Constant Reader discussion
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Disappearing History
Very interesting, Catherine! The point you made about No Child Left Behind rings true with me--I graduated from my high school in 2007, but I can remember teachers "teaching to the test." Being from PA, all we students ever heard about were the PSSAs, and subjects besides English and the various maths weren't really considered as important in my high school. My best history class was in 10th grade, which taught the material from the Reconstruction period to the present. I remember my teacher did an efficient job at keeping us up to date and keeping us down-to-earth by letting us know that the US isn't always in the right. Other than that course, though, our history classes were just run-of-the-mill. I took AP Euro History my junior year of high school, and it was a joke, which is sad in retrospect because it was probably due to the "All Hail the US" attitude so many are taught. I myself feel blessed with respect to history because my dad loves history and taught me the facts with the reverence and the accuracy that they are due. Much of my time growing up (and even now) has been spent visiting various battlefields (my dad's a Civil War nut), watching the History Channel, and reading all sorts of historical books, whether fiction or nonfiction. At a younger age, I might not have always understood the inside politics or the consequences of battles, etc. but I feel as though my exposure to history is what was important. Visiting sites like Gettysburg where I could climb on the rocks at Devil's Den that the soldiers fought on or make the trek up to Big Round Top really piqued my interest as a child and has held my attention every since.
Once again, very interesting points. Do you think that anything can be done about the decline in historical interest?
Please pardon a rather cynical question, since all of this is so new to me.
Does the new liberal approach to history, which shows that the United States isn't always right, ever show that the United States is at least sometimes right?
Now, everyone throw shoes. :)
Does the new liberal approach to history, which shows that the United States isn't always right, ever show that the United States is at least sometimes right?
Now, everyone throw shoes. :)
I think a large part of the problem is that history does not get much time in our schools, and is mostly taught badly. It is by its very nature a fascinating subject (or some area of it could be fascinating to almost everyone), but it is often made the most boring subject imaginable.That's why I have it in for willfully inaccurate historical fiction - because one of the few ways most people learn anything about the past in this country is by reading historical fiction.
Russ2 wrote: "Please pardon a rather cynical question, since all of this is so new to me. Does the new liberal approach to history, which shows that the United States isn't always right, ever show that the Un..."
That's a good question, Russ, and understandable, too! Speaking from my personal experience, throughout most of my public education, we were taught that the US was always, and without a doubt, right in everything. My tenth grade history teacher opened my eyes to a degree, but it wasn't until my sophomore year in college that I was taught to be an active history learner--examining both sides of a situation and forming my opinions based on the circumstances, ultimately resulting in the conclusion that the US is *sometimes* right--hehe :)
I agree. jess, that some balance is essential. Here in Georgia, until about 15 years ago (maybe less), there were many school districts, some close to Atlanta, where teachers were not allowed to teach that slavery was wrong. A friend of my daughter's who attended school in Stone Mountain (very close to Atlanta and an old stronghold of the KKK) had a teacher who broke the rules and showed a documentary about slavery. This was high school and, although the black students knew the history already, some of the white students were in tears, because they had never been taught this essential piece of history.Sometimes it is easy to forget that all historians have a perspective. I remember how stunned I was to learn that the rewrite of slavery, the Civil War, and reconstrucation - essentially a whitewash (excuse the pun) of southern history - was initiated by a group of historians at Columbia University.
In addition, a lot of the changes in teaching younger children Social Studies were initiated by well-meaning liberal teachers in the '70s. (Yes, even we liberals occasionally make mistakes!) There was a deliberate decision to downplay historical dates and geography to emphasize broader concepts - a nice idea, except no one can understand the broader concepts without dates and geography! The result was students who thought that slavery ended in the 1960's and that New Mexico was not a part of the USA. (No, I am not making this up!)
Russ, I NEVER want to say that the US is always wrong, and I don´t know of any responsible historian or author of well researched historical fiction believes that it is. You have been hearing the knee-jerk responses of people who have their own reasons for believing we have always been right. A lot of people appear to be afraid the World As We Know It would fall apart if any of their ideas or beliefs are challenged.Actually, even though I´m white, it was my ancestors who often ended up bad when the country was wrong about something. My great-grandfather died when a keg of black powder blew up on his road building site, leaving an indigent widow with five children - no social safety net back then. My grandfather lost the family home during the Depression - and he had never invested in the stock market.
