Instead of boards like the one in Texas sanitizing history through the removal of historical figures they disagree with and inserting people that exalt their ideals, we should let the students delve into the controversial people. We need to realize that both sides of the political spectrum are guilty in having books written to promote their agenda. The conservatives in Texas are reacting against a history that ignored conservative teachings. Ignoring historical figures and events that disagree with our worldview is not history; it's brainwashing. What if we actually used education to encourage people to think rather than as a surgical object to brainwash students to our way of thinking?
Too often history has degraded into the rote memorization of facts and dates and not an understanding of people, how they relate to the world, and how we can transform the world into a better place. That's why history is boring for many people when it should be exciting.
All of these thoughts stemmed from an article that talked about Ave Maria being refused at a graduation ceremony: The Right Not To Be Offended: The Supreme Court And Religion. The Supreme Court refused to hear a case in which a superintendent did not allow a woodwind ensemble to perform an instrumental version of Ave Maria. The only people that won from that are people who don't want to expose their children to beauty. That does not seem like a good victory at all.
