Bob Jones 3rd Grade History book

[DGayle]

I swear I think my private school was a good public school in disguise. We use Houghton Mifflin books, and it was there that I first learned there was a lot more to the Civil War than just white people trying to free black people, and that Lincoln favored state rights for slavery. :o

[formergothardite]

LittleOleMe, this book is from 93, so hopefully BJU has updated their curriculum. But I would ask about every single subject. With curriculums like BJU and A Beka one of the main goals is to save children along with tying everything they learn in with the Bible and God. So every single subject is going to be heavily centered around God and the Bible.

I was also surprised to find that they acted like slavery ended peacefully with white folks just realizing slavery was bad and making it illegal. The exact sentence is this:

Finally, laws were passed that made all men and women free from slavery.

I wish I could find the history book that discusses the Civil War to see how they describe it.

[Joan of Snarc]

Finally, laws were passed that made all men and women free from slavery.

Reminds me a little bit of my sons' fourth-grade (public school) history book. There was a section on WWII, talking about war in Europe, war in the Pacific, on and on, V-E day, then:

When the war was over, and all the soldiers came home....

Uh, whut? No mention of how the war with Japan ended? Might be an important piece of history missing there....

:roll:

[LittleOleMe]

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. :?

I saw the original film when it came out as well and I liked, too, but I knew there were inaccuracies. My daughter is only six and found it on netflix so when it ended, netflix suggested other titles and there was the second film. It had to be DVD only (or I guess vhs for that time?) bc you can tell it's a secondary film. It's your classic "lets give our newbies a chance to show us what they can do" film, which is fine, except it's horrible when put up against what really happened.

I used to go to Williamsburg and Jamestown every year when I was younger. My parents loved it so we went on vacation there. I learned a lot there since it's basically a living museum and no ever breaks character. (We were there when the whole "Thomas Jefferson had children with his slaves" thing was out. Someone asked 'Thomas' if he had sex with Sally and he responded with "Little Sally? She is but three years old" bc whatever day/year it was that day, she was three years old.) They built the buildings with their own bricks that they made and used only tools from that time period. Fascinating.

As someone else mentioned, not every secular history book is much better. It's really amazing how difficult it is to find the right books in order to give your kids a proper education based on facts and not politics or religion.

Just remember: History is written by the winners

[LittleOleMe]

LittleOleMe, this book is from 93, so hopefully BJU has updated their curriculum. But I would ask about every single subject. With curriculums like BJU and A Beka one of the main goals is to save children along with tying everything they learn in with the Bible and God. So every single subject is going to be heavily centered around God and the Bible.

I was also surprised to find that they acted like slavery ended peacefully with white folks just realizing slavery was bad and making it illegal. The exact sentence is this:

Finally, laws were passed that made all men and women free from slavery.

I wish I could find the history book that discusses the Civil War to see how they describe it.

I don't understand the point of having subjects like math and english being centered around god and the bible. I really thought religious schools just had a required religion class and that was that, with some god stuff sprinkled in among their science classes. Ugh. Why is this so difficult?

[PennySycamore]

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. :?

I stumbled across a copy of the SC history book I had in 3rd grade a few years ago. It is possible that it was a somewhat earlier edition, but it was appalling! It totally reflected an age of Jim Crow. I did learn a thing or two though. I learned for instance that this county park where we liked to take our girls for a short hike or a picnic was once a segregated state park for African-Americans South Carolinians. I don't know how on earth they got there. The road that runs past it wasn't built until the late 60s or 70s and the parks had been desegregated by then.

[Secular4Me]

BJU is still one of the largest publishers of homeschool/private school educational material. You can see some of the current 3rd grade history book by clicking on "look inside the book" on the left of this page (spaces added because I do not know how to break a link):

bjupress.com/product/287243

The book opens with a bible quote.

[LittleOleMe]

The Indians captured (John) Smith, and Powhatan threatened to kill him. But Pocahontas, Powhatan's daughter, begged to spare his life. the Indians finally released Smith. Later the English captured Pocahontas. They would not free her until Powhatan freed the English captives. Powhatan refused. While Pocahontas lived in Jamestown, she learned the English language. She learned about Jesus and believed what she heard. Pocahontas married John Rolfe, an important man in Jamestown. Pocahontas helped the Indians and the English understand each other better.

