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This week some families in Arvada, Colo., are bringing one of nation鈥檚 founding principles, civil disobedience, back into vogue by supporting their kids in a district-wide student walkout in protest of a new school board curriculum policy that could keep teachers from sharing much of our nation鈥檚 history of acts of civil disobedience.

According to reporting from Arvada, 鈥淎 new conservative school board majority here in the Denver suburbs recently proposed a curriculum-review committee to promote patriotism, respect for authority and free enterprise and to guard against educational materials that 鈥榚ncourage or condone civil disorder.鈥欌�澨�

In response, hundreds of students, teachers and parents from high schools across the Jefferson County school district, the second largest in Colorado walked out of school, the Times reported. 鈥淪ympathetic parents brought poster board, magic markers and bottles of water,鈥� according to the Times.

My son Quin, 10, is a budding news hound who regularly hunts blog topics for me in the morning. He spotted the Arvada school walk-out and cued-up the New York Times story for me on the computer before I had my morning coffee in hand.

However, Quin took the story听 literally, particularly a quote by Griffin Guttormsson, a junior at Arvada High School literally who said, 鈥淚t鈥檚 gotten bad. The school board is insane. You can鈥檛 erase our history. It鈥檚 not patriotic. It鈥檚 stupid.鈥�

Quin imagined the Jefferson County school board wanted to literally 鈥渆rase history.鈥�

鈥淪o, they want a time machine to go back and take out the history parts they think are bad, like protests,鈥� Quin said. 鈥淔irst, tell them time machines don鈥檛 exist. Then all you need to tell them is to imagine what things would be like if those events had never happened.鈥�

If Quin could spell better and didn鈥檛 hate to type, he鈥檇 be an immediate threat to my job.

It鈥檚 worth a look at what our nation would miss if the Arvada school board did get a chance to remove from the curriculum all events that inspired, what they describe as today鈥檚 鈥渆ducational materials that encourage or condone civil disorder."

First to go might be the Boston Tea Party (the original one, not today鈥檚 national conservative political movement of the same name) leading to the War for Independence.

Changing that history would potentially leave the rest of this debate up to the UK parliament.

However, since The Tea Party was also an act of 鈥渇ree enterprise鈥� it might make the cut. If the Tea Party was kept, the school board might instead choose to remove all the anti-war movements involving acts of civil disobedience.

In that case, they could stop teaching the works of Henry David Thoreau, who famously went to jail for refusing to participate in the US war against Mexico in 1849.

This thought makes me realize that the Arvada board is talking about 鈥渃urriculum鈥� which is not entirely limited to history books in schools, but could potentially include all the literature course books as well.

Since 鈥渃ivil disorder鈥� is how women got the vote, the board could zap away all references to the US Women's Suffrage movement which lasted from 1848 to 1920, a time during which thousands of women marched in the streets and were arrested to gain the right to vote.

And one of the most important historical movements in recent history, the civil rights movement, most notably represented by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., wouldn鈥檛 have a chance, because it was all about sit-ins and protests that chipped away at segregation.
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In order to teach 鈥減atriotism鈥� to Americans through the act of selectively omitting parts of American history taught to our children means you will have to get through well-educated parents and grandparents who might have lived through what you have cut out.

In its quest to push a curriculum change, the Jefferson County school district may find it has met its destiny on the road it took to avoid it. The school board has incited a district to repeat the history of civil disorder, passing it down to a new generation of young Americans in a way that is far more effective than any text book classroom experience they could have orchestrated.