The Beginning of the End: U.S. History Censorship in Public Schools

School censorship of history, and regular neglect of recent history all together, may well be the greatest injustice to would-be American adults. The recent fuss in Jefferson County, Colorado is evidence enough that partisan officials are subverting education starting by excluding teachers unions from the decisions regarding their school district, and ending with omitting important aspects of U.S. History. They claim the analysis of curriculum is to "review curricular choices for conformity to Jeffco academic standards, accuracy and omissions", and present information accurately and objectively. How can you expect conformity AND academic standards through censorship? Your act of censorship immediately lowers your academic standards. How can information, riddled with omissions, be accurate or objective?

The act of censoring, by definition, makes the remaining information quite distinctly subjective.

It's no wonder that young adults have increasingly limited coping skills. How is anyone expected to cope with the horrors of our collective past as they echo in our ever changing future if they are not given the chance to digest the information over time? The intention of protecting our children rarely works, and is often sought after moreso than preparing our children. For the record, there is no "protecting our children". It's a myth; an illusion, as sure as perfection, that will never be achieved. What's worse is that in the pursuit of this illusion, we, perhaps unintentionally, hand over those children to anxious and unnecessarily complex lives.

The great irony is we make vulnerable that which we attempt to protect.

I'm quite sure, however, the current outlawing of historical events in public schools in Colorado in order to "not encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law" has little to do with protecting children. This reeks of adults attempting to control youth through censorship; exactly the kind of behavior that incites social strife and civil disorder. Removing important aspects of history, even current events, has a way of finding its way into the hands and minds of people, and removing it from the forefront only begs the question: what are you hiding?

Remember this? And how outraged the public was to be shielded from an issue like a child in need of coddling? Yeah.

It wasn't a stand alone incident.

And you wonder why people go into a panic when something happens in the world!

Because censorship does nothing but make people angry when they finally find out the truth.

And apparently Americans are so self-centered that they'd rather hear about themselves ad nauseum. 

And can only handle rehashed, unsubstantial self-analysis, but can't deal with current events or adult situations. No, not American adults. Maybe it's because of their limited education *ahem*!

Now, don't let yourself be fooled. This isn't protecting six-year-olds, who are pretty well sheltered from the truth of life as it is. No, this censorship would go all the way to the end of public school's reach, affecting A.P. History, whose credit would be honored at higher education institutions. Higher education cannot function under the presumption of being "more than" general education when its sources are restricting knowledge on a foundational level. "Higher education" cannot be the establishment for which our nation's youth finally learns an unbiased version of U.S. History. Does this mean that the general populace is doomed to live in a shroud of deception? As it is, these youth could hardly be considered children any more. 

If high school students can be convicted of manslaughter by being given the responsibility of driving, then they can handle the gravity of their ancestors' legacy. 

Preparing for their personal authority as legal drivers and legal adults similarly requires thorough examination of the law as it applies to them. Denying young adults the information from our past also denies them the understanding of their legal rights: their right to peaceably gather, their right to protest, and, should it come to that, the right to abolish the government. 

Please, please, PLEASE take a moment to sign the petition to help prevent setting a precedent of censorship in our schools.