On The Spot: Alamo education changes

“I don’t agree with anyone trying to change history. We may not like what happened, we may not agree with what happened or how it happened, regardless of what is, Alamo or anything else. But the fact that we tried to erase something that happened is unbelievable. How do you say ‘This didn’t happen, they weren’t heroes,’ they were there giving their lives to protect their case. So of co...

“As a history professor, and I teach US history at Richland College, I think it’s important not to be guilty of presentism, that is using 2018 values for something that happened 200 years or so ago. We would not have our state, which used to be the Republic of Texas, in our current situation as it is, if it were not for people who fought in that independence movement. So with anything negative that ...

“History is fluid and we are constantly looking at and discovering new information, and I don’t necessarily think it should be the prerogative to rewrite history over modern interpretations. I think that we should still allow freedom of teachers to look at the curriculum, look at the facts, and then take that to go forth and present what they believe to be the truth.” ...

“My opinion is just that they were heroic. You just look at the numbers that they had to deal with, as far as the troops that they were fighting up against and what they were going for was basically Texas independence to some degree. So I think they were heroic.”

"I say it depends on how much change and how much it affects the students. If it has a bad effect, then they shouldn’t do that, but if it’s to a good learning effect, then it would be a good thing to have."

“I think that then attributes to the fact that we need to look at all sides of the population. So, for example, I would assume the reasoning for that is that the demographics of people coming historically into Texas were not just the white settlers, but you have people from both sides of that incident. So you would have to think one side’s heroic ancestry wise would be the other’s opposite, so t...