{"id":3257,"date":"2019-06-14T07:52:13","date_gmt":"2019-06-14T11:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/?p=3257"},"modified":"2019-06-14T07:52:13","modified_gmt":"2019-06-14T11:52:13","slug":"michigan-social-studies-curriculum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/?p=3257","title":{"rendered":"Michigan Social Studies Curriculum"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"560\" height=\"415\" src=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/JPA192.jpg\" alt=\"Michigan Social Studies Curriculum\" class=\"wp-image-3258\" srcset=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/JPA192.jpg 560w, http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/JPA192-300x222.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>To\n be clear: I&#8217;m proud of our nation, our history, and especially our \nideals. I am proud to be an American. But some of the things we do just \nmystify me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This  past week the Michigan Board of Education approved an update to the  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michiganradio.org\/post\/michigan-board-education-approves-new-social-studies-curriculum\">curriculum for social science studies in Michigan<\/a>. There was some  controversy. Initially, some standards proposed by conservatives hewed  too closely to their unique views of the world. Those were cut back, but  the standards approved by the Board have been assailed as inaccurate  and anti-Christian. It all seems like an excellent prompt for a  classroom of young minds to learn civil discourse and critical thinking.  But unfortunately it&#8217;s mostly a crude game for political points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Honestly,\n I wouldn&#8217;t be reacting (overreacting?) to all this in a normal week. \nBut this is the week that The New York Times decided it would no longer \nrun political cartoons. A brief backstory: In April, a Times editor \ndecided to run a syndicated cartoon in its international edition \ndepicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a guide dog \nwearing a Star of David collar tag and leading a blind, yarmulke-wearing\n President Trump. It was widely seen as anti-Semitic. Because it was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\n Times appropriately apologized and promised corrective action. First, \nthey over-corrected by announcing they would no longer use syndicated \ncartoons. Then this week they WAY over-corrected sacking their staff \ncartoonists, the brilliant Patrick Chappatte and Heng Kim Song, to bring\n the international edition &#8220;&#8230;into line with the domestic paper by \nending daily political cartoons.&#8221; (The flagship Times paper famously and\n inexplicably has not had a daily cartoonist for decades.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\n are much deeper weeds for me to get into here, but I don&#8217;t want to drag\n you all down into the specifics of my obvious self-interest. Let me \njust say this: When political points or job safety become more important\n than thoughtful discussion, we become less American (or at least the \nkind of American we ought to be).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To be clear: I&#8217;m proud of our nation, our history, and especially our ideals. I am proud to be an American. But some of the things we do just mystify me. This past week the Michigan Board of Education approved an update to the curriculum for social science studies in Michigan. There was some controversy. [&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-3257","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\/3257","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=3257"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3259,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3257\/revisions\/3259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}