The Boston Tea Party, the acts of the citizens of Boston protesting against Taxation Without Representation against the British monarchy is being taught in Texas schools as an act of terrorism. As recently as January of this year, the Texas Education Service Center Curriculum Collaborative included a lesson plan that depicted the Boston Tea Party, an event that helped ignite the American Revolution, as a terrorist act.
TheBlaze reports that the lesson plan teaches the act as anything but patriotic. It bills the Boston Tea Party as being a guerilla war attack against the legitimate government of the colonies. The lesson plan is causing Texans to act for more transparency in the way lesson plans are formulated.
The teachers in charge of organizing the curriculum about the Boston Tea Party wrote:
“A local militia, believed to be a terrorist organization, attacked the property of private citizens today at our nation’s busiest port. Although no one was injured in the attack, a large quantity of merchandise, considered to be valuable to its owners and loathsome to the perpetrators, was destroyed. The terrorists, dressed in disguise and apparently intoxicated, were able to escape into the night with the help of local citizens who harbor these fugitives and conceal their identities from the authorities. It is believed that the terrorist attack was a response to the policies enacted by the occupying country’s government. Even stronger policies are anticipated by the local citizens.”
The controversial TESCCC lesson is a product of CSCOPE, a well known non-profit whose media centers that help teach the curriculum received $25 million in funding last year, according to TheBlaze. Supporters of the program note that the lesson is no longer taught even though the syllabus still appeared on the website as late as last January.
Do you think it is appropriate to teach about the Boston Tea Party as being the act of terrorists?