Just seems like GOP Presidents do their best to destroy the country and economy and the next Dem is left to clean up the mess, like the guy trailing the circus elephant sweeping up paddies. Sure would be nice to break this cycle. Biden, Obama and Clinton were far superior to their predecessors.
Just seems like GOP Presidents do their best to destroy the country and economy and the next Dem is left to clean up the mess, like the guy trailing the circus elephant sweeping up paddies. Sure would be nice to break this cycle. Biden, Obama and Clinton were far superior to their predecessors.
I think Americans would learn more from and about the past in America if school systems would teach American history with more of a warts-and-all approach which honestly discusses America's mistakes and failures in addition to playing up its successes and triumphs. When I studied the subject in school, it was taught almost as religious doctrine with various presidents taking on the roles of saints.
I recall a story about Lincoln which is I have since read is without an empirical source but still makes sense if not good history. Basically when the protagonist is assured that
"God's on our side" he asks "are we on the side of God". I am not religious in any conventional sense, but I note two flavors of religion, one I admire and one I fear, which on the one hand is humble, helpful, and compassionate, and another that is profoundly narcissistic, even sociopathic. The one is the likes of someone such as MLK, and the other burned people at the stake, or flew planeloads of terrified people into the sides of buildings.
Less and less is being taught concerning the true process and value of governing of the people, by the people and for the people. along with a review of the consequences of government by the few to lift up a person who wants to control everyone except himself or herself.
We need to begin in kindergarten. Having worked with preschoolers, believe me, they understand the concept of rules and bounderies.....whether they like it or not.
Once upon a time at a PTA meeting one of the parents stood up and said "we need you to learn our students". In other words not only teach it but see that they learn it. We teachers were stunned. This from a parent with 2 of the most undisciplined, low achievement students who reported to us teachers that no one read at home, no homework time and no parental interest in school subjects.
Get parents involved in learning. Get politicians out of the classroom. Treat Teachers like the professionals they are.
I had a conversation not long ago with someone advising that "I'm Just a Bill" is wholly inaccurate regarding how legislation is made. Sadly, that's about all the gist of law making most Americans have.
Rules and boundaries, as you indicate, that are part of every human interaction. Perhaps th4e canonization of profit has resulted in rethinking education as needing to be more intensely focused on vocational training; but while preparation for work is surely a large part of its value, education also offers more broadly the skills one is likely to need to be a resilient, successful person. I recall, for example, one afternoon in 5th or 6th grade, my class spent an hour or two talking about formal logical fallacies. Great, but BS detection is a survival skill for individuals and societies as a whole, as current events are demonstrating, and like language skills, should be cultivated throughout. Science is not a catalog of technical findings but a mental discipline, useful for a trip to the grocer as well as the moon. The arts allow us to transmit to one another the feeling, breathing, thinking inner experience of human sentience. Psychology and anthropology help us to be better acquainted with our own nature; and IF we are entirely serious about DYI, governance, a lot more development of the requisite skills to successfully perform it would surely help.
Schools are what we make them. Increasingly teachers (my wife was one) are hobbled, not helped by clueless politicians and bureaucrats. If you think about the extended consequences of an empowering education, kindergarten teachers should be trained at least as well, in their own craft, as college professors, and paid for it too. It seems to me that an excellent or poor teacher a far more critical matter working with the very young than an excellent or poor university professor with adolescents or adults. College and graduate students can weather a discouraging or weak encounter at the near-adult level far better than callow kiddos. A university president gave a speech to parents at my daughter's U in which he asked us to think of teachers who changed our lives, and got me thinking of several.
We are ultimately standing on the shoulders of layer upon layer of giants (and many, many more who contributed as well).
Please, Let’s not blame elementary teachers for right wing extremism today. Take a look at white evangelical movements, Murdoch and his folks, social media, and other forces behind the dumbing down of America
We're not blaming the teachers. They're forced to teach what is mandated, which is not Civics, Government, or History. It is no surprise that so many Americans are gullible - because they are truly ignorant.
It’s a mixed bag- teaching what is mandated in some schools or districts in this country and/or in others what parents desire. Think about current controversies about CRT. Critical Race Theory. Teaching the Truth for some is as dangerous as teaching sex education. Think about the Scopes Trial. It’s Science. Today it’s Truth. There’s Antibias curriculum” not particularly new. In my MA in Human Development we learned not only history of education but Development of curriculum. Louise Derman Sparks pioneered Antibias curriculum for young children through adults. And Pablo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed). Parents have historically objected to curriculum that they felt threatened their personal beliefs, and we’ve seen home schooling movements develop into charter choices and religious schools receive government funding or be part of the controversies. Now. Public School. Private School. Charter School. When, what and how to teach. There’s abundant research and teacher training, education, has more often than not included at least the history and science of education, the praxis. It’s the Politics of education that’s the problem.
