Transition to More Abstract Learning

In response to Mr. Perkins' question, I believe the transition should be made around 6th or 7th grade. During those grades, students begin to take algebra, along with other classes with abstract concepts, and really grasp that negative numbers and even imaginary numbers exist. So in history, students are possibly ready to understand that a country is not all bad or all good. I don't know if my explanation makes much sense but that's when I think the transition should be made.

Politically Correct History?

woo I'm surprised because after reading the previous posts about textbooks, I disagree.  As far as modern history goes, I think America is being presented in a much more negative light--I don't think we do enough glorifying, personally.  I think I've studied more about slavery, sex, women, religion, and Vietnam than about George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, the Revolution, the Civil War, and other American heroes/events we can learn from.  What happened to memorizing the Gettysburg Address or the Declaration of Independence?  We're becoming a "politically correct" (whatever that means) nation, and the way our history is written is showing it.  Here's a quote from an interesting article I read on the Ayn Rand Institute website about this topic: "...we have a vast assortment of groups demanding that the accounts of important events be altered so that various 'sensibilities'--of women, of blacks, of homosexuals, of religionists--can be accommodated."  So now the collective is more important than the individual in history as well.  History teachers/writers are denying that there are objective facts of history, demonstrating a new belief in what the author of the article calls "pressure group whims" and "history by group agreement."  

Another author goes on to say that academic history is actually being driven by a hatred for America.  Examples: the modern claims that the colonization of America was an act of genocide to the Indians, the Founding Fathers were "racist, sexist, classist, homophobic, Euro-centric bigots", the winning of the American West was capitalist pillage...etc.  He claims that historians "dissolve American history into a chaotic hodge-podge of trivial stories about politically correct victim groups", sacrificing the great individuals.  He may be a little bit too critical and a little extreme, but I agree with his general message.  It's especially interesting since we're moving on to politics in class.  Sometimes politics and history can interfere! :-)

Patriotism and Levels of Learning

As usual, you have all thought well about these issues. Something that many people forget is that public education in America was instituted in order to produce good, productive citizens. It is no surprise that there has been a patriotic tendency in many subjects and textbooks for the majority of our nation's history.

I would also agree that younger students need to have different presentation of all subject, not just history, than do students your age. As we have mentioned before, elementary teachers often tell students they cannot subtract a larger number from a smaller one. At the elementary level of cognitive processing, most students are not capable of handling this abstract concept. A similar thing is true regarding historical events. Why is this? An important part of child development is black-and-white thinking. While we reject this in many, though not all, areas of adult endeavor, this is crucial for children. They must know and rely with certainty on facts such as "the electric outlet is dangerous -- stay away," or "orange juice good, battery acid is bad."

Where should the transition take place between the simpler forms of learning and more abstract thinking? Is this in middle school or high school?

My 8th Grade History Book

I remember my 8th grade history book very, very well. In fact, i can remember it almost word for word because i took a copy from Westlane and never returned it. The discussions we've had about history enticed me one day to flip through it and, i noticed two things. First, the book elevated the U.S. to godly status. It explained how the U.S. was essentially the best at everything we've tried and how we're the sole reason why the world hasn't destroyed itself. Second, it had sooo little depth! Each chapter just gave facts, there was no explanation or anything. The book was like Dr. Seuss to Palmer, i was sad i actually read out of it many years ago. I understand that during early education you need to instill in the young learner's minds that their country is not necessarily superior to all others, and and also thats its not the "Republic of the Union of Myanmar" I mean, if the world hates the U.S. right now, and theres people who will be the first to admit this country sucks (l. cripe), then who will want to improve the situation? However, i dont think we should keep this divine status mindset for the child until the 8th grade!!!! By then i think the child is old enough to understand deeper concepts and should know the truth about U.S. history. So in conclusion, i dont necessarily think that all history textbooks suck (palmer is so interesting isnt he!) at least....my 8th grade history book sucks.

American History Books

I don't think that all US history books are "terribly" written. I personally can't recall any experience during elementary school when all read was about the glory of the US. However, even if what Chung says is true I don't know if the books should be revised. Young children, say 5th grade and under, probably don't want to hear about what horrors truly happened during slavery. I think it's more an issue of maturity rather than the purposeful neglect of the writers. As children grow up they can accept harsh truths. As for the book Chung read in his later middle school years, I can't say I've experienced that either. At Sycamore, if I'm correct, nothing was reduced to blind patriotism. We heard about the quagmire that Vietnam was and the brutality of the civil rights movement. Certainly in high school, our AP US history book was not chock full of patriotism while ignoring the darker parts of our history. I remember from one of the few reading assignments I did that the author (Brinkley maybe) included how Americans really treated Native Americans. So while I agree that some history books are very patriotic I think it is more for the kids rather than the author's fault.

Response to Jenny: American History books are terribly constructed.

American History books promote and drill a sort of blind patriotism in most of its readers. Drilling continuously the idea that love for your country is the ideal thing to do, and all, MUST abide. The writers are not historians but rather instead they are patriots. These so called historians dismiss the truth, the pain and the suffering, for the purpose of making the readers become further attached to his/her country. This truly is a problem for readers when it comes to distinguishing the truth. By dismissing certain issues and events authors dismiss the truth with patriotic lies, in consequence, disillusion the readers from understanding the situation and events that had happened. Like in a textbook I read in the later years of middle school, the author dismisses certain horrific scenes embedded with slavery, not because of a lack of funds (the book was gigantic and filled with hundreds of colored pictures), but to instill patriotism for good old United States of America. I believe that this should be reevaluated. Historians need to stop glorifying history, they need to accept the fact that the truth should never be pushed aside for blind patriotic lies.

How studying history has changed how I see things...

