Politicizing the Curriculum

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I didn’t call you homophobic. I don’t consider it strictly homophobic to not approve of homosexualily. Let’s take a breath and take it down a few notches. Now I’m not ordering and reading a book for the sake of an internet discussion, I hope you’ll forgive me. But I did look at it, and summaries, and reviews. Can you pull out anything about indoctrination in schools? Because the book is about social pressure and how it relates to diagnosis with homosexuality as a test case. I don’t see how this book does what you want it to do.

But please, your religion is informing your feelings on this. I doubt you say that math teachers indoctrinate students with Cartesian math. Or that physics teachers indoctrinate their students with Newton and Einstein.
 
Colleges have turned into playgrounds. Unless students have to take or want to take History, they might learn something. Debate? Why? What’s the point? The current politics is that this is a post-truth world. Not much matters besides money and pleasure. Unless your goal is to be a historian. And having done research on a professional level, 90% of doing good history is spent on doing a lot of real research. I watch people who have been doing such research for a long time and they are far above me in sheer quantity. And if I try to contribute and I quote a document or other source, and if I miss one very small detail or don’t know an abbreviation, it gets noticed very quickly.
 
I mean, I can’t speak for every university. But my university had a lower division history requirement and an upper division history requirement. And a lot of other credit requirements that history classes fulfill. I think the issue there is something else. Namely that our society doesn’t value education in subjects that don’t lead to jobs. History is an important subject, I think we both agree. We both sound passionate about history. But I promise you the first question any history student gets from their family and friends is “Hiiiiistory? When are you going to use thaaaat?”

In pursuing my degree in philosophy I took:

American History 1, 2, and 3
Women in American History
History of Film
World History
World Religions (which was a joint class between the history and philosophy department)
History of Christianity - Middle Ages through the Reformation. The professor’s speciality was depictions of saints.
History of Japan - pre-Sengoku to Meiji
History of European Thought, 1850-1920.
 
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Well, history is a very broad topic. And I don’t blame people who want a regular paycheck, as opposed to a maybe paycheck. Those who write history have to understand it, be passionate about it and be persistent. Taking the path of least resistance is fine if that is what you want. In the past, some people took jobs they hated and put in their 30 years. Regardless, it was their path to take. But this is getting off topic.
 
Your last two sentences are meaningless. Let’s get back to indoctrinating little kids about LGBT behavior.
 
How is it meaningless. You are calling and important facet of history indoctrination. I assume for the reason that was mentioned above (I don’t recall if it was you) that “it teaches them that being homosexual is acceptable”. You don’t like what’s being taught, so you call it indoctrination. Other things are being taught that you have no problem and don’t call that indoctrination.

Am I mischaracterizing you? Feel free to correct me. Why is it indoctrination, and why is it unacceptable. What distinguishes teaching and indoctrination? How can this matter be taught that isn’t indoctrination, but teaching?
 
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For people going back and forth, I think that one can make a clear distinction between indoctrinating kindergarteners with “Heather has two Mommies” and talking about boys liking boys and girls liking girls in such a way that any little kid will become confused because “liking people” shouldn’t really extend beyond being friends at that age, vs teaching high school students about how homosexuality was approached throughout history. Heck, within the context of the sexual revolution, talk about homosexuality makes a lot of sense. Turing lived right before that time so one can contextualize his experiences as a case study in a way that doesn’t have to be reduced to propaganda. Now whether people are talking fairly about gay issues in a way that doesn’t amount to propaganda is a different story. But again, that is a different story.
 
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