Speaking of the Civil War, I was glad my son grew up after integration, because he didn´t have to hear about ¨how the North came down and told us how to run our business on the word of Harriet Beecher Stowe, who had never been south of Lexington, Kentucky¨. He actually was given some idea of what had happened in Tennessee. I taught him more, of course. During genealogical research my mother found that a distant relative of ours had tried to implicate my Union soldier great-grandfather in a notorious torture murder. After learning his regiment, I was able to trace his history almost every day from the time he joined to prove this was a falsehood.
I think the real issue here is that many people believe a liberal arts education is no longer of value. It is better to teach business, math and science than history, English, art, music and social sciences. Unfortunately, students today often get a very narrow education. I will go out on a limb and say that history and English majors are better prepared to be leaders in the world of business than most MBA graduates who have a limited understanding of people. I believe that a great novel will teach one more about what makes people tick than all the psychology books put together. In order to tell a great story a novelist has to understand what makes people tick. Leadership is about people and most MBA grads have very little understanding of people. They just understand numbers. If you want to understand people read novels, biographies and memoirs. (Please note: liberal as is used here as nothing to do with the idiotic liberal/conservative debates.)
I would hope that a liberal arts education would result in the ability to view the world with a bit more subtlety than "right" vs. "wrong." Some things are clearly wrong, at least from our present historical vantage point - Nazism, slavery, why debate the issue? But most historical happenings are various shades of gray, right and wrong don't really have a purchase. Context, causation and results are always interesting, though.Mike, there is at least one school in Georgia that even today, 2009, holds segregated proms. My source is the NY Times, see link below. Not that I'm picking on Georgia, but given some of the statements made by parents quoted in the article, it wouldn't surprise me at all if some schools had had such a policy as Wilhelmina noted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/mag...
Theresa
Mike, you had an excellent teacher who was willing to challenge the established curriculum, just as the teacher as the teacher I mentioned did. Thank heaven for good teachers!
Migawd, segregated proms! In this day and age. I am bumfuzzled and appalled.
Sorry for intruding, not sure if there's a cultural gap here (different country, different education system and all), but I don't quite get what this debate is about. I can understand a history text being right or wrong. Saying, "Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic and discovered America," is a factually correct statement. Saying, "Queen Isabella accompanied Christopher Columbus on that journey and they had a torrid love affair," is factually wrong. But what does it mean when you say that a history text teaches that Country A is right or wrong? My history texts as a kid would say, for example, that "In 1066, the Normans invaded England." They didn't go on to say, "and it a right thing for them to do/it was wrong of them to conquer a foreign territory".
Saying, "Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic and discovered America," is a factually correct statement.You might get a bit of an argument on that one from the folks who were already here, Whitaker! It's that word, "discovered"...
Everything doesn't just come down to "facts"; much of history rests on interpretation. No book can contain every "fact" - historians pick and choose. Very few historians in the past, for example, focused on the horrors of the Middle Passage for enslaved Africans. In my day, history books very dispassionately discussed the triangle trade between Africa, America, and England without any indication that the trade of enslaved people was any different from the trade of rum or sugar. Made a BIG difference to MY ancestors!
(Even the term that I used, "enslaved people", carries a different message than "The Slaves." )
Wilhelmina wrote: "Saying, "Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic and discovered America," is a factually correct statement.You might get a bit of an argument on that one from the folks who were already here, W..."
Or from those familiar with Leif Erikson.
And this is what writers do -- find the precise word to describe the situation.
What a great topic! Harley, as both a history major and an MBA, I might take offense, but actually, I think you are right.And Jess, it's nice to see another PA person here.
I keep wanting to nominate one of Barbara Tuchman's books as one of our classic books, but is nonfiction appropriate for that list? I would call several classics. And we would have plenty to discuss.
Wilhelmina, Ruth, thanks for the insight into this debate. That's really interesting. It sounds a bit like that furore that erupted a few years ago about how Japanese text books were omitting the Nanking Massacre. Yes, I guess even with the Norman conquest you could get into whether William's claim to the throne was valid, and all that. Gosh, no wonder it's so contested.
