The American Patriotic Supremacy Curriculum take 2

In republishing the original blog post below on the American Patriotic Supremacy curriculum, it’s essential to underscore the ongoing importance of confronting our past to safeguard our future. With the shadow of the January 6th insurrection still looming, we must not let the distance of time dull the urgency of that day's lessons. Public schools are the guardians of democracy, tasked with imparting truths that liberate and empower. As the 2024 election approaches, bringing with it a pivotal election, the threat of fascist ideologies creeping further into our social fabric becomes increasingly palpable. This moment demands a major victory for truth, a renewal of dedication to an educational system that rejects false narratives of exceptionalism and instead fosters critical, inclusive thought. By revisiting this post, we are reminded of the crucial battle for the soul of our social studies curriculum—a fight that will decide what our children learn about their country and how they will carry its legacy forward.

The American Patriotic Supremacy Curriculum: A Breeding Ground for Civic Toxicity

The January 6th insurrection did not emerge in a vacuum—it is the offspring of the pervasive American Patriotic Supremacy curriculum in our schools. This curriculum, lacking in deep historical analysis and context, is more than an educational oversight; it is a generator of civic toxicity.

The “American history” spoon-fed to generations of students has amounted to an insidious form of brainwashing. It peddles the fantasy that ignorance is a right, allegedly bestowed by a divine power that demands an unwavering allegiance to said ignorance.

Witnessing the insurrectionists, one thing stands out: They believed, fervently, that they were the modern-day embodiment of the patriots of yore, waging war against a tyrannical government that was out to snatch their freedoms. Yet, no clear encroachments upon their rights to speech, guns, or religion exist. The anger was fuelled by a curriculum that placed them at the core of a grandiose hallucination—American exceptionalism.

After years of ingesting these distortions, the words of an actual tyrant have been mistaken for a battle cry to shield “our country” from those alien to this hallucinatory exceptionalism.

In the 1930s, a radical educator, George Counts, dared schools to forge a new social order that exposed inequities and transcended mere "schooling" for a liberating, democracy-serving education. For this, Counts and his ilk were branded as threats to the American exceptionalism fantasy and were excommunicated as socialists and communists. Thus, instead of education serving as enlightenment, it devolved into a mechanism for indoctrination, bonded by the American Patriotic Supremacy curriculum.

We've all been fed the easily digestible, though grossly oversimplified, narrative: Columbus 'discovered' America, the 13 Colonies fought the tyrant king, patriots declared independence in 1776, and eventually, an actor turned President in the 1980s saved America by championing capitalism.

Decades of this sanitized "history" set the stage for the absurdity we saw at the Capitol—rioters clad in a mishmash of historical cosplay, convinced they're fighting a new revolution. The American Patriotic Supremacy curriculum found its champion, a tyrant who manipulated the myth of American exceptionalism into a perilous call to arms.

The imperative now is to confront this damaging curriculum. We need a public education that is unafraid of the truth, one that encourages critical thought and champions the principles of democratic citizenship. This is the only path to mending the civic rifts that endanger our collective future.