Yes, Irenie, politics in education, especially at the K-12 level, is horrifying. The lies you and I were taught, were more than likely, not even known by the instructors who taught them. But teachers in this era, do know and are held to the fire to teach misinformation. Shameful that politics infiltrates truthful learning.
Yes, many Americans do seem terribly gullible and ignorant. Plus, they are watching the deafening silence of their elected leaders who have been unable to speak out or stand up to Trump despite all we’ve seen and heard about J6. I kinda doubt that a different civics teacher or curriculum is the problem.
I agree about the elected leaders remaining silent. I will not vote for any Republican since none* of them have shown an ounce of ethics or principles or backbone or whatever it takes to speak out against the lying, cheating, corrupt, treasonous leader of their party and his enablers.
I worry that electronic media, especially television, tends to infantilize our sense of agency. We see what TV producers want us to see. At best it's like viewing the world from a moving train; when its not just story time.
I used to think, having used the Internet since it was monochrome and command line driven, that it's decentralized peer to peer architecture made it inherently democratic, and it is; but has also has proven disproportionately available for financial and political interests to propagate top-down manipulation.
Talia When I was taught history in school [there was a lot less of it back then] it was American presidents, a smattering of civics, and how good we [white] Americans were.
As a history professor from from age 58 to 80, I was appalled at how little American history my students knew after two years of American history. I provided them a rigorous exposure to the diverse panorama of American history. I provided students my written narrative on each class, which began with their writing on a 15-minute THINK question related to the reading. These THINK questions provided nearly 50% of their grade and provided the basis for class discussion.
Alas, I doubt that I would have been permitted to include much of my subject matter in a high school history course for being ‘too controversial.’ P. S. Most of my college students appreciated my ‘stimulating story’ approach to American history in which conclusions were discussed rather than white-washed down.
I read about the Pope's call for forgiveness for the atrocities committed in Canadian schools for indigenous children. Might that public confession of wrongdoing inspire the telling of full truths in American history classes, rather than the white-washed version conservatives are demanding?
Nancy The Pope’s modest apology for despicable church actions in indigenous Canada is only the prologue for papal and other ‘confessions.’ He might have been speaking about the ‘way it was,’ as was the situation in America dealing with slavery, the treatment of women, denigration of non-Western European immigrants….
I find it imperative that integral to ‘the American experience’ is the good/bad/ugly history of our country. There are still major warts to be addressed. Let’s have a common educational experience in which these (and other) warts are identified and addressed.
For many Americans ‘the good ole days’ weren’t that great.
I want to like this, but substack won't let me. Yes, with all the warts. I often think about the good ole days for many. When I was growing up this was all under the table....enormous suffering and we heard nothing.
YES! We have created our own history of horror against native Americans, people of color, Catholics, the Irish, etc…
What should daily slap us into reality is that inspire of our prejudice and cruelty, we would have not survived our wars, or sickness, or have had railroads built without all of us… We have a long way to go to NOT GET IN THE WAY OF REALIZING WE ARE A GIFT to one another…to honor and respect the beauty and greatness of each human being. Hatred destroys, love builds up!
History by Disney. I got that too. Fortune favors the prepared mind, and filling a mind with fluff is useless at best. Reality is reality, so we are likely to adapt to and influence it best when we get real about it, the good and the bad, of which there is quite a lot of each.
When it wasn't a sales pitch, my elementary school history tended to be endless chronologies of names, battles, and dates. While there is surely a place for such information, history lit up for me when I later realized it was the story of how things got to be the way they now are, and that sorting though patterns of that evolutionary process is the most substantial foundation for extrapolating and adjusting forward into which possibilities are most probable in the future. Yearly graphs of world temperatures for example (with probable wild cards in the mix).
JL My good friend and favorite American historian David McCullough speaks with great passion of the importance of storytelling in exploring American history. The personalities are incredible (see David’s BRAVE COMPANIONS). In the Foreign Service, during. The Congo hostage crisis, I found that telling a compelling story would catch the eye and attention of Secretary Rusk. Under Secretary George Ball, and Governor Harriman. [It also permitted me to make policy, since some of my stories were deliberately slanted.]
Much later with my students, when I was a college professor age 58 to 80, I almost always concluded a class with a few minutes of Quirky History—bizarre incidents that were fun and memorable.
that IS the point! if people can relate or get the relevance for themselves... it goes nowhere. THANKS for being the influencer you must've been in those positions... and for continuing to share with us, here. most inspiring, Keith!
Parents have a responsibility to know and share accurate historical facts within their families a!so........please do not leave it all up to the teachers.
That would have to be honest American History. Two factors prevent that. 1. The lack of time allotted to teach complicated facts, and 2. Drip-Drip propaganda of socialism in public schools has created self-censoring of any negative history that affects our present.
Patricia Having taught American history in college for over two decades (1992-2013), I can share my personal experiences—some of which relate directly to those who teach high school American history.
1) There is too much history to be taught in two semesters.
2) Text books, even the better ones, tend to be chronological. Almost all of revised ‘by committee’ and the writing tends to be boring.
