Thursday, April 24, 2008
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.
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3 comments:
Well i see what your saying IAN but have you heard the phrase "you are what you eat" the interpretation for this phrase is that your choices define who you are, many American schools have chosen to take up the patriotic approach when it comes to teaching history. Our school system here in the United States is not dedicated any longer to spraying the truth but blind patriotism. Schools here buy history books that has the least levels of obscenities( such as traumas they assume students cannot bare or recuperate from), but by dismissing all these obscenities and replacing it with a short paragraph just does not suffice to me personally. This is the central reason why I think textbooks should be revise.If we as Americans, continue to dismiss the truth for patriotism, we will, and I say we will, be disillusion from the truth. Can you see the the problem? If we dismiss truth because of their obscene nature, soon as we know it we will dismiss events such as the holocaust or slavery to an extent thats its place in history could possible be lost. Instead of barring the students from the truth, because of their age, we should find a way to relate the truth but exclude the obscenities if that is the issue. Im pretty sure the school can come up with something. Im uncertain as to how to carry out with the change or reevaluation, but I think some measures or attempts should be taken up in trying to alleviate this dilemma.
AND if historians are drilling them with patriotism would they even distinguish at that time that it is patriotism or just how history was constructed to be?
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