

Ramping up economic gains making gins the slaveowner’s faves.

It transformed cotton as a crop and the American South,

Into the globe's first agricultural powerhouse.

Because of its inadvertent effect on the slave trade,

The cotton gin was an indirect cause of the the Civil War’s slayed.

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3 minutes ago, 818SUDSFan said:

No and I never said it was. The cotton gin is mostly relevant to American history because of how additionally profitable it made the growing and harvesting of cotton and it is that which accelerated the slave trade.

I don't disagree with your concern about the two pages of that book and was simply suggesting a means of easily addressing your concern without completely deleting those pages.

Why do 8 year olds need to know who Eli Whitney is? Honest question.

Planning is an exercise of power, and in a modern state much real power is suffused with boredom. The agents of planning are usually boring; the planning process is boring; the implementation of plans is always boring. In a democracy boredom works for bureaucracies and corporations as smell works for skunk. It keeps danger away. Power does not have to be exercised behind the scenes. It can be open. The audience is asleep. The modern world is forged amidst our inattention.

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1 minute ago, halfmanhalfbronco said:

That's the article I read lol!  

Dr. Suess Culture warring is 50+ years old....who knew.  

He's still doing it, even today. He rules, and hard. It's why I still buy his books for families with little kids. 

Planning is an exercise of power, and in a modern state much real power is suffused with boredom. The agents of planning are usually boring; the planning process is boring; the implementation of plans is always boring. In a democracy boredom works for bureaucracies and corporations as smell works for skunk. It keeps danger away. Power does not have to be exercised behind the scenes. It can be open. The audience is asleep. The modern world is forged amidst our inattention.

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2 minutes ago, bsu_alum9 said:

The invention of the cotton gin led to an increased demands for slaves,

 

Ramping up economic gains making gins the slaveowner’s faves.

 

It transformed cotton as a crop and the American South,

 

Into the globe's first agricultural powerhouse.

 

Because of its inadvertent effect on the slave trade,

 

The cotton gin was an indirect cause of the the Civil War’s slayed.

 

 

 

MOAR EXPLANATION POINTS!

Planning is an exercise of power, and in a modern state much real power is suffused with boredom. The agents of planning are usually boring; the planning process is boring; the implementation of plans is always boring. In a democracy boredom works for bureaucracies and corporations as smell works for skunk. It keeps danger away. Power does not have to be exercised behind the scenes. It can be open. The audience is asleep. The modern world is forged amidst our inattention.

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1 minute ago, smltwnrckr said:

Why do 8 year olds need to know who Eli Whitney is? Honest question.

You tell us.  You're the guy reading the book to your kid. 

If you don't like the content, don't read it to your children.

"Don't underestimate Joe Biden's ability to F@*k things up."

Barack Obama

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Just now, Aslowhiteguy said:

You tell us.  You're the guy reading the book to your kid. 

If you don't like the content, don't read it to your children.

I don't mind the rest of the book. I just skip the Whitney page.

Though, he's generally bored by the book. The stuff that Seuss actually wrote is much better and more engaging. You know, the stuff that the American right hated him for like anti-war books and environmentalism? 

Planning is an exercise of power, and in a modern state much real power is suffused with boredom. The agents of planning are usually boring; the planning process is boring; the implementation of plans is always boring. In a democracy boredom works for bureaucracies and corporations as smell works for skunk. It keeps danger away. Power does not have to be exercised behind the scenes. It can be open. The audience is asleep. The modern world is forged amidst our inattention.

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1 minute ago, halfmanhalfbronco said:

8?  8 Year olds are reading Harry Potter, not Dr. Suess.  Suess is 4-6.  

I picked an older age to also cover elementary school history curriculum. Personally, I would have no problem if we wait til jr high or high school to learn about the relationships between industrialization and the expansion of slavery. 

Planning is an exercise of power, and in a modern state much real power is suffused with boredom. The agents of planning are usually boring; the planning process is boring; the implementation of plans is always boring. In a democracy boredom works for bureaucracies and corporations as smell works for skunk. It keeps danger away. Power does not have to be exercised behind the scenes. It can be open. The audience is asleep. The modern world is forged amidst our inattention.

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1 minute ago, smltwnrckr said:

Why do 8 year olds need to know who Eli Whitney is? Honest question.

