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How Should We Teach History?

Striving towards objectivity and accuracy, but with full acknowledgement and analysis where bias (particularly one's own) is inevitably present. Include multiple perspectives.
 
A significant portion of our nation is functionally illiterate, and we are pretending we're in charge of how kids interpret history?
 
WillyPete said:
A significant portion of our nation is functionally illiterate, and we are pretending we're in charge of how kids interpret history?
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[emphasis added by bubba]

no surprise that ^ they don't understand how a representative democracy works
 
justabubba said:
[emphasis added by bubba]

no surprise that ^ they don't understand how a representative democracy works
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I think Josh Hawley's problem is not that he failed to learn to read and write. He is just comfortable using his education to deceive people in the interests on the wealthy and the dark money that keeps their interests looking good to the American people. Is there any doubt that the ideas of our society (e.g. belief in the Big Lie) are the ideas of the ruling class? Dark money put the Republican right wing where they are. Follow the money.
 
WillyPete said:
A significant portion of our nation is functionally illiterate, and we are pretending we're in charge of how kids interpret history?
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I heard a person note once that Education is the only commodity on Earth for which the customer will seek to get less than he pays for.
 
psikeyhackr said:
A CHILD’S HISTORY OF THE WORLD by V. M. HILLYER

A Child’s History Of the World , by V. M. Hillyer—A Project Gutenberg eBook

gutenberg.org

Looks better than the history books I got in grade school.
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i liked the depth of the conclusion:
...
Our little world, which seems so immense to us, is really only a tiny speck, only one of countless other specks floating in space; it is like one of the tiny motes which you may see any time in a sunbeam that shines in at the window. Who has an eye so keen that he can count the moving motes in such a beam of light? Who would miss one such grain of dust if it should disappear? So this grain of dust we call the World and all of us who live upon it could vanish without ever being noticed!

This story ends here, but only for the present, for history is a continued story and will never end.

If you were living in the Year 10,000 a.d., as some boy will be, your history would only be just begun when you had reached where we are now. Even the World War would then seem as long ago as the fights of the Stone Age men seem to us. You might think of us and all the inventions we consider so wonderful as we think of the discovery of copper and bronze.

Will the history that is written in the Year 10,000 have any wars to tell about? If the wars on Earth cease, will there be wars with other worlds?

And if there are no more wars, what will history tell about? Will it be new inventions? What kinds? Will it be new discoveries? We know every corner of the world now. Will it be the inside of this world or other new worlds or a spiritual world?

Perhaps then people will no longer use trains, steamboats, automobiles, or even flying-machines, but go from place to place as on some magic carpet, simply by wishing. Perhaps then they will no longer use letters, telephones, or telegraphs, or even radio, but read each other’s thoughts at any distance.

And so on—World without end—Amen!
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I think people should accept that we are taught a lot of lies in school and in life. I'm older than most trees and in school, I was taught the the slaves in the U.S. escaped the South for the North. That was a lie unless you call Canada the North. I was taught that the slaves in the U.S. were freed by Abraham Lincoln. That was another lie. We were taught the South started the Civil War, which was a lie, and that the war was about slavery, another lie. We went to war in Vietnam because the Vietnamese attacked us in the Tonkin Gulf, a lie. My son was taught in 7th grade history class that the Holocaust never happened. He was also taught that the Amazon rainforest would be totally gone by the year 2000 and that communism was the only compassionate economic system.

Personally, I think we should try to teach a balanced history so that old people, like myself, don't realize they were blatantly lied to.
 
Patrickt said:
. That was another lie. We were taught the South started the Civil War, which was a lie, and that the war was about slavery, another lie.
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Growing abolitionist sentiment in the North after the 1830s and northern opposition to slavery’s extension into the new western territories led many southerners to fear that the existence of slavery in America—and thus the backbone of their economy—was in danger.

www.history.com

Civil War - Causes, Dates & Battles | HISTORY

The Civil War in the United States began in 1861, after decades of simmering tensions between northern and southern states over slavery, states’ rights and westward expansion. Eleven southern states seceded from the Union to form the Confederacy. Ultimately more than 620,000 Americans' lives...
www.history.com www.history.com

My history teacher looked me in the eyes and said the Civil War was about preserving the Union. But the reason the South wanted to separate was spreading slavery to new states. It was a distinction without a difference.

