Anonymous wrote:

omg

This is true across the ages. "Strong" conquers "weak," however you wish to define these terms. Armed vs. unarmed?

Which country has a peaceful past? Iceland perhaps?

Here are some tips:
1. You don't move forward w/o honoring the past.
2. Every person is a product of his/her environment. So we take the good with the bad.
3. Even if you teach - in detail - the history behind a school's name, the kids don't give a rat's a**.
4. This is a superficial, "snowflakey" attempt at addressing inequity in the system.

We are graduating kids who can't read. I hardly think that focusing on John Poole as a "bad man" will remedy that situation.

Fortunately nobody is doing that. "John Poole owned people as property" (a statement of fact) =/= "John Poole was a bad man".

Also, a really great way to honor the past is to stop naming schools after segregationists and defenders of slavery.

(Also you evidently don't know much about the history of Iceland.)

Anonymous wrote:We are graduating kids who can't read. I hardly think that focusing on John Poole as a "bad man" will remedy that situation.

You work in education?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They never even teach the kids about the people after whom the schools are named anyway. I’d be in favor of just numbering them.

Eighth graders in MCPS learn about Washington and Jefferson in USH. Many of my students last year were shocked to learn that Washington not only owned slaves, but tried to find and reenslave ones who ran away.

Did you happen to teach them that slavery was ubiquitous around the world, and that Washington and the other Founders put their lives on the line to bring the values of the Enlightenment to the "common man"? That without them, we wouldn't have the freedom of speech to argue about the horrors of slavery?

An interesting way to describe white, property-owning men, don't you think?

Washington and the other founders put their lives on the line to bring the values of the Enlightenment to some people and to explicitly exclude other people from them.

omg

This is true across the ages. "Strong" conquers "weak," however you wish to define these terms. Armed vs. unarmed?

Which country has a peaceful past? Iceland perhaps?

Here are some tips:
1. You don't move forward w/o honoring the past.
2. Every person is a product of his/her environment. So we take the good with the bad.
3. Even if you teach - in detail - the history behind a school's name, the kids don't give a rat's a**.
4. This is a superficial, "snowflakey" attempt at addressing inequity in the system.

We are graduating kids who can't read. I hardly think that focusing on John Poole as a "bad man" will remedy that situation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They never even teach the kids about the people after whom the schools are named anyway. I’d be in favor of just numbering them.

Eighth graders in MCPS learn about Washington and Jefferson in USH. Many of my students last year were shocked to learn that Washington not only owned slaves, but tried to find and reenslave ones who ran away.

Did you happen to teach them that slavery was ubiquitous around the world, and that Washington and the other Founders put their lives on the line to bring the values of the Enlightenment to the "common man"? That without them, we wouldn't have the freedom of speech to argue about the horrors of slavery?

An interesting way to describe white, property-owning men, don't you think?

Washington and the other founders put their lives on the line to bring the values of the Enlightenment to some people and to explicitly exclude other people from them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Agreed.

If we are going to rename schools, MLK needs to go also. Why would MLK get a pass?

You are free to advocate for this to the Board of Education, if you so choose.

As are all other residents. Let people advocate to change their school name on a school by school basis. That would be a reasonable approach. This should be a community issue. Not a school system wide issue.

MCPS school names are not an MCPS issue? Huh,.

Anonymous wrote:Forget naming schools after people. Attitudes and standards change over time. Nobody can survive the scrutiny. Let’s just pick numbers and be done with it.

The schools all have numbers already, in addition to their names, but they're just used internally.
See the list here: https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/schools/List-Of-Schools-2019(1).pdf

I don't think there's going to be much community or board support to start referring to Churchill, for example, as "High School #602"!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They never even teach the kids about the people after whom the schools are named anyway. I’d be in favor of just numbering them.

Eighth graders in MCPS learn about Washington and Jefferson in USH. Many of my students last year were shocked to learn that Washington not only owned slaves, but tried to find and reenslave ones who ran away.

Did you happen to teach them that slavery was ubiquitous around the world, and that Washington and the other Founders put their lives on the line to bring the values of the Enlightenment to the "common man"? That without them, we wouldn't have the freedom of speech to argue about the horrors of slavery?

Well said and can not be repeated enough times. Unfortunately, it requires a deeper understanding of history that just the surface - which I don't think the BOE can grasp.

Very true. The MCPS BOE is a strange group.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They never even teach the kids about the people after whom the schools are named anyway. I’d be in favor of just numbering them.

Eighth graders in MCPS learn about Washington and Jefferson in USH. Many of my students last year were shocked to learn that Washington not only owned slaves, but tried to find and reenslave ones who ran away.

Did you happen to teach them that slavery was ubiquitous around the world, and that Washington and the other Founders put their lives on the line to bring the values of the Enlightenment to the "common man"? That without them, we wouldn't have the freedom of speech to argue about the horrors of slavery?

Well said and can not be repeated enough times. Unfortunately, it requires a deeper understanding of history that just the surface - which I don't think the BOE can grasp.

The people on the BOE are the ones who asked that a group of historians work on this report.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They never even teach the kids about the people after whom the schools are named anyway. I’d be in favor of just numbering them.

Eighth graders in MCPS learn about Washington and Jefferson in USH. Many of my students last year were shocked to learn that Washington not only owned slaves, but tried to find and reenslave ones who ran away.

Did you happen to teach them that slavery was ubiquitous around the world, and that Washington and the other Founders put their lives on the line to bring the values of the Enlightenment to the "common man"? That without them, we wouldn't have the freedom of speech to argue about the horrors of slavery?

Well said and can not be repeated enough times. Unfortunately, it requires a deeper understanding of history that just the surface - which I don't think the BOE can grasp.

Anonymous wrote:Forget naming schools after people. Attitudes and standards change over time. Nobody can survive the scrutiny. Let’s just pick numbers and be done with it.

Numbers would be confusing in such a large school system. Geography-based names would be practical and more likely to hold up over time.

Forget naming schools after people. Attitudes and standards change over time. Nobody can survive the scrutiny. Let’s just pick numbers and be done with it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Agreed.

If we are going to rename schools, MLK needs to go also. Why would MLK get a pass?

You are free to advocate for this to the Board of Education, if you so choose.

As are all other residents. Let people advocate to change their school name on a school by school basis. That would be a reasonable approach. This should be a community issue. Not a school system wide issue.

Anonymous wrote:I think moral equivalent would be some town in Germany having a school named after say Eichmann. Would be interesting to hear what "what abouts" people would have.

Eichmann was celebrated in his time specifically for crimes of genocide. Not that there’s really an equivalent in our country, but it would be someone like Robert E Lee, who was celebrated for treason and fighting to limit the rights of others, continuing to keep a genocide legal.

Washington (for example) was—and is—celebrated for framing a new form of government that allows, among other things, for our rights to freedom, which are now being extended to more marginalized populations.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They never even teach the kids about the people after whom the schools are named anyway. I’d be in favor of just numbering them.

Eighth graders in MCPS learn about Washington and Jefferson in USH. Many of my students last year were shocked to learn that Washington not only owned slaves, but tried to find and reenslave ones who ran away.

Did you happen to teach them that slavery was ubiquitous around the world, and that Washington and the other Founders put their lives on the line to bring the values of the Enlightenment to the "common man"? That without them, we wouldn't have the freedom of speech to argue about the horrors of slavery?

Fair point.

Anonymous wrote:I love revisionist history and whitewashing things under a different lens. Those people accomplished nothing in their time but perpetuated slavery of their times. Evil.

?????

Maybe MCPS should use their funds to provide education in history to adults and children alike.