I was thinking about the purpose of history during class the other day and I realized something sort of surprising about how studying history has affected me. When I was younger, I think all I took away from my history classes were vague notions that the United States was the best country in the world, our particular brand of democracy was wonderful and flawless, that we were some sort of supreme, all-knowing, civilized society which would bring freedom to the backward people of the world, and some other things which now seem ridiculous. Really, it seems like all my former "social studies" classes ever did was breed patriotism in fourth graders who didn't know anything else. I'm not saying that's wrong--although everything was somewhat one-sided, that may have been appropriate when I was 9. Anyway, I'm pretty far removed from that now, and the history (and literature) I've had in high school have taught me to view the world in a completely different way. I realized that as I've learned it, history has made me somewhat of a skeptic about a lot of things in the present. When we study so many trends, movements, and specific periods of time, history shows everything to be in a state of flux. Also, the more I've studied other cultures and their values, the more I become conscious of the relativity of almost all people's ideas (including, maybe even especially, our own today). I guess I'm not sure if I explained this too well, but if anything, the social studies I've been exposed to have made me reluctant to accept anything in the present as very absolute.

SHOULD WE COMPARE STUFF?

As you say Keane that "We will not know for a long time however because not enough time has past to successfully compare the two."

I was just wondering when would be a sufficient passage of time for us to compare Iraq to the conflict such that of Vietnam. From TV ads, TV documentaries, newspaper articles after newspaper articles, to publish articles on the web, many of these resources establishes that the conflict in Iraq should be perplexed next to the conflict in Vietnam. I’m not vouching for these two events of similarity to be compared with each other, but I was just wondering if they should ever, in any light, be compared to each other. To put it straight what I’m asking is that is it logically or ethically invalid to compare events that share any sort of similarity. For the answer to be no, is to regard and acknowledge that no two events of the similar likelihood ever should be logically be compared with each other, which in consequence would create for us, the human race, an inability to formulate any basis for future occurrences, which would be problematic when applied to mathematical or scientific situations (i.e. if “blank” than “this”)

Is THAT art?

I know our class discussion about ethics is over but I couldn't help but write this after I read an article about "art."

I of course know how ridiculous some artists are about what they call "art." I was at the IMA and the contemporary art collection had a piece of string on the wall and called it "art." As pointless as this seems to me, apparently someone was moved by this piece and payed for it to be in a museum. The fact that people think this is art is absurd but it truthfully means nothing to me. I know some pieces of art are horrible maybe hardly considered art, but what if you went into an art gallery and saw a starving dog chained to a wall. No really, an ACTUAL starving dog chained to a wall. WHAT? may be your first impression, but yes, I recently found out that some artist from South America was ALLOWED to put a dog on a chain and starve him as a piece of art. The dog eventually died, but here's the crazy part, he is actually being asked to put up another starving dog at another exhibition. My first issue is the ethics of it, but secondly, I question art. Of course I think painting a canvas white is hardly art, but I don't really seem THAT opinionated to do something about it. But when it comes to the dog, I want to question the meaning of art.

I think a) the article was shocking and b) why do i decide to question the issue of art once it becomes a personal issue that deals with my ethics.

Just thought that was interesting..

Responding to the 2 History questions

We were talking about how and why we study history about a week ago and there were a few things I wanted to add to what was said.

I think that we study history in order to use it as a tool for general understanding, but not to make any definite conclusions. I disagree with the notion that we should use history as a comparative guide for what we are to do in the future. For example the war in Iraq. I absolutly hate when people compare Iraq to Vietnam. Why? Because Vietnam was 40 years ago. It is in a different area of the world, there are different people in charge and different civilians. How can one say that we have made the same error in going to Iraq as we did in Vietnam? Yes, the death toll is climbing in Iraq and the battle for liberation is going almost nowhere, but times have changed. People always say that history repeats itself. In a general sense it kind of does, but when one nails at specifics obviously it will not repeat itself. Because Society is filled with an indefinite number of variables it is impossible to say that what happened in Vietnam is happening in Iraq. We could end up staying in Iraq for 100 years, a new president may rush us out of there, or democracy might actually plant foot and begin growing at some point. Today however is much different than yesterday and much more different than 40 years ago. A turn might be taken at anytime. So for those who roll back their eyes at George Bush and know the general perspective of Vietnam, take into consideration that as long as we compare now to then, we will end up in the same defeat, but if we look at what happened then and do a little different now(if we are for say in the same scenario) history may not repeat itself. We will not know for a long time however because not enough time has past to successfully compare the two.

history.....

I don't think history can be used to understand more about the present or the future. There might be some patterns or connections between the past and future, but the connections are small and rare. We rarely hear about connections made to the past. Even if some people believe so, it is very controversial, just like the connections of Iraq war to the Vietnam war. However, we should still learn history for its own sake. European history and world history are not very important, but each countries' own history is definitely important to its citizens. We all have a responsibility to the dead (especially to the soldiers). It's kinda like why we have many memorials and stuff. There are often statues full of names of the dead soldiers. These people sacrificed their lives for the peace we have today. Without them, we might all be Nazis or Communists... We have a responsibility to learn about the dead and the wars because we have to remember them and pass on their stories to future generations. Without them, we won't be the same today. America become the greatest power not due to us but due to the efforts of the dead. I don't think we can learn a lot from history. But we can definitely pay respect and gratitude to the dead by learning history and learning about them.

This was originally posted by Yilun. I had to re-post it for her because of a blog error.

The Purpose of History

We were talking about two questions as we closed class today, and I want to see more discussion of them.

1. Is it valid or proper to use history as a means to understanding more about the present and the future, or should history be studied and understood for its own sake?

2. Related to this, do we, the living, have a responsibility to the dead to remember the past? Do we have a duty to those who have gone before us to understand history?