Research and believe what you want.

What is the difference between Manifest Destiny and Lebensraum? The 7th Cavalry didn't have tanks and gas chambers in 1880.
 
Patrickt said:
I think people should accept that we are taught a lot of lies in school and in life. I'm older than most trees and in school, I was taught the the slaves in the U.S. escaped the South for the North. That was a lie unless you call Canada the North. I was taught that the slaves in the U.S. were freed by Abraham Lincoln. That was another lie. We were taught the South started the Civil War, which was a lie, and that the war was about slavery, another lie. We went to war in Vietnam because the Vietnamese attacked us in the Tonkin Gulf, a lie. My son was taught in 7th grade history class that the Holocaust never happened. He was also taught that the Amazon rainforest would be totally gone by the year 2000 and that communism was the only compassionate economic system.

Personally, I think we should try to teach a balanced history so that old people, like myself, don't realize they were blatantly lied to.
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That you don't know that the Civil War was over slavery and its extension shows just how even teaching the facts cannot penetrate personal bias.
 
psikeyhackr said:
Growing abolitionist sentiment in the North after the 1830s and northern opposition to slavery’s extension into the new western territories led many southerners to fear that the existence of slavery in America—and thus the backbone of their economy—was in danger.

www.history.com

Civil War - Causes, Dates & Battles | HISTORY

The Civil War in the United States began in 1861, after decades of simmering tensions between northern and southern states over slavery, states’ rights and westward expansion. Eleven southern states seceded from the Union to form the Confederacy. Ultimately more than 620,000 Americans' lives...
www.history.com www.history.com

My history teacher looked me in the eyes and said the Civil War was about preserving the Union. But the reason the South wanted to separate was spreading slavery to new states. It was a distinction without a difference.

Research and believe what you want.

What is the difference between Manifest Destiny and Lebensraum? The 7th Cavalry didn't have tanks and gas chambers in 1880.
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Preserving the Union from a split created by the south leaving over slavery.
 
Patrickt said:
I think people should accept that we are taught a lot of lies in school and in life. I'm older than most trees and in school, I was taught the the slaves in the U.S. escaped the South for the North. That was a lie unless you call Canada the North. I was taught that the slaves in the U.S. were freed by Abraham Lincoln. That was another lie. We were taught the South started the Civil War, which was a lie, and that the war was about slavery, another lie. We went to war in Vietnam because the Vietnamese attacked us in the Tonkin Gulf, a lie. My son was taught in 7th grade history class that the Holocaust never happened. He was also taught that the Amazon rainforest would be totally gone by the year 2000 and that communism was the only compassionate economic system.

Personally, I think we should try to teach a balanced history so that old people, like myself, don't realize they were blatantly lied to.
Click to expand...

It goes farther and deeper than that.

I have only recently become VERY aware that all of my understandings of the world are derived from the generally British-Are-Good point of view.

Our history rising from that of Britain is what it is and delivers what it delivers.

Asian history was not taught at all in my public school experience except as it was touched by Western Explorers.

Granted, the rich texture of history with all of the interrelationships is beyond the grasp of most grade school kids, but it seems they could do a better job than the crap they are and have been serving up.
 
psikeyhackr said:
Yeah, I didn't bother arguing with teachers. It was just an aggravation with no upside.
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lol, I argued with my teachers CONSTANTLY. Mostly 6th and 7th grade. They were real fascists.
 
jpn said:
What should students be taught about slavery and racism in the US?

Of course what we teach 7-year-olds is different from 16-year-olds, so let's make the question about High School. How should the nation's history be characterized in their history classes, in general?

Here's a number line in order to provide a rough means of placing your opinion. I'm going with 7. I believe kids today receive a version closer to 3, and that's here in blue Seattle. Kids in Texas or Mississippi probably get something closer to 0 or 1. Or am I wrong?
View attachment 67337572
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First I would say that slavery has been part of the world since the beginning of civilization. When America began to import slaves this practice had been already been in affect for thousand of years. It was looked at differently at that time having so much precedent over the history of civilization.

