New South Carolina Law Requires Students to Learn Founding Documents
We need laws for this to happen now?
As we’ve documented countless times at College Insurrection, many students in America today have a flawed understanding of free speech and other Constitutional subjects.
There once was a time when it was safe to assume students were taught about the Constitution and America’s other founding documents, but the behavior on many campuses today suggests that’s no longer happening.
South Carolina just passed a new law to remedy this situation.
The Daily Signal reports:
This New Law Ensures South Carolina Students Will Study the Founding Documents
Gov. Nikki Haley, a Republican, signed a South Carolina House bill into law that implements the study of U.S. founding documents into the state’s public high schools.
The South Carolina Founding Principles Act requires the study of the United States Constitution, the Federalist Papers, and “the structure of the government and the role of separation of powers and the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights” to be added into statewide social studies programs.
This bill, signed June 1, reinforces South Carolina’s Section 59-29-120 that required all public education students, both in high school and in college, to pass a test after a year-long class on the founding documents and principles.
The Founding Principles Act bolsters the existing law by adding an accountability clause requiring the State Department of Education to report to the House and Senate Education Committees as well as the Public Works Committee every two years. This report will outline how South Carolina educators are teaching the documents in their classrooms.
As a member of Generation X, I was steeped in U.S. history from a young age during Saturday morning cartoons. This would probably be considered “triggering” on some campuses today:
This tweet from comedian Cameron Esposito proves my point:
Since zero women & zero people of color weighed in on US constitution when it was written, I assume it may occasionally need a few updates.
— Cameron Esposito (@cameronesposito) June 16, 2016
If the left ever succeeds in making the Constitution irrelevant, all bets are off.
As Trump sometimes asks, do we have a country or not?
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
“There once was a time when it was safe to assume students were taught about the Constitution and America’s other founding documents…”
Yes. Most often in “the little red school house”. I’m reminded of the test that was published years ago from around the turn of the last century that kids matriculating from high school were expected to pass, and how hard most kids today would be pressed to pass that same base-line test.
This is the comprehensive test that I found interesting. It might be what you are referring to
http://www.bullittcountyhistory.com/bchistory/schoolexam1912.html
It sounds good on paper, but I’m picturing the SJW filter being placed between the documents and the students.
Yes, for example that the Second Amendment provided for organized militias to have firearms.
Or that the First Amendment does not keep the federal government from stifling the religious practice of Christians.
Long before Trumps came along good people asked this question. A long time before Donny-come-lately came along people asked this question.
Trumps, the high-handed, is not the one to answer the question. He is a user of the question so as to enthrone his “Art of the Deal.”
When it comes to the basic documents, the less they’re “taught”, the better. Not that it’s all self-evident, but if it’s not “taught”, it can’t be perverted.
It wasn’t all that long ago that American high schools required a year of “Government” or “Civics” or some such thing. Although the founding documents themselves weren’t required; they did tend to be displaced by test questions about “franking privilege” and such trivia.
Yes, I can recall my 1959 Jr. High civics class where I was taught that “Communism was the ideal political system, only it has been perverted in Russia”.
Outstanding!
Jefferson was in favor of a government administered education system lest the next generation forget the value of our republic. He didn’t get his wish until the 19th century. I don’t think it has worked out the way he thought it would.
For a lot of our history, “public education” meant what the village or town got together to provide. The parents of the kids themselves.
There were “iterate teachers” who moved from town to town…with their families usually…competing for the dollars the local folks could afford, or for food and clothing.
From http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2041235/posts :
I’ve always required my students to read the Federalist Papers and they tell me it makes stimulating reading. But they say it’s the most difficult thing they’ve ever had to read in their entire academic careers. I can’t resist the Opportunity to comment on that a little bit. I usually tell them that there’s a reason they find it difficult.
The Federalist Papers were written for a very elite audience—the farmers of 18th century New York—to encourage them to support the Constitution. I tell my students: “You can’t expect to equal the farmers of 18th century New York because you’ve had twelve years of schooling here and some of you have been stunted still further by four years in a university. But if you really pull yourselves up by the boot straps, you might be able to remotely approach the level of academic sophistication of the farmers of 18th century New York.” Some of my students come close.
Wonderful observation. The Guthrie Readers were reprinted in the 60’s. They were an eye opener for me.
Obviously, Cameron Esposito is ignorant of the actions of those old, white men, who passed multiple amendments to get the point across that black people really are citizens, and to give women the vote.
But, SJWs tend to be both ignorant and stupid.
The answer to your question is yes, we absolutely do.
It’s bizarro leftist world we are living in when a law must be enacted to ensure teachers teach the truth.
But, we elected the likes of the whores of the GOPe that have allowed it all to happen on their watch.
Hillsdale College has a number of free online courses on this. I can recommend them. You can register on their site. Some are on YouTube search ‘hillsdale college online courses’.
In wasn’t that long ago, at least in historical terms, that they wouldn’t even let you into a college if you hadn’t studied Latin and/or Greek and read Virgil, Aristotle, Josephus, Ovid, Xenophon, Thucydides, etc.
The purpose of the university used to be the making of better people, but now they have become technical schools, including the “humanities”.
Yes, we need laws to force the liberals who dominate education to educate our children about the founding principles of this country. Otherwise, they will teach our children that the Constitution is an outdated document that can be ignored, where convenient.
Sad, but necessary.
“Yes, we need laws to force the liberals who dominate education to educate our children about the founding principles of this country.”
This is an odd way of thinking. If we know that “the liberals who dominate education” will not teach “our children” properly without being forced to by law (as if that could work), then why are we turning “our children” over to be educated by “the liberals”?
It’s time to change our habits of thought.