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Show I J i t Page A12 - THE DAILY HERALD, Provo, Utah, Sunday, November 6, 1994 Battle over how to teach history may itself prove historic from educators for newly By HUGH DELLIOS - LOS ANGELES The goal is to wipe out all those groans and glazed-ove- r looks that greet elementary and high school teachers when they bring up history, that most unpopular and boring of topics. The proposed solution, the nation learned last week, is to let American students seek out their own history in pursuit of what their nation is all about. Ask them to read Abigail Adams' letters to analyze how wom- en's rights improved after the American Revolution. Let them create a skit about the lives of slave Children based on books of the time. Have them find political cartoons of the late 19th century to examine intolerance of Catholic md Jewish immigrants. ' ; That is the gist of the first proposed national standards for teaching history, a 271 page manual unveiled Oct. 26 by an ethnically and panel facially diverse UCLA-le- d -- scholars and civic after two years of work. History Professor Gary Nash of 0ie University of California, Los Angeles, called the effort "nothing fess than a new American revolution in the teaching of history. ' ' Z- - But he and his fellow panelists Spoke too quickly when they Craised it as a consensus on how to look at the past. In the United States there never will be a consensus on how to look at the past. J, Even before the proposed standards hit the streets, they became the latest fodder in the cultural and ideological war ever the nation's jflentity and spirit. I A backlash by conservatives, jjlayed out on the op-e- d page of the IWall Street Journal and the radio In any event, they vol- plans. The result was less a debate over how effective the new standards would be in inspiring schoolchildren and more an exchange of angry accusations about hidden political agendas. Both sides charged the other was trying to create a past to world views. Calling the panel's proposal revisionist history, Cheney wrote in the Wall Street Journal that President Clinton's election had "unleashed the forces of political cor- mentioned as a possible Republican presidential candidate in 1996. So the proposed standards' first lesson was one of politics rather than history. But that should have come as no surprise, because the task of making history is politics, especially in a country as increasingly diverse and rapidly changing as the United States. "History is used to invent a nation, to tell you your identity, and here we have always had multiple identities," said William McNeill, there, and each is demanding a place in the sun." Adding to the controversy, the notion of national learning stan- of the country. They said it ignored some of the great figures of U.S. history because they were iyiew white males and instead empha- sized slavery, bigotry and other ;dark chapters of the nation's past. In defense, the panelists said the ; standards encourage students to d roles of examine the women and minorities in history. often-ignore- our schools. It will become official knowledge," she said. "But from this document, you'd think we were a nation that only experienced oppression and failure. It's a warped view of American history, with very little sense of our greatness as a nation." Other conservatives chimed in. host Rush Limbaugh Talk-sho- 19th-centu- ry retired University of Chicago but there are more voices out unquestioned in a section on slavery while the panel suggests that students put industrialist John D. Rockefeller on trial for having "knowingly and willfully participated in unethical and amoral business practices." Cheney contended that the stan- dards long has run counter to Americans' belief that education decisions should be left in the hands of state and local school officials. Ironically, the decision to draw up standards for what fifth through 12th graders should know about history originated in part with none other than Lynne Cheney when she served in the Bush administration. In 1992, after widespread praise dards, though voluntary, still would set the tone for classroom teachings and textbooks. "These standards are going to become the paradigm for history in "This (the report) does not make lists of names and dates. That's what I call and we hope we've done better than that," he said. "We're trying to light up these classrooms by getting kids' hands dirty in history. We want them to s redo things like the so not it's a 'Read debates, just bean-countin- g, i n rural Utah, what we appreciate most 11 about Orrin Hatch is that he's willing to take on the Clinton Administration. Wlien the President of the United States doesn't understand the West, and when the Secretary of the it Interior tries to lay waste to our water, grazing, and mining issues is extremely important to us, and to our way of life, that Orrin Hatch is our chief defender. " a RESULTS FOR RURAL UTAH 1 Mag Payment-In-Lieu-Of-Tax- 2 Lead the fight against the Clinton Administration's "War on the West" by blocking their proposals to radically and unfairly alter grazing fees and regulations, mining law, and taxes on energy. 3 Lead the fight that defeated the extreme mining law reform proposals in the 100th, 101st, 102nd and 103rd congresses. Additionally he has proposed reasonable reform of the 1872 mining law. is not better. That's why only Pearle Vision offers MicroTHIN lenses. 