:pink-shock: Well if that isn't white washing …

[Rachel333]

I do remember my dad at least drawing the line at one history book (not sure if it was BJU or not) because it suggested that the Japanese Internment Camps were okay and not such a bad thing for the Japanese-Americans who were forced into them.

It's kind of good to see I'm not making stuff up about how crazy my textbooks were sometimes. It's actually worse than I remember.

Science books are lots of fun too. I remember my 7th grade life science book explaining that God chooses who he will give genetic diseases to, along with a picture of a kid who wouldn't survive to adulthood because of his disease. :? Then of course every textbook had a chapter about creation and a chapter mocking evolution.

[formergothardite]

I wish I could find a BJU science book. That would be very interesting to read again.

[Grimalkin]

… 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.

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.

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.

My two younger kids go to a Catholic school and my two older went to public, in a district that is considerd good and people move here to go to our schools. The Catholic school is way more rigorous. They generally learn the same things. Here is the comparison. Third grade Science: PS the kids would get a fill in the blank worksheet for homework with the choices on the page. They don't need to read the chapter to know that the outer layer of the Earth is called the .........crust. CS homework is compare and contrast the two inner layers of the Earth. Which layer is hotter, why? All the answers are in the chapters and you need to read it carefully to find the answers. They have to infer and use critical thinking. So far it's been real science and real social studies. My older kids would of been better off to have gone there. Kid #3..... I'm on the fence, I think it's hard on her and getting stressful. I will evaluate at the end of the year to see what we do. I think it will be good for my son too.

I don't know if you have a Catholic school option. Another thing to mention the Valavictorian of both the Highschools our CS feeds into has been a student from the CS four years in a row. There is also a christian academy, and a Lutheran school in the area. Just a thought

Now back to the regular programming.

[Grimalkin]

I dislike Goodwill because of how they pay subminimum wages to people with disabilities (which sadly they are legally allowed to do) and claim it's for their own good.

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2 ... rhour.html The comments are worth reading for some more info as well.

I may be missing something here but, I don't think the problem is the law but companies abusing the law. I may of misreread the article but it looks like this lady was only able to hang up 327 shirts in a 24 hour pay period where that was her only responsibility. It seems that job was not a good fit for her. I don't think she would of been hired at all if that was all she was able to do and was paid regular minimum wage.I have mentioned before I worked with mentally handicapped adults. They spend thier day at day training where they would attend different therapies based on thier needs and part might be assembling things and earning money based on how many things they assembled. Yes, thier paychecks would often be very small and they we're proud of thier paychecks. I don't think many people would be hired at all if they were paid minimum wage. My grocery store hires mentally handicapped adults to bag groceries. I don't know how they pay them as I don't see anything being counted. They have better abilities than the people I worked with. I don't think its cut and dry. I think it's important for most people to have a place to go during the day and be productive and around other people who are hopefully supportive. It is good for mental and emotional health. I am sorry that woman felt degraded, I think perhaps it just was not a good job fer her.

[salsa]

This is incredible! I know it's a 3rd grade book and you're redacting it so you can share it here (and thank you for that!).

But the manipulation in this book is downright traumatic! Telling kids someone died because they cursed God or didn't take their lemon juice - I just can't fathom how this is ok.

I wouldn't fault them for having some kind of "God tag" at the end, because they make no bones about it being a specifically Christian curriculum and it would seem reasonable to have an exercise that caused them to consider how their faith and whatever subject they studied might interace, but the manipulation and the revisionist history is unconscionable.

I was manipulated like that (not fundy, just had a manipulative mom and dad) and guess what? I figured out as I got older that they made up the stories they told me just to scare me into doing what they wanted or not doing what they didn't want me to do - like hanging by my knees from the acrobat bar on my swingset because all the blood would rush to my head. You see, once there was a girl who hung by her knees like that and all the blood rushed to her head and she died... these stories are *exactly* like the one my mom told me about the girl whose blood rushed to her head. Horrible.

