Bob Jones 3rd Grade History book

[eh02]

The first two years the Pilgrims planted one large field and everyone shared the food. This was a bad idea because it made people lazy. People work harder when they know that they are going to get all the food they grow.

Ah, good old fashioned Christian capitalism. Based off that old verse in the Bible...you know the one..."Keep everything for yourself. Your neighbors are lazy. God does not like it when we share."

[Eater of Worlds]

I like how the man up and died of scurvy after missing one spoonful of lemon juice. Presumably scurvy, that is, if not simply due to god smiting.

[Jana814]

Wow, that is terrible.

Agree! This is horrible that they were teaching kids this.

[KittenMitten]

Please, please tell me you are kidding or this is satire.

[fundiefan]

Dear sky daddy, thank you for public schools.

[Jana814]

Please, please tell me you are kidding or this is satire.

I don't think this is satire. It would be better if it was.

[Tesseract]

I had no idea. :o Thanks, FG. It is hard to believe this was (is?) actually taught to kids.

[formergothardite]

Please, please tell me you are kidding or this is satire.

No, sadly I did not make this up. This is what I learned when I went to the IFB Christian school in the 80's. Apparently they were still teaching this crap in the 90's. I haven't read any recent text books but we can hope that BJU decided to update them. But it is BJU, so you never know.

[Rachel333]

This is bringing back memories.

[KittenMitten]

No, sadly I did not make this up. This is what I learned when I went to the IFB Christian school in the 80's. Apparently they were still teaching this crap in the 90's. I haven't read any recent text books but we can hope that BJU decided to update them. But it is BJU, so you never know.

Wow. I am so glad you are at freejinger to educate and I hope I am not presumptuous, to heal. I hope I do not come across snotty, but I am sorry that you were exposed to those beliefs. I just do not know what to say, but I think you and other people who have broken away from these beliefs are strong and incredible people.

[formergothardite]

Wow. I am so glad you are at freejinger to educate and I hope I am not presumptuous, to heal. I hope I do not come across snotty, but I am sorry that you were exposed to those beliefs. I just do not know what to say, but I think you and other people who have broken away from these beliefs are strong and incredible people.

One of the reasons I bought this book was that I not only wanted to see if it was as bad as I remembered but I figured that people who weren't raised this way often don't understand how bad fundie education can be. This is BJU which wasn't nearly as extreme as ATI. I wish I could get hold of my mom's old ATI books because those things were crazier than this stuff. My parents didn't even half use the ATI Wisdom Booklets because they were so awful.

Back to fundie history.

Chapter 5: The Middle Colonies

This chapter was just so boring. There is a very detailed description of how houses were built. There is a recipe for apple pie. Two pages for soap and candle making. Two paragraphs for the history of Saint Nicholas. A page about how girls in the middle colonies didn't really learn to read and write but they could make samplers and knit stockings by the time they were five. And then two pages about Pennsylvania but it is mostly pictures.

Chapter 6: The Southern Colonies

Georgia was the last of the 13 colonies. It was a poor colony, but don't worry, God loves both rich and poor people and he wants everyone to get saved and go to heaven. Most of the people in Georgia were in debt.

Jamestown, VA. - The English settlers were greedy, lazy, and incompetent. They had a good leader John Smith, but still most of them died. The Indians painted their skin so they were called redskins. John Smith and Pocahontas became best friends. John Smith got injured and went back to England. John Rolfe talked people into growing tobacco and the settlement began to prosper. John Rolfe married Pocahontas.

Charleston, SC - The English settlers that came here were lucky because they had friendly Indians who helped keep them alive. They were worried about the Spanish settlers so they built a huge wall around their town, set up seven guns and called it Charles Towne. Soon people from all over the world came to settle there. A ship crashed into Charleston during a storm and it had rice on it, so people planted rice.

Savannah, GA - This colony was started for poor English people who wanted to have a better life. There were no important crops or businesses in GA and the colony grew very slowly. They did get the first American Sunday School, so there is that.

