The Florida governor says good teaching spares fragile student feelings, and that learning about the past adds unnecessary stress.
The teaching of all U.S. history in Florida’s public schools will be eliminated under a plan introduced by that state’s governor, Ron DeSantis.
The governor said teaching U.S. colonial history from its 17th century beginnings was always just a plot by “Communist” teachers unions to make them more powerful at the expense of innocent schoolchildren.
DeSantis, considered a leading potential Republican presidential candidate for 2024, said learning about American history makes students uncomfortable and provokes guilty feelings.
“Nobody needs to know about so-called slavery or racism or how American Indians and women were allegedly exploited when it’s all just hearsay,” DeSantis said. “The woke liberals and communists want to make us feel bad about our forefathers when the truth is we are the greatest country in the world, always have been, and always will be.”
“What’s past is past and why should we dredge up anything bad that’s happened before in America?” added DeSantis. “We should focus on the glorious present time and wonderful future that lies ahead for our great students in Florida classrooms.”
DeSantis denounced the move to give Columbus Day a new name — Indigenous Peoples’ Day — as another example of how “Democrats and other traitors have distorted and betrayed American history” and why it’s destructive to let students feel ashamed about anything that happened before they were born.
“Today’s students had nothing to do with any of it,” he said. “So why should they be made to feel it’s all their fault?”
DeSantis has rejected plans for a new Advanced Placement African American studies course in Florida. The governor also called lessons on what is termed “queer theory” and “intersectionality” an “indoctrination and a left-wing political agenda” imposed on students.
DeSantis is already backing a bill in the Florida legislature that would help keep what’s termed Critical Race Theory (CRT) out of schools and the workplace. He called CRT “state-sanctioned racism” that creates a “hostile work environment.”
Proponents say CRT seeks to address inequality and racism. But DeSantis has attacked it as a Marxist ideology that’s a threat to the American way of life.
Asked whether she felt sad she wouldn’t be able anymore to study the U.S. past under the DeSantis plan, Florida 7th grader Taylor Swaft of Miami replied, “You kidding me? Who needs American history? Who cares about Abraham Lincoln or George Washington? They’re just dead old geezers. Not my problem. History’s one less thing I’ll have to do for homework. Now I’ll have more time to play my video games.”
Asked how he likes learning U.S. history, Florida 9th grader, Tom Sellnick of Jacksonville, replied, “BOR-ING! I’ve always hated history. Studying about the Civil War? Give me a break. I got better things to do.”
“Ditto,” added high school senior Elon Mask from Tampa, who described himself as aspiring to get a job in computers. Learning about “dudes” named Franklin D. Roosevelt or Martin Luther King is irrelevant to his plans in life, Mask said.
Not one to let anything make DeSantis or anybody else look good, former President Donald Trump called the governor a “phony” and “hypocrite” who in the past acted inappropriately with his female students when DeSantis worked as a high school teacher more than 20 years ago.
“The guy’s a pervert, everyone knows it, okay?” said Trump. “He should be in jail.”
The ex-president’s comments came after his endorsement in 2018 helped a then-underdog DeSantis win the Florida governorship. Trump now calls his one-time ally “disloyal.”
Trump, who earlier announced his candidacy for President, said DeSantis claims to be a gun rights supporter. But in truth, Trump cited news media reports that DeSantis prohibited his supporters from carrying in guns at his campaign events when he won re-election as governor last November.
“My brilliant nickname for him is DeSanctimonious,” said Trump, offering his famous satisfied smirk. “He’s an out-and-out loser, okay? How dare him even think he could beat me in an election for president.”
Several polls show DeSantis ahead of Trump in a head-to-head race for president. A recent survey in New Hampshire, which is scheduled to hold the first Republican primary, showed DeSantis with a double-digit lead over Trump, newly announced candidate Nikki Haley, and others.
“Who believes those stupid polls?” indignantly asked Trump. “Those were the same polls that showed I couldn’t be elected President in 2016. Don’t pay any attention to them, okay? I’m a winner. DeSanctimonious is a jerk, okay?”
Trump also said DeSantis closed Florida’s public schools during the Covid-19 pandemic that was terrible for a schoolchildren’s future in life. That’s despite what DeSantis now falsely claims he was one of the first U.S. governors to open up the schools, charged Trump.
“Don’t believe anything that creep says,” Trump maintained. Trump was the one, the ex-president said, who had the “genius idea” to have people inject disinfectant into the lungs and also to take the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to prevent Covid 19. “Did anyone listen to me?” asked Trump. “I could have ended Covid-19 once and for all.”
Doctors called Trump’s proposed remedies preposterous and dangerous to someone’s health and “anti-science.”
Asked by reporters his reaction to Trump’s comments about him, DeSantis turned to one of his aides and said, “Don’t I have to be somewhere?” And with that, he exited stage right.
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