Students Protest Manufactured History - SOLIDARITY!

When hundreds of high school students across a suburban school district outside of Denver, Colo. recently walked out of classes to protest a history curriculum, it quickly became national news.
According to a local reporter, the students took to the streets multiple days in a row "to voice their concerns over a proposed curriculum review panel they believe could stifle an honest teaching of U.S. history." But the story has now widened into a much larger controversy.
The students' teachers got involved as well, staging a "mass sick-out" in support of the students.
Now, prominent national political leaders are voicing their interpretations of the events. So this is a big story.
What's driving events in the Denver suburb of Arvada for sure is a controversial move by the local county school board to, as the Associated Press reported,

"establish a committee to review texts and coursework, starting with Advanced Placement history, to make sure materials 'promote citizenship, patriotism, essentials and benefits of the free-market system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights' and don't 'encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law.'"

Students who are alarmed to know they're not allowed to learn about civil dissent and protest have quite rationally chosen to protest.
More recently, The Guardian reported about "a spate of revolts against school dress codes appears to be gaining momentum across the United States, with students staging walkouts and other protests to complain at the way girls have been 'humiliated' and forced to cover up. A vocal campaign has emerged after recent incidents angered students in New York, Utah, Florida, Oklahoma and other states, with some accusing schools of sexism and so-called 'slut shaming'."

What's at the core of all these student actions is their call to have some say-so in how they are being educated in a system that increasingly imposes "sameness" and rigid "accountability" from remote authorities who seem unanswerable to anybody.
As the current school year rolls out, the protests are likely to continue and to build in intensity as school "reform" – including resource deprivation, top-down standardization, and autocratic rule – continues to plague the public education system.

The arguments back and forth over the Denver-area high school protests treat the students as if they were inert objects rather than active agents in their own learning. For example, in trying to sort out the curriculum controversy, Jonathan Cohn at The New Republic wrote, "Conservatives want schools to emphasize faith and obedience, while liberals are more likely to care about teaching tolerance and curiosity. You can guess how each group would react to a curriculum that asked some hard questions about U.S. history."
In other words, students are passive recipients waiting to be filled with right ways of thinking, and it's up to the adults – liberal or conservative – to decide what to populate their empty minds with.

taken from here