3) I often found my my students had chronologically only gotten through WW II—-chapter by chapter/
I was able to skip entire periods—I skipped Columbus and much of early American history to focus on the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, and the Hamilton Plan.
I skilled Reconstruction and the Gilded Age and focused on the Great Depression up to the present. This required continual skipping of earlier chapters, as I added Clinton, Bush W, and Obama.
I also included several review sessions each semester. Less well studied seemed better than racing through endless chapters.
Also, textbook sales depend heavily on approval in CA and TX. Especially in TX, I understand that ‘controversial’ material is unacceptable.
Incidentally, I was the only professor at my college who did not stick to a strict chronology. Also, I provided considerable supplementary material (often self-written) on more current periods.
Thank you for giving as more detailed breakdown of the issues I was referring to above. It very well shows the complexity of teaching any history. In the lower grades, such complexity is beyond the scope of hours allowed for teaching what is a very rich and complex subject.
Suz’ ‘Showing our age?’ It was simpler—I only had one president, FDR, from birth ‘til I was 12, though the VPs changed. It was a bit confusing when our enemy—Stalin/Soviet Union—became our wartime ally—and then post-war enemy, but I was otherwise engaged in hating the Japanese and the Nazis, while not much caring which side the Italians were on.
An early constant was that the Republicans were opposed to anything that seemed to constrain Wall Street and help the common man. FDR’s modest Social Security program was denounced by Republicans as ‘socialism.’ Ditto when Truman proposed a national health program that was ignored by Congress (twice).
I am reminded of Will Rogers: “I don’t belong to a political party. I am a Democrat.’
My mother remembered her first encounter with radio; passing around a set of headphones with extended family. We as a nation have evolved from horse and buggy days to ubiquitous handheld computer/multimedia devices, and many stranger things than dreamt of not so many years in the past. Seems probable that we would be in need of even more thorough introduction to effective, responsible citizenship, not less.
I can't agree with students not being taught to think analytically. I know I worked on this in my classroom and I've seen my grandchildren offered many wonderful opportunities to do so in their studies. Applying the learning is another story - this is where the dinner table conversation comes in handy, or taking advantage of the opportunity when a political ad full of propaganda hits the TV screen. Parents need to do the work, too.
I taught a class called government in the middle 90s, so maybe it depended on where a person was. They did a lot of their own research and we had many discussions. I also assigned an essay, a day without government. They actually realized the many things that government does, once some of them (male) got past the idea of running wild. I have used their responses many times to those who want to diss government all the time. I love telling adults that high schoolers understood what government does even if they don't. I don't see much nonsense actually except on Nextdoor where a lot of nut cases love to post and a small amount on Facebook
In 8th grade, we were required to take a Civics class. You learned about the federal gov and our state gov. You were required to know each state and their capitol. Just a host of other things including the history of how the US came to be. It was white-man's history.
At the least. you had a foundation from which to learn more on your own, in high school, and in college. It was intriguing for me.
I had a class called American Problems in year twelve. The teacher had been hired as a coach of something and had graduated from a local Bible college. I don't remember anything about it. In my class the kids did lots of library research and we had some textbooks available, but didn't use them on a regular basis. No tests or quizzes either, except we had this silly thing called finals week which allowed a certain portion of our staff to sit on their butts in the teachers' lounge while their student aides graded the tests which were true/false, etc. For mine, I met with each student and gave them a whole load of options which they could choose to make up 100 points. They could suggest something too if I thought it was OK. Some choose to do over 100 points worth.
I took Civics in the 8th grade in Georgia, in 1965. It covered the structure and function of the federal government, on down to who was responsible for building the roads and what was used to pave them.
I'm not sure that's uniquely American. Hegel said that the only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history, but then we Americans like to think we are exceptional. Perhaps that means we learn even less from history, even from history barely past (and the insurrection is not really over).
From Tom Taro at the New Yorker in 2020 “Those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it. Those who do study history are doomed to stand by helplessly while everyone else repeats it.”
Perhaps not helplessly. Despite rejecting the concept of inherited aristocracy, American colonists recreated even more pernicious facsimiles of feudal estates as slave plantations. Although divided, we as a nation rejected slavery and have haltingly made significant efforts to reduce racism and sexism.
It was not for nothing that "Gilded Age" plutocrats were scornfully called "robber barons". The middle class" subsequently grew with resistance and reform from salient elected leaders and social movements. With the so-called Reagan Revolution plutocracy rallied, and resolved to control modern media. It's been a great 40+ years for quasi-monopolies and billionaires and not to great for most others, and it only gets worse when we lose perspective and succumb to the notion that resistance is futile.
The J6th Committee has slid the rock to the point that sunlight threatens the nest of opportunistic roaches. We all need to "heave" on three to push it off the rest of the way.
As a boomer, I believe we grew up in a highly optimistic time, and one of significant social progress, although the benefits and burdens were then, as now, very unevenly shared. Some efforts went toward improving that balance. It was not exactly the good-old-days, with a lot of needed social empowerment still evolving, such as a recent black president, a female presidential candidate who won the popular vote, and openly gay people in positions of influence, which would not have been possible, or at least was not happening a few decades earlier.