MAP said: "What a great topic! Harley, as both a history major and an MBA, I might take offense, but actually, I think you are right."I'd love to hear your insights into the history major vs the MBA as a training ground for leadership. Having spent 34 years in business, my view of business is that it is actually common sense. Something that can't be taught in schools. Yet today one almost needs an MBA as a ticket into any major corporation.
I read an article by Frans de Ruiter where he introduces the concept of a Postmodern Bildung. He claims that the study of arts and literature - and I think history can be a part of that too - is needed to provide a background and perspective on how to deal with a pluralistic and postmodern world.
Just like in the Middle Ages the study of literature was seen as the only path to knowledge, now the study of literature, art and history can be the only path to knowledge of the world or knowledge necessary to deal with a pluralistic postmodern not-knowable world.
Just like in the Middle Ages the study of literature was seen as the only path to knowledge, now the study of literature, art and history can be the only path to knowledge of the world or knowledge necessary to deal with a pluralistic postmodern not-knowable world.
One thing my history background taught me was an appreciation of the big picture. You can spend a lot of time and energy counting beans, but you've got to know why you are doing it first and foremost, or you will be doomed to failure or worse, repeating the mistakes of the past.
Back in the first post, Catherine said, "Historical fiction may yet be our salvation." Over in the Literary Fiction by People of Color group, we're discussing a wonderful work of historical fiction by Lawrence Hill called Someone Knows My Name or, outside of the US, The Book of Negroes . This book has been recommended here in this group before by some of our Canadian members. In addition to being a compelling novel (Canada Reads book of the year and other awards), it enlightened me about parts of history of which I knew very little - the Canadian settlement of loyalist black folks after the American Revolution and the back-to-Africa movement which repatriated some of those people to Sierra Leone. I give this book a very strong recommendation. A number of the members of this group also belong to that one. It's officially private, but all of you are very welcome to join.
Wilhelmina, I'm glad you mentioned the Hill book. A GR correspondent from Ghana had mentioned the "Book Of Negroes" and I couldn't find it here in the U.S. but now I see why. As for the debate, I had some great history teachers and some awful ones, but now that my kids are going through the public schools (public university, high school and one in elementary) I'm finding the ignorance of their teachers about history pretty appalling. Many of these men and women are intelligent and know how to teach reading, writing and math very well. They know how to deal with a variety of social and psychological problems that would baffle me. But social studies (not just history alone, but geography, anthropology etc.) seems like foreign soil (pardon the pun). Teachers can't do everything. We need to encourage kids to read as parents, but also as supporters of local public libraries, youth clubs etc. I've found my library has lots of volunteer reader and tutoring opportunities, and I find neighbors who talk to my kids about what they are reading and share reading suggestions with them are a great help too. Whew, sorry for the long post.
Wow, these are fantastic thoughts here. Really inspiring. Last night we were watching This Is Civilization and the WAY the art and stories were told was so clever and really might get under the skin of a lot of viewers. My husband and I found ourselves feeling "we wishe everyone could watch this series" because it was so good at showing the layers of significance to art.And just sort of related to the idea of history being "right or wrong"...we change how we view events over time. Isn't the adage history is written by the winners?
I think just the event of the human rights movements since the Second World War has effected how we view...and how we tell history. There are some writers and recollections that incorporate empathy and compassion into an account of history now...or look at history narratives from several points of view.
We also as humans have a tendancy to have a story arc be more powerful than "right or wrong" or "truth or fiction". For example...how many people have you met that think water goes down the drain differently on either side of the equator. Tons of people believe that the water in North America goes down the drain different direction in Europe than it does in Australia.
It's a great story using the "Corilorlis effect"...people created a great story. But it's not true. Water rotation goes down a drain dependent on sink design...not because of what end of the earth you live in.
I've heard even high school teachers, university grads believe the water goes different in Australia or Africa than North America.
If we can have such a strong misunderstanding exist just with water going down drains...then no wonder there can be so many different versions of history!
http://www.snopes.com/science/corioli...