And now we get to the heritage of African Americans. They get three whole paragraphs. :roll: So originally poor people would be servants in America for seven years to pay for the trip over here, but the rich folks got tired of their servants leaving after seven years, so they decided to get slaves. The plus side of slavery was that the slaves didn't get to leave ever and the white folks could buy and sell them. Some people said the Bible said slavery was okay but it really doesn't. Slavery is wrong. Slavery went on for a long time but then they passed some laws to end it.

The Moravians get a whole bunch of pages. And this isn't in the book but if you get a chance to visit Old Salem go for it. Go buy some bread and cookies because they are so good. And it is just a really neat place to visit.

The Scotch-Irish people came to the South and they feared God and nobody else. They were super eager to own their own land so they went and fought Indians to take it. They didn't really farm, they hunted and made guns.

Daniel Boone knew a lot about Indians and some say he could even think like an Indian. He fought Indians a lot but he never hated them.

[uber frau]

I was never taught using BJU textbooks (thank God) and I'm not even American but I recognise the same approach to teaching history.

To be fair,some of my teachers were very good, but quite a few had the same black and white view of the world.

[Jana814]

Thanks for more info on History. This is disturbing that these kids were taught this.

[KittenMitten]

Thanks so much for doing this. It still sounds dreadful, although the part of building houses and making candles might interest me. Probably God was invoked and prayer needed for a Godly house and Godly candles.

I can't wait to hear about the Civil War, Prohibition, WW I & II. The 50's will be venerated, civil rights degraded and oh, oh the Me Generation. The Me Generation and disco should be a blast.

[happy atheist]

Chapter 3: The Explorers

Vikings found North America first. They weren't Christian and we don't know why they didn't stay, but they didn't.

Years went by and people realized that the world wasn't flat. Christopher Columbus got the funds to find a new way to India. He finally found land(but not until after he endured a horrible journey with his men trying to murder him) As he stepped on land he saw strange painted faces peeking out from the trees. He swore that he would teach the Indians about Christ and that the gospel must be spread throughout the entire world. We aren't really sure if Christopher was a real Christian but he still knew the importance of teaching people about the Bible. He invited six Indians as to go visit Spain with him when he returned.

The rest of the chapter is just short paragraphs about various explorers that came after Columbus. At the end children are encouraged to come up with ways to spread the gospel of salvation all over the earth.

I'm super surprised this book acknowledges that the vikings came to North America before Columbus. That's actually educational.

[LittleOleMe]

Jamestown, VA. - The English settlers were greedy, lazy, and incompetent. They had a good leader John Smith, but still most of them died. The Indians painted their skin so they were called redskins. John Smith and Pocahontas became best friends. John Smith got injured and went back to England. John Rolfe talked people into growing tobacco and the settlement began to prosper. John Rolfe married Pocahontas.

… John Smith arrived in Jamestown when Pocahontas was about 12. It's believed she saved his life, although it could also have been a staged event to symbolize something else, which apparently wasn't terribly uncommon then. None of that matters, though. John Rolfe didn't marry Pocahontas. He basically kidnapped her, took her back to England, and then forced her to marry him (i.e. raping her) and - here's the biggie - converted her to christianity. Nevermind the fact that she barely understood the language and probably had no idea what was going on. She bore him a child (Thomas I believe) and then died when she was 20/21. So yeah, let's leave out all the details and just mention that John Rolfe married her so we can pretend it was all happy sparkles and rainbows.

And now we get to the heritage of African Americans. They get three whole paragraphs. :roll: So originally poor people would be servants in America for seven years to pay for the trip over here, but the rich folks got tired of their servants leaving after seven years, so they decided to get slaves. The plus side of slavery was that the slaves didn't get to leave ever and the white folks could buy and sell them. Some people said the Bible said slavery was okay but it really doesn't. Slavery is wrong. Slavery went on for a long time but then they passed some laws to end it.

They passed some laws to end it?? Are you fucking kidding me?? Yes, that's exactly what happened. We passed some laws that said "slavery is now illegal bc the bible doesn't really say it's okay" and then everyone let their slaves go free and now black people are happy. Praise jesus :shock: Wow .. just .. just fucking wow.