I'm not saying they NEED to. Instead, I think my son was capable at 8 of understanding the simple scientific concepts involved with the cotton gin and would have enjoyed hearing about them at that age.

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1 minute ago, smltwnrckr said:

Again, I think we should learn about how the industrial revolution lead to the civil war in school. And I'm fine with books trying to do it. But there are a million inventors who invented a million things. If I had to choose between including another inventor and erasing slavery, I'll pick another inventor. I don't think that's crazy. 

Oh, you want your kid/kids to learn about the Industrial Revolution at such at a volatile age. Are you sure you want your kids to learn the human atrocities committed against the Irish, Polish, The Jews, and italians during The Industrial Revolution? No? People forced into slave labor, beaten, killed, and forced to live in basically a cardboard box. Remember how you learned in history class (Doubt It) how the Irish, Polish, Jews and Italians and what little money they scraped together were not welcome? This should go over well. Just stop with your BS!!

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1 minute ago, 818SUDSFan said:

I'm not saying they NEED to. Instead, I think my son was capable at 8 of understanding the simple scientific concepts involved with the cotton gin and would have enjoyed hearing about them at that age.

Couldn't you say the same about any machine? Or any invention? I'm sure that budding electricians would find the electric chair an interesting invention, too. But no one knows the name Southwick.

I actually find it interesting and curious that every kid in America is taught that Eli Whitney invented the Cotton Gin. But they have to wait til high school or college to learn why that mattered in American history.

Planning is an exercise of power, and in a modern state much real power is suffused with boredom. The agents of planning are usually boring; the planning process is boring; the implementation of plans is always boring. In a democracy boredom works for bureaucracies and corporations as smell works for skunk. It keeps danger away. Power does not have to be exercised behind the scenes. It can be open. The audience is asleep. The modern world is forged amidst our inattention.

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1 hour ago, smltwnrckr said:

Oh, I agree. I think it is a legitimate question, and one where good faith people can try to work it out. I think this is a really interesting topic for that conversation, and is a perfect example of a one where reasonable people could get together and try and model a process to think about history in a way that is accurate and also appropriate for kids, and also think about at what ages certain topics are appropriate. 

But that's not what is happening here, right now. 

I guess I'm not really paying attention to the thread that closely.  I think there are a lot of problems with how history is taught in the elementary and middle school levels.  But a lot of it has to do with what we highlight as important and trying to cram way too much into 8 months (world history classes are the worst at this.  Covering 1,000 years of history in two semesters...)

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5 minutes ago, AztecAlien said:

Oh, you want your kid/kids to learn about the Industrial Revolution at such at a volatile age. Are you sure you want your kids to learn the human atrocities committed against the Irish, Polish, The Jews, and italians during The Industrial Revolution? No? People forced into slave labor, beaten, killed, and forced to live in basically a cardboard box. Remember how you learned in history class (Doubt It) how the Irish, Polish, Jews and Italians and what little money they scraped together were not welcome? This should go over well. Just stop with your BS!!

 

48 minutes ago, smltwnrckr said:

I personally think that reifying inventors and hyperbolizing about the unquestioned positive progress of modernity is stupid, and I don't like to teach that way in general. But the rest of the book is not overtly objectionable to me. Just the part where they decide to just skip over slavery. 

Ironically - my kids and the kids I teach will know more about the industrial revolution than yours will. But they won't get triggered every time someone points out an objectively true fact about it. That's all.

Planning is an exercise of power, and in a modern state much real power is suffused with boredom. The agents of planning are usually boring; the planning process is boring; the implementation of plans is always boring. In a democracy boredom works for bureaucracies and corporations as smell works for skunk. It keeps danger away. Power does not have to be exercised behind the scenes. It can be open. The audience is asleep. The modern world is forged amidst our inattention.

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18 minutes ago, smltwnrckr said:

Find me a book where the foreword is written at the same time as the book (not in a later addition, many years after it was published) that addresses historical inaccuracies. Show me that, and I'll show you a book that failed at its goal.

Dude, there are black people pulling the cotton out of the boll by hand on one page, and then dumping it into the machine on the other. And the line says that it turned a "slow, dirty job" into a "quick and clean" one. The book says that the cotton gin made cotton production easier. Which is literally the opposite of the truth when you consider that slavery existed. Saying the opposite of the truth is erasing history. Sorry. 