People can get very stubborn about their beliefs. and people who study history can be as stubborn in what they have learned...as those who haven't learned academic perspectives. This is more about a persons pride in their own sense of intelligence and history. No one likes to find out they have been living life belieivng one thing....to find out others do not believe such. I think Columbus history is a really good example. I've seen people have a sense of a rug being pulled out from under them...at the idea that Columbus didn't discover North America! They grew up being taught he did....they are diametrically opposed to those who were not taught that idea/or with wording such as "discovered America".
Storytelling and how we tell history...how we tell a narrative arc has both powerful benefits to spread ideas both "wrong and right" ideas...the idea of columbus discovering America and the water going down the drain differently depending on what hemisphere you are in are wrong....
But they are great stories.
Meanwhile...I read a fantastic book by Lynn Hunt called Inventing Human Rights. Hunt attempts to show that the history of publishing and writing especially the world f the novel is tied to human rights!!!
Here is a video of her lecture on the topic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZVD1G...
And here is her book:
http://www.amazon.com/Inventing-Human...
Speaking of recovering lost history, the Pulitzer Prize committee seems to have been thinking along the same lines. The award for history went to Annette Gordon-Reed for The Hemingses of Monticello An American Family and the award for general nonfiction went to Douglas A. Blackmon for Slavery by Another Name The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II. Even the drama award went to Lynn Nottage for her play Ruined. She says that she wrote her play to tell the stories of the women affected by the civil war in the Congo whose voices were not being heard.
Is it possible that those awards reflect current fashions more than anything else? Awards seem to say more about those making them, than those on whom they are bestowed. Esp in this day and age, when politicized thinking has become de rigueur. The amount of research done, the more systematic methods of research and data analysis, and the huge volume of published titles would seem to argue not that history is lost, but that we are pursuing it more feverishly than ever, it seems to me.Wilhelmina wrote: "Speaking of recovering lost history, the Pulitzer Prize committee seems to have been thinking along the same lines. The award for history went to Annette Gordon-Reed for [book:The Hem..."
I'm getting to this topic quite late, but just wanted to point out that, long before No Child Left Behind, states made the study of American History one of the primary requirements for graduation from public high school. Mine required two high school years of it, for example. Catherine wrote: "I´ve been seeing some disturbing signs for a while that the Powers That Be are playing down the study of history and liberal arts generally. Social Studies are not included in the No Child Left Be..."
I just need to mention how important teachers are when it comes to history. Many of the ones I had in high school (don't ask how long ago!) focused primarily on data: facts, dates, particular place. Yet one magical teacher had a way of making it so real. He introduced concepts such as: significant decisions affecting the course of history are made by living breathing people who may have chosen a particular action because they weren't feeling well that day or disliked (or was overly favorable to) certain persons they were dealing with. I know as a student this piqued my interest so much more than mere memorizations. Books that illuminate the human side of history can be a valuable asset in keeping interest in learning the data as well.
I had a fantastic history teacher too, Janet. He taught both history and what was called Civics then, probably Government now. He always drew correlations between what happened in the past and what was happening now. He also was the first person I ever heard say that the world would eventually run out of oil and that water might not be infinite as well. And, this was in 1964.
I also had a terrific American History teacher in the eleventh grade (1965!) who emphasized primary sources and sent us to the Library of Congress to do research for our term papers. The joys of growing up in DC....
I never had a good history teacher. When I discovered that history wasn't something to be groaned over was when Masterpiece Theater (here we go again) did the series about Elizabeth I with Glenda Jackson. That was when I realized history was just a story, and we know how much we like stories.
Yes, a good teacher definitely can bring a subject to life! Yet I wonder if we are being fair to the previous generation of teaching, in this subject -- can you think critically, and understand major concepts, without knowing the facts well? I'm sure not every last date is necessary to one's knowledge base, but the notion that we students would learn the basics was meant to prepare us to be capable of thinking critically. It may just be the incipient middle-aged curmudgeon coming out in me, but from what I can see, a lot of students today will swallow any notion that comes along, no matter how silly -- partly because so many have no basis for examining the veracity of a claim. Janet wrote: "I just need to mention how important teachers are when it comes to history. Many of the ones I had in high school (don't ask how long ago!) focused primarily on data: facts, dates, particular place..."
