Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
When Is Capitalist-American History Month? — Marion Evans
In my view, one of the big problems with education nowadays is the fact that children are taught about wealth redistribution before they are taught about wealth creation. In order to redistribute something, you have to create it first. That is, unless you believe that wealth just grows on trees. I have an open mind. But I have many trees in my yard and I am still a working stiff.
Therefore: wealth-grows-on-trees hypothesis is rejected!
Every year, February is African-American History Month, and a few weeks ago my first-grader was reciting to me all the amazing things she was learning about racial equality and the Civil Rights movement. One day, it was about Martin Luther King, another it was Jackie Robinson, a third Rosa Parks, and so on.
I am all in favor of this by the way, even if I wonder when, if ever, German-American or Swedish-American History Month will finally come around at school. They never will, of course, because it is widely alleged that these people have already taken up their rightful amount of space in the history of our country. That may be true in the archives of the Library of Congress, but it cannot be true in the virgin mind of a seven-year-old. Because my ancestry is neither German nor Swedish, I demand that my children learn early on about these immigrants’ particular contributions to our country. Good luck to me.
After her fifth time of bringing up Martin Luther King, I asked her if her teachers had told her about Ronald Reagan yet. Her initial reaction was to laugh at the name. It had never before occurred to me that Ronald Reagan was a funny name. And the answer was no, she had never heard of Ronald Reagan. What about Abraham Lincoln? Nope. Teddy Roosevelt? Not a chance. Alexander Hamilton? Be serious.
She had, however, already heard about Mahatma Gandhi and his message of non-violence. I admire Gandhi and Martin Luther King because they inspired tens of millions of people. But who remembers that Gandhi’s message came largely from Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God is Within You? If you are teaching an idea that changed the world, you should at least credit the original inventor of that idea.
And if you are teaching a concept of racial and economic justice and wealth redistribution, you should at least credit the people who enabled that justice and created that wealth, either through an ideological framework (Adam Smith, the Founding Fathers) or through innovation and enterprise (Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Bill Gates). I am holding out for Capitalist-American History Month.
Published in General
Like.
That is going straight on to the “favourite quotations” section of my Facebook profile.
(There are quite a few quotations from Ricochet commenters on my Facebook profile, BTW.)
Should be started on May 1st. Let’s give the Marxists, communists and socialists a run for their money…well, our money really.
I’ve always believed that stapled to every high school graduate’s diploma should be a page titled “What to Do If You Have a Good Idea.” Followed by some instructions about copyrights, trademarks, inventions, business loans. Just whom to call. I also wish there were as many courses on the future as there are on the past. We are seriously impairing our children with the things we teach.
There is the Junior Achievement organization:
https://www.juniorachievement.org/web/ja-usa/home
http://jacan.org
I had a student volunteer who was in JA. My only regret is that he achieves so much now that he’ll never want to be my assistant again.
Marion,
I have a dream. Someday your “Capitalist American History Month” will be required study throughout the land.
Hey, I can dream can’t I.
Regards,
Jim
Omitting Ronald Reagan is understandable if you consider classroom time constraints. How can teachers be expected to celebrate all the great leaders America has been blessed with since our nations founding in the 1960’s.
I wonder if Common Core addresses this. I fear that it does.
FYI: Here’s a link to download a free copy of The Kingdom of God is Within You from Gutenberg.
I’m trying to wean people off going to Amazon when a book is in the public domain.
:-)
Why?
It’s $0.99 on Kindle and presumably formatted to be read on such a device.
I am happy to reward these people monetarily for making it more convenient for me.
I can one-click purchase and read if I didn’t already have a million other books to read.
I love this! I’m totally building Capitalist-American History Month into my homeschool curriculum.
At my school, the economics teacher and I are talking about combining my US Government class with his econ class and doing a team-taught course on capitalism. the free market and our constitutional republic. By the way, it was my new young Milton Friedman-loving principal’s idea. I’ve died and gone to heaven. Can’t wait for the liberals on the faculty to plotz…
Every month is Capitalist History month.
In fact, every single day of every single month, our lives and the lives of most of the people in the world are enriched by the fact that free market capitalism has set free the creative energies of mankind and liberated him from the necessity of struggling each and every day to find food and the various other necessities of life.
That this simple fact isn’t completely obvious to people and that our education system doesn’t exalt this basic economic fact is the whole problem in the first place.