The slaves that originally came to America, had previously been slaves to black tribes in Africa. Slavery was common in Africa at that time. When African tribes wanted to expand their territories, they would defeat and enslave those they conquered. One such tribe became large and was very rich in slaves. It wished to expand into the territories of the larger and tougher tribal opponents. So they traded some of their slaves for guns to the Dutch. This allowed expansion and more slaves. This is how the slave trade begin in the Americas. It was conquest based supply side driven in the very beginning.

Slaverly in America was not as common as the propaganda makes it out to be. Only about 3% of the people in America ever owned slaves. Slaves were not cheap to buy, so very few people could afford them. Slaves made most sense for rich people and on large farms where labor was needed to pick raw materials; like food and cotton. The slaves made a big mark on history. They made it possible for the Industrial Revolution to succeed. We should honor these brave men and women.

America was founded on the principles of liberty and justice for all. This led to many people, from the start, wondering why we still allowed the age old practice of slavery in America, since all people deserved freedom and liberty also. This push, somewhat due to so few people actually owning slaves and having nothing to lose, gained strength over the years and culminated in Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation. Those who needed the slaves, such as the agricultural South had a lot to lose. This was a Democrat stronghold. The Southern Democrats wanted to maintain slavey to the point they were willing to divide the Country so they could create a new slavey country. This led to the Civil War.

The South loses the Civil Car and the country was reunited, but the South pledged to rise again. This rising was less about another war, but about using the American political and legal systems to make laws that allowed them to have way. The Democrats created the original systemic racism legal approach, with laws on the books, that made the freed blacks second class citizens. The Nazi's when Hitler rose to power; 1930's, sent lawyers to America to learn how to legally make a race of people second class citizens. They used what their learned on the Jews.

This systemic racism system in America was maintained in the South until the 1950's when Civil Rights began. The systemic racism was slowly dismantled and by the 1960-70's people became more color blind. Today race is no longer color blind because the Democrat have decided to rise again and use the same ole playbook.
 
wellwisher said:
First I would say that slavery has been part of the world since the beginning of civilization. When America began to import slaves this practice had been already been in affect for thousand of years. It was looked at differently at that time having so much precedent over the history of civilization.

The slaves that originally came to America, had previously been slaves to black tribes in Africa. Slavery was common in Africa at that time. When African tribes wanted to expand their territories, they would defeat and enslave those they conquered. One such tribe became large and was very rich in slaves. It wished to expand into the territories of the larger and tougher tribal opponents. So they traded some of their slaves for guns to the Dutch. This allowed expansion and more slaves. This is how the slave trade begin in the Americas. It was conquest based supply side driven in the very beginning.

Slaverly in America was not as common as the propaganda makes it out to be. Only about 3% of the people in America ever owned slaves. Slaves were not cheap to buy, so very few people could afford them. Slaves made most sense for rich people and on large farms where labor was needed to pick raw materials; like food and cotton. The slaves made a big mark on history. They made it possible for the Industrial Revolution to succeed. We should honor these brave men and women.

America was founded on the principles of liberty and justice for all. This led to many people, from the start, wondering why we still allowed the age old practice of slavery in America, since all people deserved freedom and liberty also. This push, somewhat due to so few people actually owning slaves and having nothing to lose, gained strength over the years and culminated in Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation. Those who needed the slaves, such as the agricultural South had a lot to lose. This was a Democrat stronghold. The Southern Democrats wanted to maintain slavey to the point they were willing to divide the Country so they could create a new slavey country. This led to the Civil War.

The South loses the Civil Car and the country was reunited, but the South pledged to rise again. This rising was less about another war, but about using the American political and legal systems to make laws that allowed them to have way. The Democrats created the original systemic racism legal approach, with laws on the books, that made the freed blacks second class citizens. The Nazi's when Hitler rose to power; 1930's, sent lawyers to America to learn how to legally make a race of people second class citizens. They used what their learned on the Jews.