Well, let me play devil's advocate here on your teacher's oil forecast. Has the world run out of oil? Or are proved oil reserves at (or extremely close to) the highest amounts they have ever been in history? Every energy "crisis" -- and this latest crisis was simply higher prices, not a shortage of energy -- has been accompanied by the claim that we were running out of supplies. For over a century, now -- and yet that has never happened. We have always become more efficient in production, and also found new forms of energy to tap.
So does that "concept" stand up to the facts? Or is it just a belief, not a fact nor even a likely outcome? I think a lot of today's fashionable concepts are as much acts of faith, as they are products of reason. And just as so many of the "concepts" of the past proved false and are today laughed at -- so will many of ours, today, end up in that same status. But only by knowing the past, and learning facts, will we be able to tell which may be true, and which unlikely. Do students today learn them? I have two sons whose brainpower impresses me, but their teaching (even in a top magnet school) has sometimes left me discouraged in this way.
Barbara wrote: "I had a fantastic history teacher too, Janet....He always drew correlations between what happened in the past and what was happening now... He also was the first person I ever heard say that the world would eventually run out of oil and that water might not be infinite as well. And, this was in 1964..."
Michael, I agree there is importance in learning facts. Still, without demonstrating their relevance to lives and society of the times they become meaningless cardboard cutouts. History is comprised of the actions of real people with complex lives. Unless teachers bring that point home, I doubt students understand the impact of leaders they choose to represent them will have on their futures. (If they choose to vote at all that is)Examples: How many people who did not live through WW2 dismiss the notion of the Holocaust or the heroic actions of service men and women if they are only expected to spout back dates and numbers?
What of the 9/11 attacks? If only places, dates and numbers of those killed are taught will a future generation raised on video game violence truly understand?
As you say, critical thinking is vitally important. Too often in many school districts today subjects are taught merely to get students to pass standardized, fact-filled tests in order to enable funding for their schools.
Good points, Michael, but I agree with Janet that there needs to be a combination of approaches to make teaching truly effective. We learned facts and dates in that history teacher's class, but he also made me learn the art of critical thinking. Issues such as the possible end of the supply of oil were always presented as questions so I misstated that in my original post. He presented as much relevant data as possible, sent us off to investigate further and brought us back to hear our impressions. He taught me the most valuable skill of all, how to learn.
What we need is to embed the facts in the living story in which they occurred. To make it real and relevant, you have to get across the idea that it´s real people with their blood, sweat, and tears. I remember my father talking about how frustrated he felt looking at pictures of things he remembered well and most people didn´t. ¨I want to point to the picture and say he was ALIVE, a real person, just like you¨.
What valuable reflections in this thread. Barb, loved your memory of your history teacher.Here is another example of why history appears/disappears and our relation to how we feel about events at later dates...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/20...
A confidential record of a meeting between President Bush and Tony Blair before the invasion of Iraq, outlining their intention to go to war without a second United Nations resolution, will be an explosive issue for the official inquiry into the UK's role in toppling Saddam Hussein.
The memo, written on 31 January 2003, almost two months before the invasion and seen by the Observer, confirms that as the two men became increasingly aware UN inspectors would fail to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) they had to contemplate alternative scenarios that might trigger a second resolution legitimising military action.
Bush told Blair the US had drawn up a provocative plan "to fly U2 reconnaissance aircraft painted in UN colours over Iraq with fighter cover". Bush said that if Saddam fired at the planes this would put the Iraqi leader in breach of UN resolutions.
The president expressed hopes that an Iraqi defector would be "brought out" to give a public presentation on Saddam's WMD or that someone might assassinate the Iraqi leader. However, Bush confirmed even without a second resolution, the US was prepared for military action. The memo said Blair told Bush he was "solidly with the president".
The five-page document, written by Blair's foreign policy adviser, Sir David Manning, and copied to Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the UK ambassador to the UN, Jonathan Powell, Blair's chief of staff, the chief of the defence staff, Admiral Lord Boyce, and the UK's ambassador to Washington, Sir Christopher Meyer, outlines how Bush told Blair he had decided on a start date for the war.
Paraphrasing Bush's comments at the meeting, Manning, noted: "The start date for the military campaign was now pencilled in for 10 March. This was when the bombing would begin."
