California Textbook Final Review Meeting

[Guest guest]

Sundaresan Subramanian <s_subi wrote:

 

Thanks to HPI - here is the latest news item.

 

S. Subramanian

 

California Board of Education Committee Schedules Meeting for Final

Textbook Review www.cde.ca.gov

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA, February 15, 2006: The "Committee of the

State Board of Education On 2005 History-Social Science Primary

Adoption" has scheduled a public meeting for February 27 at the

Department's headquarters in Sacramento. This meeting is to "To

consider edits and corrections, and any errors, objections, and

comments, for the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade primary adoption

of history-social science instructional materials, and to make

recommendations to the Board." The meeting is the next step in the

on-going saga of the California textbook adoption process. Hindus

have been actively attempting to get changes made to the Hinduism

sections of the proposed books where they are inaccurate or not in

accord with the California Standards which require each religion to

be described respectfully.

 

The latest list of "edits," as the proposed changes are called, is

given at "source." This is the list the committee will discuss. One

column of th e document indicates if the Board staff endorse the

edit or not. It includes edits from the Board's own staff, the

Council on Islamic Education, the Institute for Curriculum Services

(Jewish), the Hindu Education Foundation and the Vedic Foundation.

Of the 53 staff edits, all are recommended for adoption; of the 94

Islamic edits, all are recommended; of the 186 Jewish edits, all are

recommended with the exception of three minor rejections and two

major ones. For Hindus, on the other hand, only 60 of the original

152 edits were approved as is, the remaining ones subject to various

revisions or outright rejection. By HPI's count, about 26 of the

unaccepted edits remain important issues. This list of edits appears

to be the result of the closed door meeting of January 6 by members

of the Board with Dr. Shiva Bajpai and Dr.

Michael Witzel (see here).

 

The remaining important unaccepted edits fall mostly into three

categories. First is the origins of Hinduism as resulting from an

Aryan invasion or migration in ancient times versus the Hindu view

that Hinduism is indigenous to India. Second is the presentation of

caste as an integral, even key central feature of Hinduism, as

opposed to its treatment as a social system. On these two issues,

most non-Hindu Western academics such as Dr. Witzel take the first

point of view and Hindu academics (and some non-Hindu ones, too)

take the second. The third is the identity of the Hindu concept

of "Brahman" with "God" (capital G), with the Western academics

arguing the Hindu concept is not "monotheistic," and therefore not

supposed to be capital G. Probably the best Hindus could hope for is

to get in the texts that an alternative point of view exists on each

of these issues.

 

There remain a few notable uncorrected errors. For example, edit 74

of the Vedic Foundation, objected to this inadequate

definition, "Yoga is a type of ... slow breathing," but no

correction was allowed.

 

 

 

 

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