Is Rap the Best Way to Teach History?

Remember the idiotic teaching method for inner city kids back in the 1990s called Ebonics? Well, now there’s Flocabulary, where rap is used to talk about our founding fathers as “old dead white men.”

An uneducated Oklahoma City public school district is authorized to spend $97,000 in federal funds on the Flocabulary program, which “is an educational tool that uses rap and hip-hop music to help (at-risk) students learn and memorize basic principles of vocabulary, reading, writing, social studies, math and science.”

(Please remember some of those “basic principles” because there will be a pop quiz later.)

But 15 teachers in the district were upset when they heard some controversial lyrics about the nation’s founding fathers, reported NewsOK.com and Fox News.

“One particularly controversial song entitled ‘Old Dead White Men,’ describes President James Monroe's presidential term by saying: ‘White men getting richer than Enron. They stepping on Indians, women and blacks. Era of Good Feeling doesn’t come with the facts.’”

But, wait. It gets better (worse?).

“Andrew Jackson thinks he’s a tough guy. Killing more Indians than there are stars in the sky. Evil wars of Florida killing the Seminoles. Saying hello, putting Creek in the hell holes. Like Adolf Hitler he had the final solution. ‘No, Indians, I don't want you to live here anymore.'”

OK, ready for that pop quiz? Let’s see what’s wrong here: the lyrics aren't even written in proper English, so there goes the writing portion of the program.

Oh, and you can forget about basic math. "Killing more Indians than there are stars in the sky” fails at basic math in such a spectacular fashion that even Stephen Hawking went “D’oh!” Or maybe there really were about a trillion plus American Indians killed.

Sure, education should be fun and engaging, but there is no need to dumb it down where it’s factually biased and lowers educational standards even more so.

Let’s face it, Adolf Hitler had his moments and you wouldn’t want him at a Bar Mitzvah, but it would be an insult to those who suffered under him if we had a rap song that gave a watered-down history lesson on the Nazi leader. Although on the plus side, it would give Neo-Nazi skinheads something to scream about.

It's insulting and disrespectful to gloss over history with a few hip lyrics and slap an insulting rap about “old dead white men.” Something tells me they wouldn’t have a rap song called “old dead black men” about Martin Luther King Jr. or Jackie Robertson.

It should be easy to present a good education in a more entertaining way while still being respectful and giving a high quality lesson.

Apparently some school districts forgot how Ebonics never quite took off like some predicted it would.

Well, rapping inaccurately about U.S. history won’t either.

Anthony Leone is a political columnist who has an extensive background in journalism, from newspapers to magazines to news sites and blogs.