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AS HIGH AS: 7. 10 y, (J APY 6 Protected local interest by ensuring an equitable resolution of the Atlas and Monticello mill tailings issues. 7 Proposed and fought for the protection of private property rights from excessive federal intrusion. 8 Brought balance to environmental policy in the reform of the Superfund SAVINGS INSURED TO HIGH YIELD CERTIFICATES OF DEPOSIT law, reauthorization of the Safe Drinking Water Act, and reauthorization of the Clean Water Act. ANNUAL TERM MONTH... 12 MONTH.. 18 MONTH.. 24 MONTH.. STATES SENATOR PERCENTAGE $500 $100,000 BY NCUA, THE BEST CAPITALIZED FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE FUND. YIELDS $100,000 MINIMUM 6 ED '! I ) Endangered Species Act and the protection of private property rights. 5 Is a leading promoter and protector of RS2477 which are essential to the basic transportation infrastructure of rural Utah. rights-of-wa- g.j mm 4 Continues to fight for reform of the legislation to more than double payments made to counties under the Program (P1LT). PILT payments are made to counties with large amounts of federally owned land. changing ethnic and social makeup of the nation . textbook and swallow it as the one and only truth. ' That's why history NewHamwny TT The historians do not deny there here. The proposed standards reflect the is a little revisionism Lincoln-Dougla- "ORRIN HATCH HAS BEEN THE CHIEF DEFENDER OF RURAL UTAH." 6 wealthy man. CauseMsWe Side Effects. Pearle. Pearle Met Johnson, which certainly would raise the name Robert E. Lee. He noted all 19 references to McCarthy were, on two pages of the document, and that two pages before it is suggested that Rockefeller go on trial, industrialist Andrew Carnegie is quoted on the moral duties of a OurAlicroTIW Lenses By history professor who helped draft the standards. "This controversy over American history is not new, ' boring and unpopular. Nash said students are asked to discuss Civil War military leaders, is so comprehensive history that emphasizes diverse aspects of the nation's past, good and bad, and to have students examine them from diverse perspectives. said the new standards should be ' ' flushed down the toilet. " UCLA professor Nash, chief architect of the new standards, said there was no effort to omit great figures from the past. Instead, he said, the panel only wanted to en anti-slave- ry activist Harriet Tubman. contrast, she found the document did not mention Robert E. Lee, Paul Revere, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, J. P. Morgan, Alexander Graham Bell, Jonas Salk or the Wright brothers. Cheney criticized the report for not having a separate section on the U.S. Constitution. And she noted that its authors used "celebratory prose" only to describe people, places and events that she regarded as "politically correct." For instance, she said, the wealth of a West African king is a courage w materials. More than 6,000 drafts of the document were circulated. Along with standards for teaching world history, which are to be released next month by the same panel, the U.S. standards must be approved by a National Education Standards and Improvement Council soon to be named by Clinton. Cheney received one of the early drafts and immediately began counting. She found 19 references to 1950s Wisconsin Sen. Joe McCarthy, 17 to the Ku Klux Klan, nine to the American Federation of Labor and six to rectness." Other conservatives complained the panel was stacked with liberals and radicals. Some historians, in turn, wondered at the connection between Cheney's criticism and the political plans of her husband, Bush administration Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, who frequently is from here as a nation. ; "Led by Lynne Cheney, former Jie'ad of the National Endowment for the Humanities, conservatives argued that the proposal offered a distorted, "politically correct" teachers, curriculum experts, history professors, church leaders and public interest groups. The result was a complex document dividing U.S. history into 10 eras, the latest era stretching from 1968 to the present. The guidelines lay out broad concepts that students should master in each period and suggest learning methods such as skits, of speeches and research on original source correspond with their disparate a '. tory in the Schools, which set up a council to draft the standards. Over the next two years, the council consulted with hundreds of untary guidelines, and teachers and textbook writers would decide whom to include in their lesson talk show circuit, demonstrated rjoy those boring names and dates from the past play a significant role im5n" Americans' age of ourselves, and where we go ever-changi- The project was awarded to UCLA's National Center for His- emphasized, the standards were intended as pub- lished national standards for teach- -' ing mathematics, art and geography, Cheney approved a grant of $525,000 for the history project. The Education Department added a second grant of $865,000. fJews Analysis Chicago Tribune 30 36 48 60 MONTH.. MONTH.. MONTH.. MONTH.. ..5.15. ...5.40 ..5.45.... 5.70 ..5.75.... 6.00 ..6.00.... 6.30 ..6.20.... 6.50 ..6.40.... 6.70 ..6.60.... 6.90 ..6.80.... 7.10 N I V I I I k I Campus CreditUnion Main Phorw: 2 8 Telephone Local: Inleresl penalty for early withdrawal. No principal penalty. OHCUA lTLILI ' r i |