This systemic racism system in America was maintained in the South until the 1950's when Civil Rights began. The systemic racism was slowly dismantled and by the 1960-70's people became more color blind. Today race is no longer color blind because the Democrat have decided to rise again and use the same ole playbook.
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And that is why the Civil War blue states are still blue but the gray states have turned red.
 
wellwisher said:
This systemic racism system in America was maintained in the South until the 1950's when Civil Rights began. The systemic racism was slowly dismantled and by the 1960-70's people became more color blind. Today race is no longer color blind because the Democrat have decided to rise again and use the same ole playbook.
Click to expand...
Systemic racism in America was outlawed by Civil Rights legislation and Supreme Court decisions. The civil rights acts were supported by people who opposed systemic racism and opposed by people who supported systemic racism.

The civil rights acts clarified which of the two national parties supported what. The Democratic Party and LBJ led the fight for ending systemic racism. Democrats who opposed this fight eventually switched to the Republican Party. That's why the South, long a Democratic Party stronghold, transitioned into a Republican bastion.

A number of Republicans voted in favor of the civil rights acts, including moderate and liberal Republicans. Yes, there was a time when the GOP included moderates and liberals. No longer.

Although institutional racism is now outlawed, racism itself remains a strong force in America. It's clear that Donald Trump's election in 2016 was, in part, a reaction to our having elected our first black president. Much of Trump's base is motivated by white resentment, which Trump stokes repeatedly. So does Fox "News," most notably during Tucker Carlson's White Power Hour.

As for the GOP itself, being a Republican does not mean you're a racist. But if you are a racist, you'll be much more comfortable in the GOP than in the Democratic Party. After Goldwater carried only southern states and received a record low of 7 percent of the black vote in 1964, the party faced a basic choice: do what was necessary to appeal to more nonwhite voters, or build a party to win with white voters. They chose the latter, known at their Southern Strategy. Donald Trump employs it brilliantly.
 
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Patrickt said:
I think people should accept that we are taught a lot of lies in school and in life. I'm older than most trees and in school, I was taught the slaves in the U.S. escaped the South for the North. That was a lie unless you call Canada the North. I was taught that the slaves in the U.S. were freed by Abraham Lincoln. That was another lie. We were taught the South started the Civil War, which was a lie, and that the war was about slavery, another lie. We went to war in Vietnam because the Vietnamese attacked us in the Tonkin Gulf, a lie. My son was taught in 7th grade history class that the Holocaust never happened. He was also taught that the Amazon rainforest would be totally gone by the year 2000 and that communism was the only compassionate economic system.
Personally, I think we should try to teach a balanced history so that old people, like myself, don't realize they were blatantly lied to.
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For someone professing to prefer a "balanced" history, you have some very one-sided versions yourself.

Some slaves escaped to free states in the North. The Fugitive Slave Acts (last one enacted in 1850) made it problematic for slaves to remain in the North and many went to Canada. Or tried to. Many, however, escaped to the North. So the truth, as always, is nuanced.

Slaves in the US were freed by Abraham Lincoln, first through the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves in states of the Confederacy. But he was concerned that the Emancipation Proclamation might be reversed or found invalid by the judiciary after the war. He saw constitutional amendment as a more permanent solution. Lincoln's 1864 election platform resolved to abolish slavery by constitutional amendment. After winning reelection in the election of 1864, Lincoln made the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment his top legislative priority. Before the vote, Lincoln pushed hard for the amendment, making direct emotional appeals to particular members of Congress.

The Civil War was about slavery. Not only slavery, but slavery was by far the overriding reason. It wasn't a coincidence that South Carolina led the exodus immediately after Lincoln and the anti-slavery Republican Party won the presidency in 1860.

I can't believe your son was taught in a public elementary school that the Holocaust never happened. Where in the hell do you live? Why did the local people allow their school to teach such nonsense?

The Amazon rainforest continues to shrink to the detriment of our collective future.

Most of the lies I encountered in elementary and high school were lies of omission. There was little coverage of labor strife, but we learned how great Henry Ford was (but none on his admiration of Hitler and Fascism). There was almost no coverage that I can recall of how the US overthrew democratically elected leaders in Central and South America in favor of right-wing authoritarians so they could let our corporations (e.g., United Fruit) kick the peasants off their land and planted cash crops like bananas, then pay the peasants literally starvation wages. But we learned over and over how the US stands for freedom.
 