To answer your questions, Janet, no one I know has ever dismissed the Holocaust or the sacrifices this nation made to fight in World War II. Do you know many who do? Yes, there are Holocaust deniers out there, but it's not through lack of exposure to the facts. It's from some innate bigotry or hatred -- something that no degree of education may be able to eradicate, in most such cases.As for 9/11, the recitation of the simple facts, including the number killed, is a big part of the impact of the event, it seems to me. And a very necessary element to combat the (silly) conspiracy theories that have abounded as people apply their favorite "concepts" to a major piece of history occuring right in front of them.
This notion that teachers must now "teach to the test" only is something of a canard, in my view. If you have ever seen a big-city high school, or talked to the graduates who come out of it, it becomes very clear why something like No Child Left Behind had to be enacted. Our standards had fallen so low, many if not most of these students were being cheated of anything that could legitimately be called an education. Making sure that a basic body of knowledge was being transmitted to ALL our high school graduates is critical to their having any chance to participate as fully as anyone else in our society.
I understand that these requirements can make teaching less fun for the teacher and a source of anxiety for teachers and administrators alike. But I think standards needed to be raised, and the performance of our schools made that need paramount over all other concerns. Finally, I find it hard to believe that a good teacher, and a reasonably well-prepared classroom of students, must really spend so much time being "taught to the test" that something vital is lost. If they need that much effort to be prepared for the test, maybe they DID need that material after all.
Janet wrote: "Michael, I agree there is importance in learning facts. Still, without demonstrating their relevance to lives and society of the times they become meaningless cardboard cutouts.... Examples: How many people who did not live through WW2 dismiss the notion of the Holocaust or the heroic actions of service men and women if they are only expected to spout back dates and numbers?
What of the 9/11 attacks? If only places, dates and numbers of those killed are taught will a future generation raised on video game violence truly understand?..."
Barbara, I couldn't agree more with what you've written here. I am certainly not arguing AGAINST effective teaching! LOL.... nor against critical thinking. In fact, it's the shortage of critical thinking in the educational world that bothers me most. As you wrote in your post (repeated below), your favorite teacher taught you as much relevant DATA as possible.... would that not include facts? Well, of course it would. Just trying to emphasize my point. Because one of the several causes of our current mediocre educational outcomes may lie in a subtly sloppy kind of thinking that has taken root.... that teaching a "concept" can replace teaching the subject fully, including facts, dates, or, in an English class (yes, a pet peeve of mine is now rapidly approaching) grammar and sentence construction. The danger of being satisfied with teaching students the necessary concepts of a subject is that all the teacher really is teaching is his or her own prejudices. Barbara wrote: "Good points, Michael, but I agree with Janet that there needs to be a combination of approaches to make teaching truly effective. We learned facts and dates in that history teacher's class....Issues such as the possible end of the supply of oil were always presented as questions so I misstated that in my original post. He presented as much relevant data as possible, sent us off to investigate further and brought us back to hear our impressions. He taught me the most valuable skill of all, how to learn..."
Michael, I agree school systems were pushing students along without sufficient standards. However, the pendulum swings dramatically with regard to trends in education. I heard from several parents and teachers in different states how their schools require an inordinate amount of time teaching to these tests leaving little available for anything else.Now as to some of my previous remarks regarding history: I used WW2 and 9/11 as examples most of us could relate to. My point was that mere numbers and locations don’t hit home for some learners. Experiencing historical events puts them in a different perspective than subsequent generations get if they just learn facts, figures, dates and places. The impact is lessened the more removed you are from historical events. For many students, in order to appreciate why they need to learn facts, they need to feel the humanity in the situations. Learning about the great depression in today’s economy takes on a deeper meaning to generations who were not alive then and only knew prosperity of the consumer driven society we have been living in.
In order for the where, when and what to matter to students, the who and why needs to touch them. Human faces and stories of lives forever altered or being the causal agent of change are an integral part of history that is missed if only the facts are stressed.
The danger of being satisfied with teaching students the necessary concepts of a subject is that all the teacher really is teaching is his or her own prejudices.
Right on, Michael!
Right on, Michael!
I remember an incident maybe 20 years ago when I was teaching college Art History. I used to try to make the students realize that every artist was first and foremost a real living breathing person. To that end, I'd wandered off into some current art world gossip about a certain sculptor when I saw a student earnestly taking notes on it. "Don't worry," sez I, "this won't be on the test."
