For years I warned my students about the problematic nature of textbooks and mandated curriculum. We talked about the Gablers and watched the film about the trial in Dover. We read from Storm in the Mountains and studied the curriculum its author proposed as a counter force to what was already a right-wing Christian orientation in what schools taught. Fear always, legitimate fear, of teaching students to question what they were being told to remember, teaching about the educational system that they were being schooled by, the forces that shaped it, the reason for the mandates that prevented exploration for truth.That legitimate fear led to capitulation and that capitulation helped in significant ways to not only shape educational programs but, too, the mentality of the citizenry that has the power to influence societal decisions.A tiny bit of new curriculum will not solve the problem. Nor will those made timid by those who intimidate, the list of these not limited to those yelling right-wing nonsense at school board meetings.