Daniel Boone knew a lot about Indians and some say he could even think like an Indian. He fought Indians a lot but he never hated them.

And here ya go. He fought them a lot but he never hated them. Kind of how the fundies fight for legislation against non-hetero people and abortions, but they don't hate the non-hetero people or the women who have abortions. And what's with this "think like an Indian" bullshit?? I would hope they mean in terms of tracking and navigating the land by putting markers on trees and stuff, but I know that's not the case. They seriously believe the natives of this land think differently? Again .. just fucking wow.

Thank you so much for posting this. And please continue to do so. As I mentioned to you in another thread, I've been looking at private schools and I want to set up a time to look at the one (religious) school that uses some BJU curriculum. I was going to look at their science books but you are proven to me that I need to look at every fucking subject. Ugh. I should just suck it up and accept the fact that I'm going to have to put my kids through the application process (which is almost worse than college applications) for the private non-religious school that is 45 minutes away.

[Palimpsest]

So, it's the 1066 and All That http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1066_and_All_That of American history? Sellars and Yeatman is satire but Bob Jones is serious? :pink-shock:

So they miss out the lost colony of Roanoke Island (1584) and Jamestown (1607) to go straight to the Mayflower (1620)?

Oh please. No-one died because he refused a spoonful of lemon juice on the Mayflower (although I'm sure people died from scurvy). I'd bet that there were no lemons on board. They are hardly a staple crop in the UK. Lemon juice as a way to combat scurvy was discovered by James Lind. He wasn't born until 100 years later than the Mayflower.

These history books are pure fiction.

[Loveday]

… John Smith arrived in Jamestown when Pocahontas was about 12. It's believed she saved his life, although it could also have been a staged event to symbolize something else, which apparently wasn't terribly uncommon then. None of that matters, though. John Rolfe didn't marry Pocahontas. He basically kidnapped her, took her back to England, and then forced her to marry him (i.e. raping her) and - here's the biggie - converted her to christianity. Nevermind the fact that she barely understood the language and probably had no idea what was going on. She bore him a child (Thomas I believe) and then died when she was 20/21. So yeah, let's leave out all the details and just mention that John Rolfe married her so we can pretend it was all happy sparkles and rainbows.

I'm sure it wasn't all happy sparkles and rainbows, but I've never heard it put quite like this. Do you have a source? Especially the kidnapping and forced marriage bit?

ETA: Never mind, Google answered my question. :?

[Loveday]

So, it's the 1066 and All That http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1066_and_All_That of American history? Sellars and Yeatman is satire but Bob Jones is serious? :pink-shock:

So they miss out the lost colony of Roanoke Island (1584) and Jamestown (1607) to go straight to the Mayflower (1620)?

Oh please. No-one died because he refused a spoonful of lemon juice on the Mayflower (although I'm sure people died from scurvy). I'd bet that there were no lemons on board. They are hardly a staple crop in the UK. Lemon juice as a way to combat scurvy was discovered by James Lind. He wasn't born until 100 years later than the Mayflower.

These history books are pure fiction.

Roanoke and Jamestown almost always get left out, or at most get only a brief little mention. :doh: (aggrieved Virginian here :lol: )

And that lemon juice story had me laughing out loud. :roll:

[PennySycamore]

So, it's the 1066 and All That http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1066_and_All_That of American history? Sellars and Yeatman is satire but Bob Jones is serious? :pink-shock:

So they miss out the lost colony of Roanoke Island (1584) and Jamestown (1607) to go straight to the Mayflower (1620)?

Oh please. No-one died because he refused a spoonful of lemon juice on the Mayflower (although I'm sure people died from scurvy). I'd bet that there were no lemons on board. They are hardly a staple crop in the UK. Lemon juice as a way to combat scurvy was discovered by James Lind. He wasn't born until 100 years later than the Mayflower.

These history books are pure fiction.

