mandrakescry:

Harry Potter books covers from around the world.k

(via real-hiphophead)

(via artistickacchi)

medievalpoc:

medievalpoc:

Over 700 Jefferson County High School students are staging walkouts and protests over proposed changes to the Advanced Placement History curriculum. According to Colorado Public Radio:

Last week, a school board member proposed that advanced placement history classes be required to promote free enterprise and patriotism and be required to avoid classroom materials that encourage social strife or civil disobedience. Two high schools in Jefferson County closed Friday after dozens of teachers called in sick in protest.

According the online petition to be delivered to the School District:

Jeffco Public School Board has just proposed a change of curriculum stating that, “Materials should not encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law. Instructional materials should present positive aspects of the United States and its heritage.”

This means that important parts of our history such as the Civil Rights Movement, Native American genocide, and slavery will not be taught in public schools. If these important lessons are not taught, children will not learn from them, and what will stop them from happening again? This is a severe form of censorship intended to keep the youth ignorant and easy to manipulate. I’m hoping to get enough signatures to prove that this is a public issue, so, please, if this is important to you, please sign. Do not let our youth grow up in ignorance; we all deserve the truth!

You can sign the petition here.

You can read more articles at The Denver Post, CBS Denver (with video), and Colorado Public Radio.

Thanks to theseacaptainsdaughter for dropping a link in my inbox.

UPDATE: Over 40,000 people signed the petition, which was presented to the School Board, but this backlash to APUSH isn’t only happening in Colorado:

But at last week’s session of the Jefferson County Board of Education, hundreds of people lined up two hours in advance to get in. One man waved a copy of George Orwell’s “1984” at the board. Two high school students hauled in cardboard boxes containing 40,000 signatures to a petition they had circulated online. Another one told the five-member panel, “America was founded on what you are trying to prevent!”

Jefferson County has become ground zero for a new culture fight — this time over how to teach U.S. history to high-achieving 10th-graders.

[…]

On Sept. 19, the Texas State Board of Education went on record against allowing the new AP curriculum framework in state classrooms. Legislators and activists in South Carolina and Tennessee are discussing similar moves. And at its summer meeting in August, the Republican National Committee passed a resolution branding the curriculum “a radically revisionist view of American history that emphasizes negative aspects of our nation’s history while omitting or minimizing positive aspects.”

Read More

aestheticsg0als:

niqabiimuslimah:

gharibafisabilillah:

"Oppressed" Muslim Women 

I love this

That’s the thing that gets me about niqab bans and how they’re apparently for “security”. Muslim women who wear Niqab all over the world have been doing so for many many many years already and other countries have done just fine with it.

As for the argument that it’s to end their oppression, how does it serve Muslim women to deny them an ability to move within public spheres? That only limits their social mobility, their education, their work.

(via pakeeztani)

drunktrophywife:

shadow-nanner:

vegan-vulcan:

thinksquad:

Want to attend college for free? It can happen if you learn German.

All German universities are now free to Americans and all other international students. The last German state to charge tuition at its universities struck down the fees this week.

Even before Germany abolished college tuition for all students, the price was a steal. Typically semester fees were around $630. What’s more, German students receive many perks including discounts for food, clothing and events, as well as inexpensive or even free transportation.

In explaining why Germany made this move, Dorothee Stapelfeldt, a Hamburg senator, called tuition fees “unjust” and added that “they discourage young people who do not have a traditional academic family background from taking up study. It is a core task of politics to ensure that young women and men can study with a high quality standard free of charge in Germany.”

Actually, German universities were free up until 2006 when they started charging tuition. That triggered such a crush of criticism that German states began phasing out this policy. Lower Saxony was the last holdout.

It’s too bad that politicians in the U.S. don’t feel that a college education is worth supporting appropriately. State aid to the nation’s public universities took a nosedive during the 2008 recession and education funding remains well below those levels. The average state is spending 23 percent less per student than before the recession, according to a report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Actually, state support has been declining for public universities for a quarter of a century. Using an interactive tool from The Chronicle of Higher Education, you can see how state government subsidies have cratered at individual institutions.

With the average undergrad borrower now leaving school with more than $29,000 in debt, the free ride in Germany can look awfully tempting.

How to handle the language barrier

German is not an easy language to learn. Fortunately, however, there are international language programs in Germany, which have become very popular with international students before they tackle obtaining a degree in a different language.

What’s more, an increasing number of German universities are offering degrees in English. These are often called international studies programs or in some other way have the word international in their title.

http://www.wtsp.com/story/news/2014/10/03/german-colleges—free-degrees—americans/16658027/

This is actually making me cry…it’s one of those times when you realize that your own government just truly, honestly, does not give a shit about your wellbeing in any way.

If Americans don’t reblog this, then y’all need help.

I told my dad about this and he didn’t believe me

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