Sabrina Reyes

11/7/15
B4

A More Patriotic American History

It was around the end of my Junior year when I first heard of this case. Our AP U.S.
History teacher had us all seated, waiting to teach us about the extremities of the 1960s. She first
reminded us about the AP test that had been coming up shortly, and then started telling us about
an unusual story about this test that she had found on the interweb. The story was about 55
Scholars in Jefferson County, Colorado rejecting new AP History lessons. They had been
speaking out against the U.S. History curriculum, arguing that the new test only focused on
Americas shortcomings in History rather than the good and called it Pervasive Anti-Patriotism
(Fox News Insider). I remember my teacher laughing about how absurd those professors claims
were stating that if that ended up being the case, there wouldnt be very much to teach. Rather
than go on with our lesson about Vietnam and the many different protest movements going on
here in the U.S. of A., we ended up having a debate over this particular issue. I, and many others
ended up being on the side that agreed to the fact that we as students should not be meant to go
through countless hours of school just to be taught a sugarcoated version about our countrys
history.
Our country shouldnt have to hide anything about our nation's history from its students,
whether it be good, bad, or ugly. The point of progression is to learn from our past mistakes so
that we can build and create a better future. If our school curriculums decide to hide all the bad
and just keep the good, how will we ever know what parts of our history not to repeat or what we

need to do to better our country from how it was before? We and the future generations of
students that would be affected by this are going to be running this country one day, and we do
not deserve to be taught the censored version of history, we deserve to be taught the truth.
Patriotism by definition is your love for your country and your willingness to sacrifice for
it (Vocabulary.com). Our country has always deemed it important to show great pride and love
towards our country with things like waving the flag, playing patriotic songs, and making
speeches full of national pride whenever our country is at war and so on and so forth. Going off
and defending our country through times of trials, wars and tribulations have always been
recorded down for the books for people in the future to learn about and study. Sacrifices have
always been made to help keep and preserve this country. Many of those sacrifices recorded in
the books were bad ones, too. The scholars believe that the current curriculum focuses too much
on race, gender, civil disorder and American-bashing, and that it would be deemed more
patriotic to reconstruct the contents of the course to promote what they believe is a more positive
view of United States history (The Ballard Talisman). Not only would this new patriotic action
deprive students of a proper education, the list of events that they would have to sweep under the
rug would be damagingly huge. If we censored out all the ugly parts of our history, we would be
censoring out many upon many of the sacrifices that our ancestors, forefathers, etc. worked hard
to record and just about give patriotism a whole new definition all together.
This idea of demarcating and preserving the blind spots rather than promoting
enlightenment has been around since about 90 years ago with the theory of evolution when
Tennessee banned the teaching of any theory that contradicted the biblical story of the divine
creation. It ended up going to the supreme court stirring up many battles over teaching, or not
teaching, evolution in public schools (Washington Post). Although it isnt as prominent as it was

before, the theory of evolution, sex ed. and many others have all come under fire as controversial
topics to teach in schools. The fact that states are now trying to ban certain parts of U.S. History,
specifically the parts that might be uncomfortable, unflattering, shameful and unpatriotic is
beyond me. Our history has never been perfect. We have had our ups and downs and all of those
ups and downs, even the ones that havent been recorded in the books have helped the country be
what it is today. While it is good to talk about the good things and to emphasize on them, it is
also good to emphasize and talk about the bad as well. If we only taught our students about how
perfect our Country is, what would we be teaching them? Also lets think about how
constitutional this decision really is.
The first amendment clearly states that Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the
Government of a redress of grievances. (Findlaw) Let me emphasize one particular phrase:
freedom of speech. If we take out all the negative parts in our country's history, we are taking
away the voices of all those people who sacrificed so much to mold what our country is today.
Our forefathers and the people who helped build this country, who even made it possible for us
to even have these amendments to construct the government that we have in these present days,
had to go through many different trials and torments to even let this freedom be possible. To hide
everything that it took to get to where we are now, would almost be doing them a great
disservice. Not only is it going against the point of freedom of speech and expression, but it is
ignoring the fact that we wouldnt have gotten as great and wonderful as we are now without
our failures.

The Jefferson County school board, as was mentioned earlier, are not alone in their
beliefs. They have other states such as Georgia, Texas, South Carolina and North Carolina
agreeing to this new policy as they believe it would promote patriotism and respect for
authority (International Business Times). A political group called Americans for Prosperity in
Colorado spoke out about their defense claiming that, an aversion to making a few people
uncomfortable cannot be an excuse to walk away from the need to reform (The Ballard
Talisman).
Their statements have mostly come under fire after the school board turned in their more
patriotic version and they had it approved. Many people called it an attempt by the board to
advance a conservative political agenda. There ended up being reports describing a tempestuous
board meeting where audiences ended up yelling resign and recall, recall (International
Business Times). The students and teachers didnt end up taking the news about their new
change very well either. After it had been announced, hundreds of students and teachers walked
out of the school in protest. The protest ended up lasting for weeks after the fact. Not only was
the protest extremely moving, but it was also effective. The school board did end up backing
down from the more extreme demands they put, but they still intend for there to be review
committees for it (The Ballard Talisman).
If students and teachers can see that the failures of history play such a big role in our
countrys success and would be a big mistake to ignore, it goes to show in a sense how important
our countrys failures are in our step to success. Nobody can go through life without the difficult
times. Our country was, is, and will always be run by imperfect people trying to make this
country a better place than it was before. Of course, our country has had its bad moments, but
thats the beauty of it; the key to its success. The leaders of our country would not have known

how to better it if they didnt learn from our failures or our past mistakes. Our country would not
be as progressed as it is if we didnt acknowledge the fact that something was wrong with it, or if
history was repeating itself. If we just up and front decided that we needed to hide all the bad and
keep all the good and teach that to our generations and future generations to come, what would
we be teaching them about our Country? What would we be teaching them about their own
lives?
If the many mistakes and tragedies the United States has gone through are just flat out
ignored and forgotten, we as a people will never learn from them, thus leading our country to a
progression decline. Great people do not come from success alone, they suffer many failures and
trials in their lives to grow to being the person they can look in the mirror and call success. Not
only is that true to us individually, but it is also true for a country. As the late civil rights leader
and U.S. Senator Adam Clayton Powell Jr. wisely said, There is no future for people who deny
their past.