Board of education replaces course at 12 public universities with own US history curriculum, in latest ‘anti-woke’ attack
Educators are warning that college enrollment in Florida will plummet after the state removed sociology as a core class from campuses in the latest round of Ron DeSantis’s war on “woke ideology”.
The Republican governor’s hand-picked board of education voted on Wednesday to replace the established course on the principles of sociology at its 12 public universities with its own US history curriculum, incorporating an “historically accurate account of America’s founding [and] the horrors of slavery”.
The board faced a backlash last summer for requiring public schools to teach that forced labor was beneficial to enslaved Black people because it taught them useful skills.
The removal as a required core course of sociology classes, which Florida education commissioner and staunch DeSantis acolyte Manny Díaz insisted without evidence had “been hijacked by leftwing activists”, follows several other recent “anti-woke” moves in education in Florida.
US’s biggest problem IMO is undereducation. Lots of people seems to lack basic intellectual auto-defense skill. It’s been a problem for a long time, but given how easy AI makes it to create disinformation, the shit will eventually hit the fan and even the GOP will be beging for a minimal education cursus to fix the mess they created.
Education is valued in certain circles. But in others its utterly useless. In most trades it is looked down on.
I teach in an electrical apprenticeship and I don’t find that, students are eager to know more. What I do find is that my students are undereducated in logic and critical thinking skills. I get a lot of “can you just make me a checklist I can follow.”
I’m teaching computer networking and this hits the nail on the head. My students are plenty willing to learn answers to multiple choice questions. However, it is like pulling teeth trying to give them anything even slightly open ended. Sorry, at your real job the boss isn’t going to come up to you in a panic and say “the network went down, which of these 4 answers is the reason?”
Troubleshooting, researching, and having curiosity are all important in this field. I’m having difficulty getting them to see that, or care.
Me and my millenial siblings went to good schools, college, etc, but nothing at school seemed to encourage these things. In school it felt like a lot of tricks on how to be successful on multiple choice and short essay tests.
We were all typically ahead of our peers I think because at home we were taught art and handywork, how to research and solve problems on our own, how to think critically and be curious from a young age.
Among my cohort it seemed like the arts and creativity were seen as totally separate from technical work like programming. But some of the most successful people I’ve known in the computer science field have been very artistic as well. There are skills you learn outside of the typical ‘hard science’ curriculum that seem neglected.
It’s because education is sold as a way to get a job. Nobody communicates the value of being an educated person other than the salary one could potentially make.