Circuit Writer

My column for the September 5 – September 11 edition of The Tahlequah Christian.

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It was a funny feeling for me during this previous week to not be attending classes at Phillips Theological Seminary. Graduation will definitely lift the burden of needing to be in classes, but it doesn’t remove that strange feeling that I should be there anyway. In fact, that’s probably why I’ve continued to partner up with some of my friends who are still in school in order to read some of their books along with them. I guess when it comes to theological education, I just can’t seem to get enough.

If I were saying that last sentence to you in person, I might have followed it up with some sort of a sheepish grin. continue reading…

This post is the third in a series of blogs of I’ve written following the actions of the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) at their January meetings to approve revisions to the state’s K-12 social studies curriculum.  Known as TEKS, these standards will determine the learning goals for Texas students for the next decade and will also impact the publication of textbooks that will be used nationwide.  (I cover this more in the previous blogs, Hijacking History and Hijacking History, Part 2.)  This post will cover the final two days of the meeting where elected members of the SBOE went through the proposed curriculum revisions and voted on changes of their own.  Ultimately, the proceedings exhausted the time allotted for discussion and approval of the revisions, postponing the final vote to the May meeting of the SBOE.

The SBOE is composed of 15 members who are elected from districts based on equal population representation.  Elections to the board are conducted on a partisan basis, and the recent meetings demonstrated just how detrimental this can be to the educational process.  Brian Thevenot of the Texas Tribune has provided excellent coverage of these meetings, and his description of the approval process is no exception: continue reading…

(Photo by Chris Hondros/Newsmakers) Content © 2008 Getty Images All rights reserved

In a previous blog, “Hijacking History,” I took on the subject of the Texas state curriculum for K-12 education (known as TEKS) and the implications of the proposed revisions to the curriculum that was to be presented to the State Board of Education (SBOE).  This new curriculum will not only determine what will be taught in Texas’ many public schools, but will also likely determine what is seen in new history textbooks throughout the nation.  (I explain this in more depth in my previous post.) continue reading…

I’d like to dedicate this blog post to Bobbie Tetley, my high school AP American History teacher who instilled in me a love of history, and even though I am on the eve of completing graduate school, she remains one of the most challenging, demanding, and respected voices not only of my educational career, but of my life.  Thank you, Mrs. Tetley.  – cwc

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This first came to my attention through an action alert from the United Farm Workers, an organization I’ve become connected to through my denomination’s participation in the National Farm Worker Ministry.  I received an email asking me to “Stop Texas from erasing Cesar Chavez and Hispanics from school books.”  It provided information about an upcoming session of the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) that will be voting on new curriculum standards for social studies for the state of Texas.  UFW asked me to compose an email to Gail Lowe, the chair of the Texas SBOE demanding that they not further marginalize the voices of Latina/os within the history curriculum. continue reading…