But I also think that positions that were considered pretty viable and mainstream are widely labeled "extreme" and unworkable today though the filter of 40 years of "Reaganomics". And I think as a result of that, our society has become in many ways less democratic and in many ways, less just. I compare the reactions and the issues that triggered Nixon's resignation versus multiple and dramatic manifestations of US political corruption today, and think that we as a nation have been dangerously letting our guard down.
Not since the once "Party of Lincoln" saw a chance to dominate American politics by pandering to loser's lingering and smoldering resentments and fanning it into a flame. When Democrats finally rejected their role as a harbor for institutionalized racism, Republicans saw it as a recruiting opportunity. After Nixon fell for his dishonesty, the Republican Party shifted to a strategy of "big lies" on which they never let up.
From CSD on twitter 2018 “They piss themselves every presidency, while we “tax and spend” libs have to buy new sheets.” Says it all, almost. Then the “pissers” scream “socialism” at those cleaning up their mess and the public gets brain freeze. Let’s scream back “fascist pigs” and give them a taste of their own medicine. I know that is not “bipartisan,” but when did republicans last practice bipartisanship. Way before Mitch. Has anybody looked at the best sellers at the Times. Newt is still promoting crap, as are O’Reilly, and every half wit that has helped destroy any civil discourse. And they are best sellers. ALEC, The Heritage Foundation and their ilk are still spewing propaganda along with Rupert and clones. Dems are busy fixing the mess, even with enemies in their camp. And MSM blathers about both sides and Joe’s age and Poll numbers, with hardly a word about the “new sheets” he is trying to give the country. A set up for hell if we don’t call them what they are…
Bipartisanship could resume when there is a loyal opposition party with an ounce of integrity committed to democracy and the rule of law. For now, my image for Democrats is from Peter O"Toole in Lawrence of Arabia as he leads a charge. Remember what he said? Remember those steely blue eyes? Remember the rage?
While the neo-"GOP" appears to me to truly be moving into fascist territory, the medicine I see making some kind of difference is the J6th Hearings. I love it when an ethical, smart and skilled prosecutor (or investigator) backs the perpetrator into a "checkmate" corner. Politics is always rough and tumble, but really since Reagan, the party has embraced shameless "big lies" and despotic techniques beyond any limit of legitimacy. Democrats have been far too shy about making them wear it.
It seems to me that modern "GOP" presidents and their associated party have been pretty much captured by will of plutocrats. Since great wealth is asymmetric by definition, an agenda that serves plutocracy is anti-democratic by definition. And since making the rich richer and the poor poorer is a pathetic populist message in plain speech, they slip it through cloaked in a cloud of distractions. Since evidence weighs against them, they attack it as "fake science" and "fake news". And since their MO inevitably makes life worse for the majority, they bellow and fume and accuse anyone but themselves, and use generalized discontent with the outcomes they have wrought to pin the blame on their detractors.
Destroying the country and the economy is not, I think, the aim, but an inevitable side effect, to which they are indifferent so long as they manage to shift the blame to somebody else.
Because their "true beliefs" that they are being overrun and dispossessed of their "rightful" place override the ability to see through the propaganda.
It takes bravery to stand up for what you see as true and turning from what you saw in the past to be true. It affects friendships, relationships with family and neighbors. It isolates one from church "friends". It can expose ones family to violence, exclusion....many other serious "attacks". Just consult with our brave and tenacious friends of color who have dealt with and continue to deal with such struggles. It affects the safety of ones children. Have you not been listening to members of the Republican party who have been terrified of harm to their families and have left politics?
Did you not hear of the bravery of black women assisting with the vote in
Georgia?
To me it is better vs worse because nothing in this world is perfect. It is being willing to love my family and friends and worship but standing alone in what I see is true, not fake, not self-centered.
Just seems like GOP Presidents do their best to destroy the country and economy and the next Dem is left to clean up the mess, like the guy trailing the circus elephant sweeping up paddies. Sure would be nice to break this cycle. Biden, Obama and Clinton were far superior to their predecessors.
Bradley. The cycle goes all the way back to FDR cleaning up after 10 years of Republican economic “policy” which produced the Great Depression.
Americans are unique in their ability to be born and learn nothing at all about the past.
I think Americans would learn more from and about the past in America if school systems would teach American history with more of a warts-and-all approach which honestly discusses America's mistakes and failures in addition to playing up its successes and triumphs. When I studied the subject in school, it was taught almost as religious doctrine with various presidents taking on the roles of saints.
the words of Bob Dylan still make me cry:
Oh, the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh, the country was young
With God on its side
The Spanish-American
War had its day
And the Civil War, too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
I was made to memorize
With guns in their hands
And God on their side
Indeed.
