History is the story of people. It’s how the present connects with the past. It allows us to understand who we are and how our values were established. Yet, the story has been tainted in the classroom with some of the greatest lies that have been passed as truths.

Traditionally that lie has been the story of how victors of a conflict bragged about how the “inferior and pathetic” opposition was defeated. In academics, that lie has shifted so the history we learn does not offend certain interest groups, while reversing the significance of events and demonizing the story of conquest.

Such is the case regarding the Texas Board of Education and its plan of rewriting history textbooks to have a more conservative slant. You already know this can’t be good.

Among the changes include removing the influence of Thomas Jefferson, downplaying the civil rights movement and ignoring the influence of different ethnic communities.

The most obvious revision regarding the Civil War is ignoring the cruelty of slavery while glorifying the Confederate struggle and portraying the leaders as heroic, who became the victims of “Northern aggression.”

This is the perfect example of why history should always be written by the victors. For the descendents of the subjected to twist the text and change the story is obscene. Sadly, this is just one of many examples of how history has been twisted to tell a fairytale.

Remember being taught in school that early civilization believed the world was flat until Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492.

It’s because of these repetitive lies that I have refused to accept an instructor’s viewpoint on history since my freshman year of high school. Now I learn about history from books, The History Channel, The Military Channel, Wikipedia (I am also a contributor), movies and video games.

In fact, I consider playing “Call of Duty” a better source to learn about World War II than a history instructor, since it has no political bias or any fluff to be politically correct.

In this digital age where wisdom is at our disposal, it feels like the concept of a history instructor is obsolete with corruption. The history according to the Texas Board of Education is all the proof one needs to learn the truth on his or her own or sit back and watch the world burn.