The English hung the Irish. It is time that we stop using historical wrongs to promote modern behavior. We are all Americans and if we are treated differently then that is a crime.
 
Lycanthrope said:
Striving towards objectivity and accuracy, but with full acknowledgement and analysis where bias (particularly one's own) is inevitably present. Include multiple perspectives.
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That fails because it may not be relevant.

The reason history sucks is because students are not taught those events in history which are relevant to their current lives.

WW II was certainly relevant to the Silent Generation and for the Boomers.

For the Tweeners, Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z, WW II is relevant only to the extent of understanding the East-West division of Europe, and for that, it should take a competent teacher only one class period to teach WW II.

Likewise, the Civil War is irrelevant and any teacher who cannot teach it in 3 class periods or less should be fired (assuming you can get the blessing of the Poop, a UN General Assembly Resolution, a UN Security Council Resolution and an Act of Congress, since that's what it takes to fire an incompetent teacher.)

The are historical events in the US and the World that are very much relevant to what's happening now, but unfortunately they aren't being taught.

Patrickt said:
I think people should accept that we are taught a lot of lies in school and in life. I'm older than most trees and in school, I was taught the the slaves in the U.S. escaped the South for the North. That was a lie unless you call Canada the North. I was taught that the slaves in the U.S. were freed by Abraham Lincoln. That was another lie. We were taught the South started the Civil War, which was a lie, and that the war was about slavery, another lie. We went to war in Vietnam because the Vietnamese attacked us in the Tonkin Gulf, a lie.
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Yes, those were all lies and because they were lies spewed as Truth, it has negatively impacted and jaded my view of many things.
Patrickt said:
My son was taught in 7th grade history class that the Holocaust never happened.
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With respect to the Holocaust, you must objectively define it in no uncertain terms.

If you define Holocaust as the systematic deportation of Jews to labor/prison camps, then yes, that is objectively true and cannot be refuted.

If your definition includes that, plus the systematic murder of Jews in the Eastern Territory -- what is now Belarus, Ukraine and the eastern part of Poland -- then, yes, that is objectively true and well-documented by Germans and non-Germans alike.

But, if your definition is that the Holocaust was the systematic murder of Jews everywhere under German control, that is objectively false.

I was told in high school 4 Million Jews died at Auschwitz. That is a lie. It is now accepted as a lie. The "official" number is tentatively 1+Million Jews died at Auschwitz.

However, dying does not equal murder, and there is no evidence that Auschwitz was the killing machine it is claimed to be.

Consider Anne Frank. She arrives at Auschwitz and is immediately put on train to Bergen-Belsen. Why?

To save her life because a Typhoid epidemic was sweeping through the camp. That's ironic given that shortly after arriving at Bergen-Belsen, Ms. Frank died of Typhus when it swept through the camp.

We also have her father. He suffered a foot laceration that became infected.

Instead of shipping him to Bergen-Belsen, the Germans put her father in a hospital and gave him penicillin that was in short supply and desperately needed by wounded German soldiers and civilians to save his life.

If the goal was to kill Jews, then she and her father should have gone straight to the barracks, where her father would have died of septicemia or they both would have died of Typhus.

One other oft ignored fact: At that time, and prior to that time throughout history, the only acceptable method of disposing of Typhus victims was cremation.

I don't doubt the crematoriums at Auschwitz were running non-stop, but it was to cremate Typhus victims, not those who were allegedly gassed to death.

You might have heard of Typhoid Mary from Cincinnati. And then you might want to look at Cincinnati newspapers published circa 1920 when a Typhoid plague was operative in Cincinnati, because there are photos of Typhus victims stacked like cord-wood in the streets and burned.

Typhus is a bacteria that can survive for indefinite periods outside of a host, which is why bodies have to be cremated.

It should also be noted that persons making claims that Zyklon-B was used at Auschwitz were not ordinary inmates.

They were part of the camp police force who lorded over their fellow Jews and abused them with beatings and whippings in order to get special privileges.

The guilt-ridden testimony of those individuals is highly suspect, and they would have said anything to avoid punishment at the post-war trials.
 
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