I recall a story about Lincoln which is I have since read is without an empirical source but still makes sense if not good history. Basically when the protagonist is assured that
"God's on our side" he asks "are we on the side of God". I am not religious in any conventional sense, but I note two flavors of religion, one I admire and one I fear, which on the one hand is humble, helpful, and compassionate, and another that is profoundly narcissistic, even sociopathic. The one is the likes of someone such as MLK, and the other burned people at the stake, or flew planeloads of terrified people into the sides of buildings.
One of the best—always
Less and less is being taught concerning the true process and value of governing of the people, by the people and for the people. along with a review of the consequences of government by the few to lift up a person who wants to control everyone except himself or herself.
We need to begin in kindergarten. Having worked with preschoolers, believe me, they understand the concept of rules and bounderies.....whether they like it or not.
Once upon a time at a PTA meeting one of the parents stood up and said "we need you to learn our students". In other words not only teach it but see that they learn it. We teachers were stunned. This from a parent with 2 of the most undisciplined, low achievement students who reported to us teachers that no one read at home, no homework time and no parental interest in school subjects.
Get parents involved in learning. Get politicians out of the classroom. Treat Teachers like the professionals they are.
Yeah; teachers end up as de facto parents for far, far too many children.
And as punching bags for politicians
I had a conversation not long ago with someone advising that "I'm Just a Bill" is wholly inaccurate regarding how legislation is made. Sadly, that's about all the gist of law making most Americans have.
We are so lucky that FLA is taking education seriously. (not) Always wondered about the dangerous content in Math Books!!
https://popular.info/p/inside-the-dangerous-math-textbooks
Well, math is not my thing, but I never thought it was dangerous, just frustrating sometimes.
It’s all them there multipliers and dividers teachin’ kids bad morals. And that Al Jebra jihadist teachin.
Rules and boundaries, as you indicate, that are part of every human interaction. Perhaps th4e canonization of profit has resulted in rethinking education as needing to be more intensely focused on vocational training; but while preparation for work is surely a large part of its value, education also offers more broadly the skills one is likely to need to be a resilient, successful person. I recall, for example, one afternoon in 5th or 6th grade, my class spent an hour or two talking about formal logical fallacies. Great, but BS detection is a survival skill for individuals and societies as a whole, as current events are demonstrating, and like language skills, should be cultivated throughout. Science is not a catalog of technical findings but a mental discipline, useful for a trip to the grocer as well as the moon. The arts allow us to transmit to one another the feeling, breathing, thinking inner experience of human sentience. Psychology and anthropology help us to be better acquainted with our own nature; and IF we are entirely serious about DYI, governance, a lot more development of the requisite skills to successfully perform it would surely help.
Schools are what we make them. Increasingly teachers (my wife was one) are hobbled, not helped by clueless politicians and bureaucrats. If you think about the extended consequences of an empowering education, kindergarten teachers should be trained at least as well, in their own craft, as college professors, and paid for it too. It seems to me that an excellent or poor teacher a far more critical matter working with the very young than an excellent or poor university professor with adolescents or adults. College and graduate students can weather a discouraging or weak encounter at the near-adult level far better than callow kiddos. A university president gave a speech to parents at my daughter's U in which he asked us to think of teachers who changed our lives, and got me thinking of several.
We are ultimately standing on the shoulders of layer upon layer of giants (and many, many more who contributed as well).
Please, Let’s not blame elementary teachers for right wing extremism today. Take a look at white evangelical movements, Murdoch and his folks, social media, and other forces behind the dumbing down of America
We're not blaming the teachers. They're forced to teach what is mandated, which is not Civics, Government, or History. It is no surprise that so many Americans are gullible - because they are truly ignorant.
It’s a mixed bag- teaching what is mandated in some schools or districts in this country and/or in others what parents desire. Think about current controversies about CRT. Critical Race Theory. Teaching the Truth for some is as dangerous as teaching sex education. Think about the Scopes Trial. It’s Science. Today it’s Truth. There’s Antibias curriculum” not particularly new. In my MA in Human Development we learned not only history of education but Development of curriculum. Louise Derman Sparks pioneered Antibias curriculum for young children through adults. And Pablo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed). Parents have historically objected to curriculum that they felt threatened their personal beliefs, and we’ve seen home schooling movements develop into charter choices and religious schools receive government funding or be part of the controversies. Now. Public School. Private School. Charter School. When, what and how to teach. There’s abundant research and teacher training, education, has more often than not included at least the history and science of education, the praxis. It’s the Politics of education that’s the problem.
Yes, Irenie, politics in education, especially at the K-12 level, is horrifying. The lies you and I were taught, were more than likely, not even known by the instructors who taught them. But teachers in this era, do know and are held to the fire to teach misinformation. Shameful that politics infiltrates truthful learning.
Yes, many Americans do seem terribly gullible and ignorant. Plus, they are watching the deafening silence of their elected leaders who have been unable to speak out or stand up to Trump despite all we’ve seen and heard about J6. I kinda doubt that a different civics teacher or curriculum is the problem.