A real parody in the spirit of 1066 and All That, but about American history is Richard Armour's It All Started With Columbus. He also write The Classics Reclassified. Funny stuff! I can still remember that, Roger Chillingworth from The Scarlet Letter "was followed by remorse and Pearl" the rest of his life more than 40 years after I read the books.

[LittleOleMe]

I'm sure it wasn't all happy sparkles and rainbows, but I've never heard it put quite like this. Do you have a source? Especially the kidnapping and forced marriage bit?

ETA: Never mind, Google answered my question. :?

I remember looking it up when my daughter expressed an interest in watching the disney film about two years ago. I did let her watch it but explained how it wasn't exactly correct. I refuse to let her watch the second film disney did as a sequel. That one was ten times worse than the first movie. She voluntarily goes to England to convince the king of something. She falls in love with John Rolfe after being whitewashed for England (seriously, they put makeup on her that makes her much lighter. I thought maybe it was just poor animation but then she gets upset and wipes the makeup off and suddenly she's her normal skin tone) and eventually meets up with John Smith and has to chose which man to love. I don't get disney. They didn't turn Mulan into an extremely offensive breach of historical accuracy. (At least not as far as I know) At least they kept the christianity "conversion" out of it.

[J'Beka]

In that intro, I thought a lot of fun dies thought that black people were black because of the "Curse of Ham". According to this thoroughly racist, whackadoodle idea, Ham was one of Noah's sons and he was cursed by God for "uncovering Noah's nakedness" after the water from the flood receded. The Curse? His skin became black.

I wouldn't be surprised if you got a copy of the "history" textbook from a decade or two earlier that the Curse of Ham would have been in it.

I haven't read the whole thread yet so sorry if I'm repeating, but I'm pretty sure this was the Mormon church's reason for not allowing black people into the priesthood or whatever their title for a pastor type person is. I'm a little fuzzy on my Mormon facts

[Loveday]

I remember looking it up when my daughter expressed an interest in watching the disney film about two years ago. I did let her watch it but explained how it wasn't exactly correct. I refuse to let her watch the second film disney did as a sequel. That one was ten times worse than the first movie. She voluntarily goes to England to convince the king of something. She falls in love with John Rolfe after being whitewashed for England (seriously, they put makeup on her that makes her much lighter. I thought maybe it was just poor animation but then she gets upset and wipes the makeup off and suddenly she's her normal skin tone) and eventually meets up with John Smith and has to chose which man to love. I don't get disney. They didn't turn Mulan into an extremely offensive breach of historical accuracy. (At least not as far as I know) At least they kept the christianity "conversion" out of it.

We saw the original Disney film when it was released in '95 or so; my daughter was around four or five. She loved it--what little girl wouldn't! My eyes started rolling around in my head right from the beginning, though. They didn't even get the landscape right, not to mention much of anything else. :? We didn't see the second film, thankfully, was it released at the cinema or only on DVD? I wouldn't have been able to sit through that one!

I went through two years of Virginia history here in eastern VA, 4th and 7th grade, back in the late 60s. Public school. I still have my old textbooks, I should get them out and compare the early Jamestown story as presented in them with what we know now. I'm sure I'll be appalled at what I was taught back then. :?

[Bethella]

While the Bob Jones history book is particularly egregious not all secular history books are any better. I've been reading "Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong" by James Loewen. Admittedly the book is 20 years old but the generalizations, omissions and outright lies in these textbooks are scary. I was a history major and some of this stuff is surprising me. For example: I did know that the first colony to legalize slavery was Massachusetts not Virginia, but I wasn't aware that Woodrow Wilson was a white supremacist who segregated the federal government and personally vetoed a clause on racial equality in the Covenant of the League of Nations.

[jaelh]

The first two years the Pilgrims planted one large field and everyone shared the food. This was a bad idea because it made people lazy. People work harder when they know that they are going to get all the food they grow.

The early colony land arrangements are 'important' case studies of a line of economic theory about how property institutions develop and become more (or less) efficient. Apparently there was a whole lot of jerking about that happened when everyone was working common land.

The message is a crap one, but apparently (and I say apparently because who knows how accurate any of the records/case studies are) there's a grain of truth in there somewhere..