Sunday’s column: Textbook publisher botches history, again
Yanked from Roanoke County middle schools
You may recall that two years ago, the company Five Ponds Press found itself flailing in a sea of embarrassment over clumsy errors and disputed “facts” in history textbooks it sold to Virginia schools.
An eagle-eyed reader from Roanoke County recently spotted yet another error in one of the Connecticut publisher’s corrected editions.
This one puts words in the mouth of Thomas Jefferson, one of the most revered Virginians ever.
The 2010 controversy was over mistakes in first editions of “Our Virginia: Past to Present” and “Our America To 1865.” One was that thousands of black soldiers had fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War. Another was the year that America entered World War I.
It later transpired that the author of both books had gleaned most of the errors from the Internet.
In response, the state board of education ordered a review of all history textbooks. Five Ponds hired professors to comb over and in some cases rewrite its volumes. They replaced the erroneous versions with ones that had historians’ stamp of approval.
The updated version of “Our America” stayed in some Roanoke County middle schools, and elsewhere in the commonwealth.
That book was issued to the reader’s sixth-grade daughter last month. On page 95 he found this quote attributed to Jefferson, our nation’s third president.
“When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”
That sounds nice and neat, huh? The only problem is, there’s no evidence Jefferson ever wrote or said such a thing. That’s the verdict from leading Jefferson historians. At Monticello.org they’ve devoted an entire Web page to denying it.
READ THE REST OF THIS COLUMN HERE.
September 2, 2012 - 6:00 AM
I’ve seen a whole lot of these spurious quotations on Facebook. Most with a pretty little picture.
http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/spurious-quotations
Our schools have WAY too much money if they can afford to replace textbooks solely based on a single quote that may or may not have been said by someone.
“When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”
Dan
I am curious. Do you believe that statement is true?
People lie… same old, same old. Sigh.
My personal favorite is the endless attack on Wikipedia’s write up of founding father Thomas Paine by Christian liars, who are terrified of his great Deist book The Age of Reason.
At one time, and it took months to get it corrected, they had some quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin wherein he bashes the crap out of Paine about that book. And no doubt, people believed it.
However, Franklin was a Deist himself. Second, Franklin held Paine in exceptionally high regard. And of course, the third tiny problem is that Franklin died four years before Paine wrote the book.
“Our schools have WAY too much money if they can afford to replace textbooks solely based on a single quote that may or may not have been said by someone.”
Henry, I’m certain that if the books erroneously said the line was first uttered by an anonymous character named Henry on Dan Casey’s Blog, that the schools would not bother to replace them.
But you and Jefferson are two quite different cups of tea. The fact you see no difference is actually quite humorous.
Terps,
I am curious. If I told you I did agree should we demand that historians acknowledge Jefferson said it?
Paine, Franklin and Jefferson sound like revolutionary red diaper doper babies. Obviously they were unAmerican. Ha!
“It’s one thing for some ignorant yahoos to trumpet phony history online. Most of us realize by now that the Internet is a bottomless well of numskullery.
It’s quite another when such fake history worms its way into school textbooks, especially those reputed to be the best available. Our children use those as a foundation for knowledge they carry with them for the rest of their lives.”
Dan, I agree with you about the internet being a pit of inaccurate drivel and opinion that too many people assume to be factual information. All you have to do is look at the links offered as “proof” by many of the posters in these threads to find ample evidence of this. People assert that the facts support their opinion and then cite someone else’s opinion as proof. However, I think the quote above, from your column is demonstrative of an attitude that exacerbates this problem. You too easily dismiss the the effect of misinformation on the web and trumpet the importance of textbooks. Our generation (yours and mine) may have depended on textbooks as the “foundation for knowledge” we carry for the rest of our lives. However, that is no longer true for the current generation of students. Where we turned to textbooks and encyclopedias, they turn to the ‘net. The so called ‘information age’ has bred generations that don’t know how to do actual academic research and that instead relies on the web because it is quicker, easier and far less boring than books.
While I agree wholeheartedly that they should be able to depend on the accuracy of textbooks, I would go further and say we as a society need to recognize that future generations are relying on the internet as their foundation of knowledge and in turn, to find a way ensure the accuracy and reliability of information available on the net. At the very least internet postings should be very clearly labeled to distinguish fact from opinion and that which is presented as fact should be fully sourced. The political leanings of the internet sources and groups should also be fully disclosed, because as most learned people can agree, people of strong passion tend to skew the “facts” to support their beliefs.
