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submitted 7 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

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.

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[-] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 167 points 7 months ago

Although the general education classes like psychology and sociology are annoying, they're all essential knowledge for being an educated human being. It's a shame Florida wants their population to be ignorant conservatives.

[-] spider@lemmy.nz 82 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

ignorant conservatives

If you're referring to today's definition of "conservative", that's redundant.

[-] Evkob@lemmy.ca 65 points 7 months ago

When was conservatism not ignorant? Certainly not in my lifetime. It's been an ideology of anti-intellectualism for at least three decades now.

[-] spider@lemmy.nz 43 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

True, but now it's off the rails.

Edit:

Margaret Goldwater advocated for birth control and reproductive rights in the United States during the twentieth century. Goldwater was a socialite and philanthropist and was married to Barry Goldwater, US Senator from Arizona. She spent much of her life working to further the women's reproductive rights movement, which sought to expand women's legal, social, and physical access to reproductive healthcare, including contraception and abortions.

source

Barry Goldwater was considered the father of the modern conservative movement; his wife's work would likely result in his excommunication from today's Republican Party.

[-] otp@sh.itjust.works 13 points 7 months ago

I feel like Conservatism USED to be "How can we save money and prepare for a better financial future as a country/state/etc.?"...

It kind of moved along the lines of "How can we stop ~~financially~~ supporting things and people that are different to us?"

Now, the financial part is just an excuse.

[-] grue@lemmy.world 32 points 7 months ago

I feel like Conservatism USED to be “How can we save money and prepare for a better financial future as a country/state/etc.?”…

No, that's always been nothing more than a lie conservatives tell to try to excuse their abhorrent policies.

What conservatism really used to be was defending the monarchy, and it still is. I was going to say "...and the only thing that's changed is that they no longer try to use 'divine right' as a justification and prefer a different title for the autocrat in charge," but nope!

[-] JustZ@lemmy.world 9 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Every conservative I know I have tricked into defending the British at the Boston Massacre and at the Boston Tea Party. Just don't drop the name of the event and they will go nuts. Kids throwing snowballs at police? No wonder they got shot, they asked for it. A mob breaking into private property and destroying commercial goods? That's not a protest that's a riot, someone should have put the dogs down!

[-] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 11 points 7 months ago

The word you’re looking for is “Reagan”.

[-] spider@lemmy.nz 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Now, the financial part is just an excuse.

It's just lip service; they're quick to waste taxpayer dollars on lawsuits, migrant flights to blue states, etc.

[-] cygnus@lemmy.ca 14 points 7 months ago

It’s been an ideology of anti-intellectualism for at least three decades now.

30 years is maybe pushi... Oh wait, that's only 1994. Yeah, you're right.

[-] JayDee@lemmy.ml 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

The Luddite movement was conservative. The Luddite movement was also exactly right about where work automation would lead.

I'd also argue anti-colonialist guerrillas are usually trying to conserve their way of life, making them conservative.

Sometimes conservatism can be pretty based.

[-] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 30 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

classes like psychology and sociology are annoying

It’s a bummer that you had that experience. Mine were absolutely fascinating. That said, my school had some flagship social science departments, so the people that instructed there were not the b-team.

If a university doesn’t have a good program in a particular discipline, good people don’t want to work there, and the current staff often don’t have the expertise to hire for it.

[-] grue@lemmy.world 9 points 7 months ago

The quality of an overall department and the quality of classes taken by non-majors to fulfill degree requirements are two different things. For example, my university has a great architecture school, but that didn't stop the "history of industrial design" class I took to fulfill my art requirement (as an engineering major) from being mostly an exercise in memorizing pictures of chairs.

[-] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago

Did your university have a good industrial design or product design department? Industrial design is very very different than architecture. (I went to school for industrial design and instructed university courses in the department)

[-] grue@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

It appears to be ranked in the top 10 in the lists I checked, so yes.

[-] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

Interesting. Bummer that you got a shit class. Mine GE history glass was pretty good, and it got into the different design movements, what drove them, and how they impacted industrialization, usability, accessibility, and other elements of contemporary life.

[-] Bakkoda@sh.itjust.works 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

English comp at RIT back when it was trimesters. I'll never understand. Not a technical writing class or shutting that could really benefit a tech heavy student base. English comp freshman year. Miserable.

[-] jadedwench@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

Thankfully I transferred in and didn't have to take miserable English courses by a tech focused University. The technical writing course I had to take at RIT was easy mode. The guy gave us all of the homework for the entire quarter on the first day and as long as it was all turned in before then, that was ok. It was a required class that I personally did not need due to my previous education and I don't think I spent more than a few hours total to get an A.

[-] Bakkoda@sh.itjust.works 1 points 7 months ago

Yeah i desperately needed a technical writing course at that age. I was a hot mess. I most certainly didn't need an English comp class where i was actually required to turn in one of those awful black and white composition pads at the end to pass. I hard noped and took it the next trimester with a bunch of upper class kids who needed it and it was a walk in the park.

[-] jadedwench@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

It was a shame that a lot of classes at RIT could be really hit or miss depending on the professor. I graduated before they went to semesters, and you had no time to be sick, lost, or behind. I tried to sign up for an extra class every quarter so I could have the option to withdraw from one of them and still be full time. Knowing when to withdraw, especially not waiting until the last minute, was a lesson I wished I knew that first year I was there.

Technical writing is very much not the same as general English composition, and I always hated it when schools lump it together. To this day I still work with people who don't even know where to start. Having a bunch of robotics engineers balk at having to write documentation about their own designs blew my mind. It wasn't even the manuals, just general design and functional specifications. Less than 10 pages, half of them pictures. I was nice and made the skeleton for them with some notes on what information I needed in which sections. Hopefully, they learned from it.

[-] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 7 points 7 months ago

They're alright classes. I enjoyed the professors I had but I feel like the majority of people want to speed through the GEs and get going on their actual major classes.

[-] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago

Besides for my intro to philosophy course I don't think I got much out of my GEs.

[-] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 6 points 7 months ago

I remember writing a research paper on roe v wade not to long ago. Thought it would be an easy paper that's kind of socially acceptable and not at all controversial. Found out that conservatives do wild shit like kill doctors and harass rape victims. I hate society.

[-] kromem@lemmy.world 16 points 7 months ago

It's a shame Florida wants their population to be ignorant conservatives.

Look at the entrance polls for the Republican primaries.

There's a 30 point spread between Trump's support depending if the person went to college or not.

How much is correlation vs cause and effect is debatable, but certainly in a democracy an educated public can't hurt.

[-] KoalaUnknown@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

classes like psychology and sociology are annoying

Sociology was my favorite general ED class outside of my discipline. I’m sure it varies by teacher but it can be really fun and interesting!

[-] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 1 points 7 months ago

Yeah I really enjoyed how society thinks and behave. Still, I wouldn't major in it.

this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2024
907 points (98.4% liked)

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