{"id":3013,"date":"2018-06-15T08:15:02","date_gmt":"2018-06-15T12:15:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/?p=3013"},"modified":"2018-06-15T09:15:51","modified_gmt":"2018-06-15T13:15:51","slug":"the-colbeck-curriculum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/?p=3013","title":{"rendered":"The Colbeck Curriculum"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/?attachment_id=3014\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-3014\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-3014\" src=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/JPA141.jpg\" alt=\"The Colbeck Curriculum\" width=\"560\" height=\"414\" srcset=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/JPA141.jpg 560w, http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/JPA141-300x222.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.2gdata.com\/?art=\/2018\/06\/JPA141.jpg&amp;name=The Colbeck Curriculum...\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.2gtech.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/buy.png\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Michigan state Senator and gubernatorial candidate Patrick Colbeck has been involved in recent efforts to update the social studies curriculum for K\u201312 public schools. Colbeck&#8217;s stated goals are to \u201cremove partisanship from the classroom\u201d and move students towards a more &#8220;politically neutral&#8221; dialogue that offers a balanced view of historical issues. Perhaps he is sincere, but few promulgate a more politically non-neutral agenda than Patrick Colbeck.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bridgemi.com\/talent-education\/history-gets-conservative-twist-michigan-social-studies-standards\">Bridge Magazine<\/a> has a very thorough article about this and one of its authors, Lindsay VanHulle, discussed it on <a href=\"http:\/\/michiganradio.org\/post\/conservative-politicians-aim-scrub-climate-change-lgbtq-history-social-studies-curriculum\">Michigan Radio&#8217;s Stateside<\/a> earlier this week. One of the more revealing examples of Colbeck&#8217;s ambitions is his assertion that the term &#8220;democratic&#8221; implies partisan leanings. As a result, 13 references to \u201ccore democratic values\u201d have been deleted or changed to \u201ccore values.\u201d Politicians defining word usage for all has &#8220;dystopian&#8221; written all over it. More chilling, Colbeck confided that he only got about a 10th of what he wanted.<\/p>\n<p>Colbeck reminds me of Frank Burns, the character played by Larry Linville in the 1970s sitcom, M*A*S*H. Specifically, the episode in which the 4077 is preparing for a visit from General Douglas MacArthur. The scene opens with Frank merrily tossing items into a fire as fellow doctors, Trapper and Hawkeye, approach:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Trapper:<\/strong> Frank! What are you doing?<br \/>\n<strong>Frank Burns:<\/strong> Burning books.<br \/>\n<strong>Hawkeye:<\/strong> Oh. Any special reason, Dr. Hitler?<br \/>\n<strong>Frank Burns:<\/strong> One of the greatest living Americans is coming and I&#8217;m not going to let him see some of the trash that&#8217;s read around here.<br \/>\n<strong>Trapper:<\/strong> Plato&#8217;s Republic? The Life of Red Grange?<br \/>\n<strong>Hawkeye:<\/strong> Revolutionaries.<br \/>\n<strong>Frank Burns:<\/strong> Right!<br \/>\n<strong>Trapper:<\/strong> Robinson Crusoe?<br \/>\n<strong>Hawkeye:<\/strong> Everybody runs around half naked.<br \/>\n<strong>Trapper:<\/strong> Norman Mailer.<br \/>\n<strong>Frank Burns:<\/strong> It&#8217;s got *that word* in it.<br \/>\n<strong>Hawkeye:<\/strong> Frank, you burn one more book, I&#8217;m gonna give you a dancing lesson in the mine field.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Can we at least agree that the last person we want our next governor to emulate is Frank Burns?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michigan state Senator and gubernatorial candidate Patrick Colbeck has been involved in recent efforts to update the social studies curriculum for K\u201312 public schools. Colbeck&#8217;s stated goals are to \u201cremove partisanship from the classroom\u201d and move students towards a more &#8220;politically neutral&#8221; dialogue that offers a balanced view of historical issues. Perhaps he is sincere, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,10,13,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-andrewheller-com","category-editorial-cartoon","category-michiganpress-org","category-michiganradio-org"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3013"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3013\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3019,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3013\/revisions\/3019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}