Terps,
I am curious. If I told you I did agree should we demand that historians acknowledge Jefferson said it?
Ok Dan, it looks like there’s hope for you. I’ll get you an application to the Tea Party ASAP.
If the FF were alive today, they’d be like the Occupy people, except that instead of peacefully being on a corner and making their presence known, they’d blow up city hall and march on Richmond.
The FF were fire-eating radicals and revolutionaries. If Sam Adams had had a nuclear bomb, he’d probably have dropped it on London. They were not the complacent reactionary status-quo addicts represented by Conservatives today.
@ Chuck
I agree with you that more students use the Internet for research and information than use textbooks. That doesn’t mean we don’t hold publishers to a high expectation for accuracy. What we read impacts us – whether in print or online.
I vividly remember my 7th grade VA history textbook that showed a picture of slaves working in a field and the text was “slaves wore bright bandanas and sang while they worked”. I didn’t believe it but I know some of my fellow students swallowed it hook-line-and-sinker.
As a teacher, I often hear students report – “I read it online”….just like some posters here…just as lazy.
Great. Now all they have to do is have objective real scientists correct the manmade global warming myth in all the science textbook.
10.
Really? I had no idea the FF were alcoholic unemployed dirtbags. And where did you get the idea these dirtbags aren’t violent or destructive?
Next, Suze will be demanding that scientists reverse their previously disputed (by a handful of science whores on the tobacco-industry payroll) findings that smoking cigarettes increases the risk of heart disease and lung cancer.
Kristen,
Saying that the “occupy” folks are peaceful is a “riot”… pun intended…lol
Chuck,
Well said…
“When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”
I’m all for proper attribution of quotes, but suspect the big-picture problem with this quote in a public school textbook has more to do with allowing children in “progressive”, leftist society to think this way.
“No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms.” There’s a Jefferson quote they can replace it with, LOL.
As a teacher, I often hear students report – “I read it online”….just like some posters here…just as lazy.
Comment by Blacksburg Suz — September 2, 2012 @ 12:07 pm
Blacksburg Suz, that’s why one of the most important skills we can impart to our students is critical thinking.
@ #15 Mike O… You mocked Kristen for saying the “occupy folks are peaceful”….
How many riots did Occupy Roanoke have?
How many riots did Occupy Lynchburg have?
How many riots did Occupy Martinsville have?
How many riots did Occupy Charlottesville have?
How many riots did Occupy Richmond have?
How many riots did Occupy Norfolk have?
How many riots did Occupy Northern VA have?
Are you getting the picture yet? ZERO.
There were 1500 cities with Occupy groups in the United States. The only thing the BILLIONAIRE OWNED mainstream media focused on were 2 cities…
New York, NY where THE POLICE ATTACKED the demonstrators.
Oakland, CA where THE POLICE ATTACKED the demonstrators.
If you really love this country you’ll consider getting a vasectomy for the rest of us.
Ron May:
“…one of the most important skills we can impart to our students is critical thinking.”
Absolutely. It seems that thinking itself has become a chore for so many.
#18 Well, according to one of our right-wing posters, the OWSers littered, slept in, defecated in and scared families away from Elmwood Park. Of course said right winger couldn’t ever produce any proof any of that happened and then he just went silent about it.
As long as we are into Jefferson quotes, how about this one:
“Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence: and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being. I separate therefore the gold from the dross; restore to him the former, and leave the latter to the stupidity of some, and roguery of others of his disciples. Of this band of dupes and impostors, Paul was the great Coryphaeus, and first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus. These palpable interpolations and falsifications of his doctrines led me to try to sift them apart.” – Thomas Jefferson to William Short, Monticello, 13 April 1820 — EG 392. Recipient copy available at the College of William and Mary. Polygraph copy available at the Library of Congress.
———-
Now for those who care, find some non-Paulian NT quotes to support the alleged Christian role of women? Have fun.
Or:
“Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem , “I prefer the tumult of liberty to the quiet of servitude. … It prevents the degeneracy of government, and nourishes a general attention to the public affairs. I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.” – Jefferson to James Madison, January 30, 1787
And finally:
“As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun. While this gives a moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprize, and independance to the mind. Games played with the ball and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks.” — Jefferson to Peter Carr, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 8:406
Dave Hicks, Jefferson wouldn’t be elected today. I can’t see most of today’s voters having the attention span necessary or appreciation for him.
In contrast someone who says “hope” or “change” and a little filler is a winner with them.