"Then what are you telling us for?" was the answer.
Pity.
I have to chime in here. I am an High School History Teacher. I have state standards that I have to teach to. Every two years my students take a state exam that they have to pass or else be sent to summer school to relearn the things they didn't know before. Yes, I think social studies is overlooked in a lot of places including my school, but let me share a few things with you.First of all our students take 3 1/2 years of social studies that include a full year of Civics, World History, American History and a semester of Government. I teach both world and american history and sometimes I have the same students two years in a row which is somethimes nice and sometimes not so nice.
Because of the internet and so many primary sources being digitized we are now able to teach better than our history teachers were able to teach. Every class I teach with documents that show my students what things were really like during the time period that we are studying.
I also want to point out that history is not cut and dry. With every event that we study we also have to show the political situations that are developing, the artistic movements, literary movements, social and economic situations that all affect history. In order to do that I spend hours reading and studying so I can tell my students the right thing.
With that said, the Liberal Arts educations aren't viewed as important because we are a computer driven world and many don't see the importance of not repeating past mistakes. But, instead of dreading that it is time to embrace it and teach history the way students learn it today, with computer games, programs, ipods, youtube, and many more.
Great discussion!I grew up during the military dictatorship in Brazil, during a time when school curriculum was closely monitored and facts and events were censored. For instance, just recently – and through works of fiction – I have really begin to comprehended 2 of the most horrific events in Brazilian history: the Canudos War, and the Farroupilha Revolution. Only now I learned that the Farroupilha Revolution was the longest civil war in South America – it lasted 10 years – and that one of the revolutionary aims was to abolish slavery. But this very important piece of Brazilian history was brushed over by the military, which I am sure feared the very notion of “revolution”. This is almost comparable to USA history books teaching the American Civil War in about 3 pages, and failing to mention the relevance of the pro/con abolitionist debate on that war.
Maybe, and hopefully, like Julie mentions, the advent of the internet will not allow for the manipulation of history to the degree of what happened in Brazil for 2 decades.
But the manipulation of facts also happen under the more subtle veils of ideology and nationalism, and in some ways I find it even more dangerous than the heavy handed way of the Brazilian military dictatorship. I witness such an event as a High School exchange student in the USA, and have never forgotten it. The debate was over the Vietnam War. By then – 1982 – the debate should not have been as heated as it was, but we ended up with 2 students in the class shouting at each other. When finally the one student on the “against the war side” said: “We lost the war. The USA lost the Vietnam War!” The kid defending the war looked dumfound and looked at the teacher for help. The teacher then very readily affirmed (and certainly not unbiased as he wanted to portrait himself): “We didn’t lose the Vietnam War, we just withdrew from there!”
Even the military in Brazil would not have pretended that withdrawing in a war would not have implied losing it. I don’t really recall where the debate went from there, and I really don’t know if anyone else grasped the irony of the situation. But again I never forgot the realization I had then that history can be “justified” in many ways to fit the views of those teaching it.
That story reminds me of a man I know who grew up under a communist regime in Eastern Europe. At least when it's done that way and not subtle it's easier to see you were manipulated.
Julie, excellent note about your teaching. I always thought that my sons had excellent Social Studies and English classes. Our problem was math teachers who understood higher math, but didn't know how to teach students who didn't learn it instinctively.Michael, I understand your point, but I've known many excellent teachers and find that bashing them is such a popular activity that I like to move the conversation around to recognizing them.
And, Capitu, your comments reminded me of the absolute importance of this discussion.
Great points, Capitu! Were the books you read in English or Portuguese?I think that what disturbs me most about No Child Left Behind is that each of us who had an excellent teacher was inspired to continue to read history because of that experience. No Child Left Behind strips away the passion of teaching and reduces it to information to be regurgitated for a test. I know several teachers who left teaching after many committed years because they felt handcuffed by the imperative to teach to the test.
I believe grades are barbaric. Are we dealing with people or with meat? Grade D people end up serving Grade D meat at Taco Bell, is that the idea? I have met so many successful, fascinating, inspiring people who were not good at getting As.
Starting in Kindergarten we teach our children that being human is not good enough. The continued policy of grading students can certainly be interpreted as a way for the powers that be to maintain control over the populace, as Catherine suggested in the original post.
