Learning About Old Dead White Men

I fully expect politically-correct nonsense in the schools in California, New York, New Jersey and Michigan. But I must admit to a certain amount of schadenfreude finding out that even Oklahoma has its educational nutcases trying to foist off ignorant garbage as "educational material designed to assist the student in learning in a non-traditional manner."

Already in use in the shooting galleries and gang factories passing themselves off as schools in the big states, this program, called Flocabulary has cancerously metastasized itself into poor little Oklahoma. The Oklahoma City public school district has postponed full implementation of the program. But this is not because sane board members saw the inherent evil in the program, but rather because fifteen brave teachers called them on it and went public. And the public was not pleased.

This program is precisely the kind of debilitating educational tripe that vigilant parents must constantly look out for, lest liberal school boards and illiterate union teachers sneakily force them onto students who actually want to learn something. That "something" being genuine history, civics, English, and intelligent speech.

The program? Well, it's an "educational tool "that uses rap and hip-hop music to "help students learn and memorize basic principles of vocabulary." The underlying reasoning, standing by itself, would not be too outrageous. Kids use songs, lyrics and rhymes as a convenient mnemonic device for memorizing things. So far, so good. But rap? Hip-hop? The logic there is that the kids like it, so why not use it? Well, that's a whole other story entirely.

The simple fact is that I can write rhyming lyrics about almost anything. I'll do The Communist Manifesto, or maybe Mein Kampf. How would that be? Not good if it's being used to indoctrinate American kids, most of you would say. And you would be right. It's not just that the program uses the mind-numbing beat and cadences of rap to "teach," but it's equally important that they are using the noxious semi-literate version of gangsta rap to promote race-hatred, distorted history, terrible grammar and jargon, and anticapitalism. And in the process, the program also teaches great literature by turning it into unintelligible trash.

Here's a sample lesson for you. Let's learn about Founding Father James Monroe. "White men getting richer than Enron. They stepping on Indians, women and blacks. Era of Good Feeling doesn't come with the facts." Where to begin? Skip the de rigeur oppressive white man part. These students have absolutely no frame of reference to start with, and now some ignorant rapper is going to conflate the Founders with Enron (they probably don't know what Enron is, either). And isn't there a verb missing somewhere in there? Also note, "blacks" rhymes with "faks."

Without even a basic knowledge of history (thanks to the union teachers and leftist ideologues), the rapper throws Indians into the mix. Their later hate video about Andrew Jackson makes a certain amount of sense, but what does it have to do with James Madison? Dolly Madison was one of the most important figures in America during the War of 1812, but she mustn't have realized she was oppressed. Oh, and Madison was one of the earliest advocates for freeing the slaves, and never liked the compromise that brought the South into the Union via the Constitution. But I guarantee you that the students won't learn any of that from Flocabulary.

They use rhyme, stretched nearly to the breaking point to teach Shakespeare. Shakespeare? It would be interesting to see them deal with Shakespeare's sonnets. How do you teach Shakespearean poetry and rhyme by changing both the poetry and the rhyme? The program has been praised by Cornel West (too much the ignorant racist professor even for Harvard) and Howard Zinn (the man who writes history from the perspective of its worst and dumbest). That alone would disqualify the program for any thinking parent.

Missing from the program are rap tunes and rhymes praising the Bill of Rights, or the multiple anti-slavery actions of the northern Founders (and even Washington and Jefferson). Also AWOL from the program are hip-hop "songs" about immigrants from around the entire world who fled to America for liberty and opportunity lacking in their homelands. We're also still waiting for the video that rhymes America's major role in ending two World Wars, liberating the death camps, and promoting freedom from communist tyranny in most of Eastern Europe.

Not only does the program promote the concept of preventing hard-working black students from "acting white," but it also encourages white kids to stop acting white. I'm not making that up. I'm linking to just one video that is an outgrowth of this program. Look carefully at those geeky white kids learning English grammar by, well, learning English grammar. See how cool the black kids are, not to mention how cool the white rapper wannabe is.

Frighteningly, according to the Flocabulary website, these insidious and worthless videos are being used in more than 10,000 schools nationwide. Oklahoma City had already spent $10,000 of the $97,000 set aside for this garbage. There is not a single positive historical vision of America in any of the material. It is all relentlessly anti-white, anti-American, and anti-western civilization. Worst of all, there's not even much evidence to suggest that those actually paying attention to these videos are learning much of anything--good or bad.

The rapping educators tell us that the "Era of Good Feeling doesn't come with the facts." I'm waiting for them to do the video that shows that the post-racialism praised by Barack Obama died with his election. And it wasn't because white kids weren't getting their education from Flocabulary. It's much more likely that the decline in racial relations is at least partially symbolized by the Flocabulary incendiary propaganda and promotion of pure ignorance--that rhymes.

Oh, and here's that sample I promised you: Dissin' Da Geeks. You might want to read some of the comments written by students, black and white, who have been subjected to this diversion from education.