Again, I think we should learn about how the industrial revolution lead to the civil war in school. And I'm fine with books trying to do it. But there are a million inventors who invented a million things. If I had to choose between including another inventor and erasing slavery, I'll pick another inventor. I don't think that's crazy. 

No, it's not me searching for something to be offended about. I'm not actually offended as much as I am perplexed. And I thought this would be a good example to post in support of the idea that we don't teach accurate history when it comes to these issues in many cases. Since there are people posting on here, and passing laws elsewhere, suggesting that there are all these examples of "indoctrination" but are very rarely able to post real examples of it. Is there too much awareness of race in history, or too little. Well, this page made it through the publishing process in 2015, and either no one said anything or whomever did say something was told to shut up... or people thought this was the best way to deal with the content. Which suggests to me that maybe I am wrong about the fact that I think that these discussions should wait til kids are older. Maybe we need to work this out earlier. I dunno.

Fun fact - did you know a LOT of school kids in America are taught that Eli Whitney was black?

The book was not intended to discuss anything more than invention.  I have already said if the issue is having the cotton gin in the book, fine.  Not talking about slavery in a book on inventions is not erasing history.  It's just not.  if the book was on the agricultural south, and it mentioned the cotton gin, but no mention of slavery, the point would be more salient.  There appears to be a rush in ensuring that a piece of children's literature must address a point of history that is not the topic of the book, and I don't see the merit behind that claim.  I am not saying that your observation isn't something to note, but when we are looking at the target audience, and the topic of the book, does bringing that up really do anything more than take away from what the book discusses?  And as a parent or a teacher (well, maybe not a teacher), can you not notice this and say "when I want to, I will discuss this portion".   This seems like given the topic of the book, the audience and how young they are, and the lack of clear malice as to make the black (slaves) folks as an inhumane or caricature, I chalk it up to at best a poor execution by the author and editor.  So again, I am going to respectfully disagree with you.  There are more relevant fish to fry than this one.

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1 minute ago, HR_Poke said:

I guess I'm not really paying attention to the thread that closely.  I think there are a lot of problems with how history is taught in the elementary and middle school levels.  But a lot of it has to do with what we highlight as important and trying to cram way too much into 8 months (world history classes are the worst at this.  Covering 1,000 years of history in two semesters...)

I can't disagree with you here. 

Planning is an exercise of power, and in a modern state much real power is suffused with boredom. The agents of planning are usually boring; the planning process is boring; the implementation of plans is always boring. In a democracy boredom works for bureaucracies and corporations as smell works for skunk. It keeps danger away. Power does not have to be exercised behind the scenes. It can be open. The audience is asleep. The modern world is forged amidst our inattention.

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1 minute ago, East Coast Aztec said:

The book was not intended to discuss anything more than invention.  I have already said if the issue is having the cotton gin in the book, fine.  Not talking about slavery in a book on inventions is not erasing history.  It's just not.  if the book was on the agricultural south, and it mentioned the cotton gin, but no mention of slavery, the point would be more salient.  There appears to be a rush in ensuring that a piece of children's literature must address a point of history that is not the topic of the book, and I don't see the merit behind that claim.  I am not saying that your observation isn't something to note, but when we are looking at the target audience, and the topic of the book, does bringing that up really do anything more than take away from what the book discusses?  And as a parent or a teacher (well, maybe not a teacher), can you not notice this and say "when I want to, I will discuss this portion".   This seems like given the topic of the book, the audience and how young they are, and the lack of clear malice as to make the black (slaves) folks as an inhumane or caricature, I chalk it up to at best a poor execution by the author and editor.  So again, I am going to respectfully disagree with you.  There are more relevant fish to fry than this one.

So this now gets into the discussion of how to teach history. 

Some people suggest that learning simply about inventions and memorizing the names of the people given credit for those inventions is a way to... erase certain aspects of history. Those people are not going to be able to suggest that in classrooms in a lot of states soon.

As to your point that we don't need to include the thing that makes the invention relavent... it seems to me that would be like saying the machine gun prolonged WWI but not saying why.  What's the point?

Planning is an exercise of power, and in a modern state much real power is suffused with boredom. The agents of planning are usually boring; the planning process is boring; the implementation of plans is always boring. In a democracy boredom works for bureaucracies and corporations as smell works for skunk. It keeps danger away. Power does not have to be exercised behind the scenes. It can be open. The audience is asleep. The modern world is forged amidst our inattention.

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