I agree about the elected leaders remaining silent. I will not vote for any Republican since none* of them have shown an ounce of ethics or principles or backbone or whatever it takes to speak out against the lying, cheating, corrupt, treasonous leader of their party and his enablers.
*except Cheney and Kinzinger
I worry that electronic media, especially television, tends to infantilize our sense of agency. We see what TV producers want us to see. At best it's like viewing the world from a moving train; when its not just story time.
I used to think, having used the Internet since it was monochrome and command line driven, that it's decentralized peer to peer architecture made it inherently democratic, and it is; but has also has proven disproportionately available for financial and political interests to propagate top-down manipulation.
Talia When I was taught history in school [there was a lot less of it back then] it was American presidents, a smattering of civics, and how good we [white] Americans were.
As a history professor from from age 58 to 80, I was appalled at how little American history my students knew after two years of American history. I provided them a rigorous exposure to the diverse panorama of American history. I provided students my written narrative on each class, which began with their writing on a 15-minute THINK question related to the reading. These THINK questions provided nearly 50% of their grade and provided the basis for class discussion.
Alas, I doubt that I would have been permitted to include much of my subject matter in a high school history course for being ‘too controversial.’ P. S. Most of my college students appreciated my ‘stimulating story’ approach to American history in which conclusions were discussed rather than white-washed down.
Sounds like a great class!
Yed!
Keith
They do need to read a book or two which is a lost art.
Good teaching tells.
Yes.
I read about the Pope's call for forgiveness for the atrocities committed in Canadian schools for indigenous children. Might that public confession of wrongdoing inspire the telling of full truths in American history classes, rather than the white-washed version conservatives are demanding?
Nancy The Pope’s modest apology for despicable church actions in indigenous Canada is only the prologue for papal and other ‘confessions.’ He might have been speaking about the ‘way it was,’ as was the situation in America dealing with slavery, the treatment of women, denigration of non-Western European immigrants….
I find it imperative that integral to ‘the American experience’ is the good/bad/ugly history of our country. There are still major warts to be addressed. Let’s have a common educational experience in which these (and other) warts are identified and addressed.
For many Americans ‘the good ole days’ weren’t that great.
I want to like this, but substack won't let me. Yes, with all the warts. I often think about the good ole days for many. When I was growing up this was all under the table....enormous suffering and we heard nothing.
YES! We have created our own history of horror against native Americans, people of color, Catholics, the Irish, etc…
What should daily slap us into reality is that inspire of our prejudice and cruelty, we would have not survived our wars, or sickness, or have had railroads built without all of us… We have a long way to go to NOT GET IN THE WAY OF REALIZING WE ARE A GIFT to one another…to honor and respect the beauty and greatness of each human being. Hatred destroys, love builds up!
Agree
History by Disney. I got that too. Fortune favors the prepared mind, and filling a mind with fluff is useless at best. Reality is reality, so we are likely to adapt to and influence it best when we get real about it, the good and the bad, of which there is quite a lot of each.
When it wasn't a sales pitch, my elementary school history tended to be endless chronologies of names, battles, and dates. While there is surely a place for such information, history lit up for me when I later realized it was the story of how things got to be the way they now are, and that sorting though patterns of that evolutionary process is the most substantial foundation for extrapolating and adjusting forward into which possibilities are most probable in the future. Yearly graphs of world temperatures for example (with probable wild cards in the mix).
JL My good friend and favorite American historian David McCullough speaks with great passion of the importance of storytelling in exploring American history. The personalities are incredible (see David’s BRAVE COMPANIONS). In the Foreign Service, during. The Congo hostage crisis, I found that telling a compelling story would catch the eye and attention of Secretary Rusk. Under Secretary George Ball, and Governor Harriman. [It also permitted me to make policy, since some of my stories were deliberately slanted.]
Much later with my students, when I was a college professor age 58 to 80, I almost always concluded a class with a few minutes of Quirky History—bizarre incidents that were fun and memorable.
that IS the point! if people can relate or get the relevance for themselves... it goes nowhere. THANKS for being the influencer you must've been in those positions... and for continuing to share with us, here. most inspiring, Keith!
sorry!!! if people CAN'T relate... <-- correction
Cool!
Parents have a responsibility to know and share accurate historical facts within their families a!so........please do not leave it all up to the teachers.
Good luck with that plan. Teachers are tightly controlled about what they can teach about American History.
That would have to be honest American History. Two factors prevent that. 1. The lack of time allotted to teach complicated facts, and 2. Drip-Drip propaganda of socialism in public schools has created self-censoring of any negative history that affects our present.
Patricia Having taught American history in college for over two decades (1992-2013), I can share my personal experiences—some of which relate directly to those who teach high school American history.
1) There is too much history to be taught in two semesters.
2) Text books, even the better ones, tend to be chronological. Almost all of revised ‘by committee’ and the writing tends to be boring.