I'm glad they haven't struck upon the idea of grading attitude, resilience, and passion.
Plenty of people are very interested in history, because of or in spite of their teachers. Not everyone is going to eat up history and fall in love with it. Some will and some won't. Hopefully we as a culture are able to provide support for those who love it and want to spend significant time with it.
Students learn best when a maximum number of nerve cells are involved in the learning experience. That is why telling stories is often a good approach to teaching facts. A story can be a pneumonic device, ancient poetic histories and the like are examples. Feeling empathy or emotional stimulation for a historical figure/event can certainly be a tremendous aid to understanding.
Michael, you are a wonderful devil’s advocate. In post 35, though, it seems to me that you are utilizing a sense of faith even as you decry it. You take it as a matter of faith that oil is not running out. I take it as a matter of faith that it is running out. (Fifty years ago, it took one barrel of oil to extract twenty barrels of oil. Today, because we have consumed the "easy" oil first, it takes one barrel of oil to extract only four barrels of oil. When the ratio hits one to one, we will effectively be out of oil.)
Then you say this: “But only by knowing the past, and learning facts, will we be able to tell which may be true, and which unlikely.” Surely, if we as humans are prone to being manipulated by non-factual “faith-based” arguments, it would behoove students to not only learn facts, but to also learn to spot faith when they see it, right?
Candy wrote: "Here is another example of why history appears/disappears and our relation to how we feel about events at later dates...http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/..."
Thank you for pointing that out Candy. At the risk of being flamed, this search for excuses sounds no better than China's excuse of invading Tibet to save it from a religious tyrannical dictatorship, or the German invasion of Poland "provoked" by a border skirmish "stared" by "Polish" guards.
Julie, good luck with your teaching. Some of us are probably dubious that media of entertainment -- in many cases, the most shallow of entertainments -- will provide valuable tools for learning. But time will tell. I just hope future students are not led to believe that learning, and thinking, are as easy and undemanding as ipods and computer games. In my experience, there is no substitute for the discipline of having to write an essay (in whatever form, including a substantial memo) to clarify to yourself exactly what it is you believe, and why, and the logical sequence by which you have arrived at your conclusion. Julie wrote: "I have state standards that I have to teach to. Every two years my students take a state exam that they have to pass... With that said, the Liberal Arts educations aren't viewed as important because we are a computer driven world and many don't see the importance of not repeating past mistakes. But, instead of dreading that it is time to embrace it and teach history the way students learn it today, with computer games, programs, ipods, youtube, and many more."
Constant Reader
Books mentioned in this topic
Europe Between the Oceans: Themes and Variations, 9000 BC - AD 1000 (other topics)A Pillar of Iron (other topics)
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (other topics)
Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II (other topics)
Ruined (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Annette Gordon-Reed (other topics)Lynn Nottage (other topics)
Douglas A. Blackmon (other topics)
Annette Gordon-Reed (other topics)
Lawrence Hill (other topics)
Young soldiers, he says, are more easily taught to torture when they are not taught this has always been against the law. All students can be more easily fed the myth that the US is always right, wise, and good if they aren´t allowed to study any inconvenient history. Workers can be more easily intimidated if they do not know the long history of the labor movement. Above all, history and the humanities are about teaching people to THINK, not how to get good jobs and become satisfied consumers.
I have met intelligent people who are astonishingly ignorant of the simplest historical facts - and what they do know they often learned on Star Trek! Bless fiction. Half the job the folks at Media Matters do is dredging up political quotes from nine or ten years ago to show what really happened and how politicians are reinventing themselves.
Historical fiction may yet be our salvation. Nobody can read Bernard Cornwell, Anne Perry, Victoria Thompson and their ilk without realizing the past wasn´t always good, lovely, and true. I feel personally blessed that both my parents loved history and were very definite about the wrongs that have been done and how we should remember them. Today I think most often of Daddy´s repeated ¨Remember the Battle of Anacostia Flats¨ and am thankful Jill Churchill used the incident as the background of ¨Someone to Watch Over Me¨.
I gave my granddaughter two of the American Girl Felicity mysteries for her ninth birthday. They tell the truth and even have a small ¨peaking into the past¨ section at the end.