[DGayle]

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.

To put the cost into perspective, in today's money if you get minimum wage for 40 hours a week times 7 years, that's over $105,000 in work for a boat ticket.

If you sail someone first class, that's, what, $15k?

Let's say you pay the food stamp amount to that person for food. $11,500.

And you give them a room in your home, which may be $100 more to your monthly housing payment. So $6,000.

Over 7 years, you're paying out $32,500, maybe less, for over $100,000 in work. And people got pissed they didn't get more years.

[Grimalkin]

I am fascinated by this kind of shit. I looked on eBay for some used books but honestly they are overpriced and not worth it. I recently discoverd Chick Tracts. I can get a sample pack of all the tracts currently in print for $20. I am tempted, just for laughs.

[feministxtian]

My two younger kids go to a Catholic school and my two older went to public, in a district that is considerd good and people move here to go to our schools. The Catholic school is way more rigorous. They generally learn the same things. Here is the comparison. Third grade Science: PS the kids would get a fill in the blank worksheet for homework with the choices on the page. They don't need to read the chapter to know that the outer layer of the Earth is called the .........crust. CS homework is compare and contrast the two inner layers of the Earth. Which layer is hotter, why? All the answers are in the chapters and you need to read it carefully to find the answers. They have to infer and use critical thinking. So far it's been real science and real social studies. My older kids would of been better off to have gone there. Kid #3..... I'm on the fence, I think it's hard on her and getting stressful. I will evaluate at the end of the year to see what we do. I think it will be good for my son too.

I don't know if you have a Catholic school option. Another thing to mention the Valavictorian of both the Highschools our CS feeds into has been a student from the CS four years in a row. There is also a christian academy, and a Lutheran school in the area. Just a thought

Now back to the regular programming.

I did 12 years of Catholic schools. When we cleaned out my mom's house, I found boxes and boxes of my text books all the way back to like 2nd grade. The entire curriculum was secular, with a religion class thrown in for flavor. It was MUCH more rigorous than the public schools of the time (I graduated HS in 1981). I remember being interrogated by a history prof in college about why it only took me 2 minutes to finish a quiz and why I was the only one who got every question right. Once I mentioned where I had gone to HS and who my teachers were, he let me off with a smile.

When I went to work at a large shipyard, I was the only one who could string together a coherent sentence and ended up getting assigned to write a big procedure.

My Catholic school education (even though I hated it) was probably the best (and only) investment my parents made in me...

[browncoatslytherin]

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

i haven't finished catching up on the thread yet, but looking back on it now, i think little nuggets like this were thrown in so it was like, "see? we're teaching our kids stuff! our education is GOOD!" when it may not necessarily be so. things like this, while certainly good to know, doesn't make up for the steaming pile of shit the rest of it is.

not trying to dump on you, happy atheist, merely making an observation. hindsight and all that, you know, it can be a powerful thing.

[browncoatslytherin]

I don't understand the point of having subjects like math and english being centered around god and the bible. I really thought religious schools just had a required religion class and that was that, with some god stuff sprinkled in among their science classes. Ugh. Why is this so difficult?

god must be in EVERYTHING, dontchaknow? :roll: for reals, i couldn't get a break from him in my childhood, i swear.

[Eater of Worlds]

I may be missing something here but, I don't think the problem is the law but companies abusing the law. I may of misreread the article but it looks like this lady was only able to hang up 327 shirts in a 24 hour pay period where that was her only responsibility. It seems that job was not a good fit for her. I don't think she would of been hired at all if that was all she was able to do and was paid regular minimum wage.I have mentioned before I worked with mentally handicapped adults. They spend thier day at day training where they would attend different therapies based on thier needs and part might be assembling things and earning money based on how many things they assembled. Yes, thier paychecks would often be very small and they we're proud of thier paychecks. I don't think many people would be hired at all if they were paid minimum wage. My grocery store hires mentally handicapped adults to bag groceries. I don't know how they pay them as I don't see anything being counted. They have better abilities than the people I worked with. I don't think its cut and dry. I think it's important for most people to have a place to go during the day and be productive and around other people who are hopefully supportive. It is good for mental and emotional health. I am sorry that woman felt degraded, I think perhaps it just was not a good job fer her.

