STORM2K

I was helping my son with social studies homework last night. It was a unit about the indian wars in the late 1800's. One passage in the book struck me. It was talking about the grievences that the indians (er native americans) had about the white man taking their land.

The sentence in part read: "..greedy gold prospectors in the Black Hills.."

That may seem like a minor thing, and I'm sure that the native americans felt that way. But it sort of goes against the history I learned about the "opening" of the west. I didn't like the word "Greedy." The gold rushes happened, and nothing was going to stand in their way.

Definitely two sides to this story. Should the text books be presenting this "fair and balanced" or what?

i think you will find that in govt schools now, capitalism is rarely taught. no doubt this author considers looking for wealth to be "greedy"

Like you said Ed, it was going to happen anyway, but in the process, the Indian's land was taken away from them. If gold wasn't found, there wouldn't have been such a "rush" to go west and perhaps it would've lead to a better understanding between the Natives and the Settlers.

Well, maybe they were greedy.

I've been through the system, and I haven't seen any anti-capitalist stuff. It might lean slightly left of center, but there's no communism or anything like that. And certainly not indoctrination, which implies that children are forced to believe, for example, that all white people are evil, or whatever.

Stephanie wrote:Like you said Ed, it was going to happen anyway, but in the process, the Indian's land was taken away from them. If gold wasn't found, there wouldn't have been such a "rush" to go west and perhaps it would've lead to a better understanding between the Natives and the Settlers.

I agree 100% stephanie

Both Debi's college courses and coppertop's textbooks have been "revised" to reflect "politically correct" values, depending on whatever they are this week.

Debi has weathered the storm, and is coming out "intact"; coppertop has been introduced to "Dr. Delgado's Dictum", i.e. "ATF", or "Appease The Fool"...in sum, give them what they want to see, while retaining your core values in spite of the courseload. He is succeeding beyond all expectations.

Textbooks are rarely unbiased...try as they may(or in this case, may not). But the word "greedy" is troublesome because it implies motivation somewhat different than just plain "opportunity."

Interesting, Ed, how that might catch your eye these days but would not have meant much at all at the age of your sons.

Fortunately in real life we can rarely walk the fine line of political correctness and have any fun at all. Posts in these here parts of Storm2k reflect exactly that.