3) I often found my my students had chronologically only gotten through WW II—-chapter by chapter/
I was able to skip entire periods—I skipped Columbus and much of early American history to focus on the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, and the Hamilton Plan.
I skilled Reconstruction and the Gilded Age and focused on the Great Depression up to the present. This required continual skipping of earlier chapters, as I added Clinton, Bush W, and Obama.
I also included several review sessions each semester. Less well studied seemed better than racing through endless chapters.
Also, textbook sales depend heavily on approval in CA and TX. Especially in TX, I understand that ‘controversial’ material is unacceptable.
Incidentally, I was the only professor at my college who did not stick to a strict chronology. Also, I provided considerable supplementary material (often self-written) on more current periods.
Thank you for giving as more detailed breakdown of the issues I was referring to above. It very well shows the complexity of teaching any history. In the lower grades, such complexity is beyond the scope of hours allowed for teaching what is a very rich and complex subject.
Suz’ ‘Showing our age?’ It was simpler—I only had one president, FDR, from birth ‘til I was 12, though the VPs changed. It was a bit confusing when our enemy—Stalin/Soviet Union—became our wartime ally—and then post-war enemy, but I was otherwise engaged in hating the Japanese and the Nazis, while not much caring which side the Italians were on.
An early constant was that the Republicans were opposed to anything that seemed to constrain Wall Street and help the common man. FDR’s modest Social Security program was denounced by Republicans as ‘socialism.’ Ditto when Truman proposed a national health program that was ignored by Congress (twice).
I am reminded of Will Rogers: “I don’t belong to a political party. I am a Democrat.’
My mother remembered her first encounter with radio; passing around a set of headphones with extended family. We as a nation have evolved from horse and buggy days to ubiquitous handheld computer/multimedia devices, and many stranger things than dreamt of not so many years in the past. Seems probable that we would be in need of even more thorough introduction to effective, responsible citizenship, not less.
In fact recent events suggest a lot more.
I can't agree with students not being taught to think analytically. I know I worked on this in my classroom and I've seen my grandchildren offered many wonderful opportunities to do so in their studies. Applying the learning is another story - this is where the dinner table conversation comes in handy, or taking advantage of the opportunity when a political ad full of propaganda hits the TV screen. Parents need to do the work, too.
I taught a class called government in the middle 90s, so maybe it depended on where a person was. They did a lot of their own research and we had many discussions. I also assigned an essay, a day without government. They actually realized the many things that government does, once some of them (male) got past the idea of running wild. I have used their responses many times to those who want to diss government all the time. I love telling adults that high schoolers understood what government does even if they don't. I don't see much nonsense actually except on Nextdoor where a lot of nut cases love to post and a small amount on Facebook
Michele:
In 8th grade, we were required to take a Civics class. You learned about the federal gov and our state gov. You were required to know each state and their capitol. Just a host of other things including the history of how the US came to be. It was white-man's history.
At the least. you had a foundation from which to learn more on your own, in high school, and in college. It was intriguing for me.
I had a class called American Problems in year twelve. The teacher had been hired as a coach of something and had graduated from a local Bible college. I don't remember anything about it. In my class the kids did lots of library research and we had some textbooks available, but didn't use them on a regular basis. No tests or quizzes either, except we had this silly thing called finals week which allowed a certain portion of our staff to sit on their butts in the teachers' lounge while their student aides graded the tests which were true/false, etc. For mine, I met with each student and gave them a whole load of options which they could choose to make up 100 points. They could suggest something too if I thought it was OK. Some choose to do over 100 points worth.
Sorry — but Civics was a required subject when I graduated in 1963 — in Texas.
Guess what happened next.
I graduated in ‘69 from a high school in a small town in NC and yes, civics was a required class.
ditto in 63
I took Civics in the 8th grade in Georgia, in 1965. It covered the structure and function of the federal government, on down to who was responsible for building the roads and what was used to pave them.
I'm not sure that's uniquely American. Hegel said that the only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history, but then we Americans like to think we are exceptional. Perhaps that means we learn even less from history, even from history barely past (and the insurrection is not really over).
From Tom Taro at the New Yorker in 2020 “Those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it. Those who do study history are doomed to stand by helplessly while everyone else repeats it.”
Was it Faulkner who said, “The past is not dead. It’s not even past.”?
This always reminds me of Cassandra who was given the gift of prophecy, but cursed by the gods to have her prophecies always disbelieved.😪
Perhaps not helplessly. Despite rejecting the concept of inherited aristocracy, American colonists recreated even more pernicious facsimiles of feudal estates as slave plantations. Although divided, we as a nation rejected slavery and have haltingly made significant efforts to reduce racism and sexism.
It was not for nothing that "Gilded Age" plutocrats were scornfully called "robber barons". The middle class" subsequently grew with resistance and reform from salient elected leaders and social movements. With the so-called Reagan Revolution plutocracy rallied, and resolved to control modern media. It's been a great 40+ years for quasi-monopolies and billionaires and not to great for most others, and it only gets worse when we lose perspective and succumb to the notion that resistance is futile.