You know, if they just want to feel productive around other people and have a place to go, they can volunteer for these companies and get that benefit. They aren't doing so, they are working. The money they earn is literally pennies per hour. People who are disabled and doing work for someone should be valued the same way that able-bodied people are and paid a normal working wage, period. It's very abliist to assume that it's good for them to be happy with the pennies they've gotten for the hours of work they've put in.

[Terrie]

I went to a moderate Christian private school. We had to learn about evolution, so at the minimum, if we tried to refute it, we wouldn't sound like idiots. :lol: (Actual explanation from classmate "Evolution is when a cow walks into the ocean and turns into a whale.")

But we were still taught how to look at Plato's allegory of the cave as a metaphor for Christianity, which baffled me, given that they had NOTHING to do with each other. Darn critical thinking skills.

[Firiel]

I went to a moderate Christian private school. We had to learn about evolution, so at the minimum, if we tried to refute it, we wouldn't sound like idiots. :lol: (Actual explanation from classmate "Evolution is when a cow walks into the ocean and turns into a whale.")

But we were still taught how to look at Plato's allegory of the cave as a metaphor for Christianity, which baffled me, given that they had NOTHING to do with each other. Darn critical thinking skills.

I'll bite on the Plato's allegory thing. I think a good argument can be made that they ARE related. After all, Paul greatly shaped Christian theology and with his education, he would have been familiar with Plato's writing. I know other folks have actually researched the issue, but I think it makes a lot of sense to draw parallels between Plato (in general) and Christian theology as laid out by Paul. It's just that Paul drew on Plato as opposed to Plato somehow miraculously anticipating the birth of Christ.

[Terrie]

I'll bite on the Plato's allegory thing. I think a good argument can be made that they ARE related. After all, Paul greatly shaped Christian theology and with his education, he would have been familiar with Plato's writing. I know other folks have actually researched the issue, but I think it makes a lot of sense to draw parallels between Plato (in general) and Christian theology as laid out by Paul. It's just that Paul drew on Plato as opposed to Plato somehow miraculously anticipating the birth of Christ.

Oh, it was very much "Look, everything good in the world is REALLY Christian, because you can't have good without Christ" nonsense.

[Grimalkin]

You know, if they just want to feel productive around other people and have a place to go, they can volunteer for these companies and get that benefit. They aren't doing so, they are working. The money they earn is literally pennies per hour. People who are disabled and doing work for someone should be valued the same way that able-bodied people are and paid a normal working wage, period. It's very abliist to assume that it's good for them to be happy with the pennies they've gotten for the hours of work they've put in.

I think it really depends on the situation. I know many people personally who are happy with thier arrangement. The woman's job was to put clothes on a hanger. When I did the math it came to about 13 pieces of clothes per hour. Why would a company pay her 24 hours at minimum wage for that? And why is she basing her worth on money?

If companies were forced to pay minimum wage for that there would be no jobs available and many people would not have that opportunity. I think people should be realistic about expectations. i don't think that situation was taking advantage of the lady. I think they were trying to do something nice and it did not work out for her. The mentally handicapped people who work at my grocery make minimum wage because they can handle the work given to them. My sister makes pennies per hour because she does not have the ability to work in a grocery store. She puts labels on envelopes. I don't think it makes her any less valuable. I love her deeply.

[Grimalkin]

Oh, it was very much "Look, everything good in the world is REALLY Christian, because you can't have good without Christ" nonsense.

I have a headache reading this.

[SaturnianCatalina]

I am fascinated by this kind of shit. I looked on eBay for some used books but honestly they are overpriced and not worth it. I recently discoverd Chick Tracts. I can get a sample pack of all the tracts currently in print for $20. I am tempted, just for laughs.

Don't give them your money. You can read them all online (plus ones that aren't in print anymore) on the Chick website. They are good for a laugh, but I wouldn't help financially support the people making them.