Here’s How Common Core Teaches Students to Hate the Gettysburg Address

The Gettysburg Address is one of the most iconic and important speeches in American history. Delivered during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln gave this 1863 speech at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery, just months after the Union defeated Confederate soldiers at the Battle of Gettysburg.

While the address is considered to be one of most important moments in our nation’s history, today’s students, educated using the misguided Common Core standards, are taught about the Gettysburg Address in an unusual, and in many ways, disrespectful fashion.

From the way public schools are teaching kids, you’d think the Civil War never even happened.

From The Washington Post:

Imagine learning about the Gettysburg Address without a mention of the Civil War, the Battle of Gettysburg, or why President Abraham Lincoln had traveled to Pennsylvania to make the speech. That’s the way a Common Core State Standards “exemplar for instruction” — from a company founded by three main Core authors — says it should be taught to ninth and 10th graders.

The idea here is to plunge students into an independent encounter with this short text. Refrain from giving background context or substantial instructional guidance at the outset. It may make sense to notify students that the short text is thought to be difficult and they are not expected to understand it fully on a first reading — that they can expect to struggle.

English teacher Jeremiah Chaffee believes Common Core wants students to “mimic[s] the conditions of a standardized test on which students are asked to read material they have never seen and answer multiple choice questions about the passage.”

This isn’t anything new. The liberal public education system has been feeding propaganda to kids for decades, ignoring real American history to fit their liberal narrative. Common Core just makes their propaganda stranger.

The Gettysburg Address is not simply an independent piece of writing to be used as part of a standardized tests that students read, answer a set of questions about, and then quickly forget about it. Given Common Core’s unnecessary and useless standards, it is likely that the average American student has no idea what the true meaning of the Gettysburg Address is, which include the importance of human equality as described in the Declaration of Independence, how the Civil War was a struggle for the preservation of our nation, as well as pledging a “new birth of freedom” that would provide all citizens with true equality.

Even worse, instead of learning to revere this amazing speech, kids have to memorize it for a test. What are they going to think about it, if they remember it at all?

They’re going to hate it.

Only 40% of America’s teachers support Common Core, so hopefully Trump’s Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos can lead a nationwide movement to dump the standards so our kids can actually learn about our nation’s history.

Are you shocked at the way Common Core minimizes the Gettysburg Address to nothing more than a meaningless set of paragraphs to be read on a standardized test? Share your thoughts below! 

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