Virginia passes legislation prohibiting schools from teaching falsehoods about Jan. 6 riot - CBS News
" Virginia’s legislature has passed a bill prohibiting schools from teaching what it considers to be falsehoods about the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, including portraying it “as peaceful protest.”
and
"The bill says that school instruction must "Not describe, portray, or present as credible a description or portrayal of the actions precipitating or involved in the events of the January 6, 2021, insurrection as peaceful protest. Schools may also not “state, suggest, or present as credible a statement or suggestion that there was extensive election fraud that could have changed or actually changed the results of the 2020 presidential election.”
I think the Democratic Governor will sign this, and I certainly approve of it.
Sounds good, but I can’t help but wonder about the precedent that this will set. I wouldn’t be surprised if some opposite state like Oklahoma (with its Ryan Walters issues already) will pass laws to insist that elections or events be taught in school from an angle favoring Trump.
I think it’s just sad that something like this is even considered necessary. I mean, if the legislature thinks this is important enough to pass a bill on, that means it’s already being taught. But in any event I still don’t approve of it, nor any hyper-focused bill like this that dictates what can and can’t be taught in schools. School curriculum should be governed by local school boards, and if any teacher is teaching nonsense like this, they should be reprimanded or dismissed by them. Otherwise, it’s a hopeless game of whack-a-mole. Is the legislature going to pass bills relating to everything Trump says or every one of his acts? So the next bill will say that it is illegal to teach that Trump’s actions in attacking Iran were a lawful execution of his executive powers?
And if the school board itself believes and wants to propagate the lies?
This demonstrates a weakness of local control of school curriculum, which is a dinosaur that maybe should be allowed to lay down and die, along with the paying for schools by local property taxes. State-level control of school funding and curriculum has its own problems, but at least we would only have 50 varieties instead of hundreds or thousands.
Which also makes me wonder, which schools does the legislation govern? The article only says “schools,” is that also what the law says (I presume not)? What about privately funded schools?
The last time I was in a psych ward, I was in there with two adults who were born post-9/11. I asked them when they learned about the attacks. One said in third grade; the other, fifth grade.
I graduated in 2000, and I think my World History (not US, granted) took me as far as the fall of the Berlin Wall.
So you are in favor of the government mandating what can be taught?
Would you be equally in favor if a government mandated that biblical creation be taught in science class? How about teaching in hygiene class that vaccines are bad?
I think facts should taught in science class and the people shouldn’t be lied to in hygiene class, but I never was one to believe that opinions are the same as facts when it comes to validity, so what do I know, right?
Just mandating that they don’t lie to kids about science or history would prevent a lot of mischief. Mandating stupid stuff is not the same thing. There is an objective right and wrong here.
The problem here is that “facts” don’t mean the same things to all people. Who’s to be the arbiter of that? The government? The government often comes down to one person, and that person might not agree with you or me.
Laws like this tend to backfire eventually, and they’re hard to keep up to date. A teacher can modify a cuticulum on a daily basis; laws rarely do that.
In cases like this equating fact and falsehood is not a matter of theoretical possibilities where we have to take ignorance and knowledge and try to balance them. By the way, teachers are not supposed to arbitrarily modify curriculums, which they seem to be doing already.
Sure, it’d be better if states didn’t have to pass laws like this. But we’ve already got states mandating that schools teach that slavery was good. In an environment like that, sadly, laws like this are necessary.