The J6th Committee has slid the rock to the point that sunlight threatens the nest of opportunistic roaches. We all need to "heave" on three to push it off the rest of the way.
As a boomer, I believe we grew up in a highly optimistic time, and one of significant social progress, although the benefits and burdens were then, as now, very unevenly shared. Some efforts went toward improving that balance. It was not exactly the good-old-days, with a lot of needed social empowerment still evolving, such as a recent black president, a female presidential candidate who won the popular vote, and openly gay people in positions of influence, which would not have been possible, or at least was not happening a few decades earlier.
But I also think that positions that were considered pretty viable and mainstream are widely labeled "extreme" and unworkable today though the filter of 40 years of "Reaganomics". And I think as a result of that, our society has become in many ways less democratic and in many ways, less just. I compare the reactions and the issues that triggered Nixon's resignation versus multiple and dramatic manifestations of US political corruption today, and think that we as a nation have been dangerously letting our guard down.
Attempted like
Neither is the Civil War, it seems.
Not since the once "Party of Lincoln" saw a chance to dominate American politics by pandering to loser's lingering and smoldering resentments and fanning it into a flame. When Democrats finally rejected their role as a harbor for institutionalized racism, Republicans saw it as a recruiting opportunity. After Nixon fell for his dishonesty, the Republican Party shifted to a strategy of "big lies" on which they never let up.
Certainly a possibility
Not unique, it happens everywhere. We are unique in experiencing it here because that's where we live.
Germany took a deep dive into their history after WWII. Some folks took it seriously enough to feel collective guilt.
From CSD on twitter 2018 “They piss themselves every presidency, while we “tax and spend” libs have to buy new sheets.” Says it all, almost. Then the “pissers” scream “socialism” at those cleaning up their mess and the public gets brain freeze. Let’s scream back “fascist pigs” and give them a taste of their own medicine. I know that is not “bipartisan,” but when did republicans last practice bipartisanship. Way before Mitch. Has anybody looked at the best sellers at the Times. Newt is still promoting crap, as are O’Reilly, and every half wit that has helped destroy any civil discourse. And they are best sellers. ALEC, The Heritage Foundation and their ilk are still spewing propaganda along with Rupert and clones. Dems are busy fixing the mess, even with enemies in their camp. And MSM blathers about both sides and Joe’s age and Poll numbers, with hardly a word about the “new sheets” he is trying to give the country. A set up for hell if we don’t call them what they are…
Bipartisanship could resume when there is a loyal opposition party with an ounce of integrity committed to democracy and the rule of law. For now, my image for Democrats is from Peter O"Toole in Lawrence of Arabia as he leads a charge. Remember what he said? Remember those steely blue eyes? Remember the rage?
While the neo-"GOP" appears to me to truly be moving into fascist territory, the medicine I see making some kind of difference is the J6th Hearings. I love it when an ethical, smart and skilled prosecutor (or investigator) backs the perpetrator into a "checkmate" corner. Politics is always rough and tumble, but really since Reagan, the party has embraced shameless "big lies" and despotic techniques beyond any limit of legitimacy. Democrats have been far too shy about making them wear it.
Jeri as prolific as you are this is a shining gem!
Hear, hear!!! It is getting very frustrating reading the WaPo. Thankfully, I don't tweet. ARGH!
It seems to me that modern "GOP" presidents and their associated party have been pretty much captured by will of plutocrats. Since great wealth is asymmetric by definition, an agenda that serves plutocracy is anti-democratic by definition. And since making the rich richer and the poor poorer is a pathetic populist message in plain speech, they slip it through cloaked in a cloud of distractions. Since evidence weighs against them, they attack it as "fake science" and "fake news". And since their MO inevitably makes life worse for the majority, they bellow and fume and accuse anyone but themselves, and use generalized discontent with the outcomes they have wrought to pin the blame on their detractors.
Destroying the country and the economy is not, I think, the aim, but an inevitable side effect, to which they are indifferent so long as they manage to shift the blame to somebody else.
My thoughts exactly, thank you
I disagree. I think they do want to destroy the government currently in place and put an authoritarian government in place.
YES - it's sickening and so obvious! How is it that people still fall for the lies?
Because their "true beliefs" that they are being overrun and dispossessed of their "rightful" place override the ability to see through the propaganda.
It takes bravery to stand up for what you see as true and turning from what you saw in the past to be true. It affects friendships, relationships with family and neighbors. It isolates one from church "friends". It can expose ones family to violence, exclusion....many other serious "attacks". Just consult with our brave and tenacious friends of color who have dealt with and continue to deal with such struggles. It affects the safety of ones children. Have you not been listening to members of the Republican party who have been terrified of harm to their families and have left politics?
Did you not hear of the bravery of black women assisting with the vote in
Georgia?
To me it is better vs worse because nothing in this world is perfect. It is being willing to love my family and friends and worship but standing alone in what I see is true, not fake, not self-centered.
Every time