Classroom Controversy: Nebraska's History Curriculum Draft Leaves Out Founding Fathers, Presents Global Warming as Fact
Is American exceptionalism up for debate? It seems to be at least in Nebraska, where there’s a battle over how American history should be taught to school children. An initial draft, which would set statewide standards, left out mention of the founding fathers - like George Washington, downplayed American exceptionalism and included guidelines that suggested that man-made global warming was a fact.
John Sieler, a Nebraska school board member, joined Fox and Friends to discuss this issue, saying, “It goes partly with the idea of, are we teaching concepts or memorizing facts? I believe that you have to know a certain amount of factual information before you can talk intelligently about a concept.”
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In terms of the concepts, he continued, “I do believe America is an exceptional nation and we need to teach that. We are the home of equality and freedom, that’s why people come here, people are lined up to come here, and that’s a very important concept that we need to teach our young students of any age.”
Sieler believes we need to teach students that there is a right and a wrong and said that the concept that all beliefs and ideas are created equal is not valid. “I just think that there are some ideas that we need to teach are that there are good ideas and some ideas that are not so good,” he said.
