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Public School History - Lofty Idealism and Patriotism or Critical and Cynical Realism.

Evilroddy

Evilroddy

Pragmatic, pugilistic, prancing, porcine politico.
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Should the teaching of History, Current Events and Civics in American public schools be focused on building pride/patriotism and unquestioning loyalty to an ideal America and its public and private institutions or should History, Civics, et al be taught primarily as a cautionary tale, emphasising the missteps, mistakes, injustices and atrocities which also form a big part of American History in the hope of avoiding new disasters? Should students be indoctrinated into being patriotic and cooperative citizens who assume the best of their society and state or should students be fore-armed with the critical and analytical skills and a degree of cynicism in order to better understand and cope with the realpolitik of American domestic and international History and life in adulthood, with all its ugly warts and blemishes as well as its shining successes?

This is a matter of balance, so I am not asking about shifting the curriculum to either pole of total indoctrination or total critical sedition but rather I am seeking opinions on where the balance should be set and how to achieve it. Will too much cynical reality extinguish hope and optimism or will too much idealism and candy-coating trigger shock and paralysis in the early adult years? At what age should history be taught and should the balance between the ideal and the real be shifted as students grow and mature? Should public schools be tools of socialisation and social engineering which reward compliance and patriotism or should they develop shrewd and critical graduates who will question and be capable of reforming America for better or for worse? I guess it boils down to selecting for drones or radicals at the extremes and better citizens somewhere in the middle. But where in the middle?

Thank you in advance for your responses and please forgive me if I vigorously debate with you over them, as the clash of ideas is the crucible of learning and education.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
 
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Evilroddy said:
Should the teaching of History, Current Events and Civics in American public schools be focused on building pride/patriotism and unquestioning loyalty to an ideal America and its public and private institutions or should History, Civics, et al be taught primarily as a cautionary tale, emphasising the missteps, mistakes, injustices and atrocities which also form a big part of American History in the hope of avoiding new disasters? Should students be indoctrinated into being patriotic and cooperative citizens who assume the best of their society and state or should students be fore-armed with the critical and analytical skills and a degree of cynicism in order to better understand and cope with the realpolitik of American domestic and international History and life in adulthood, with all its ugly warts and blemishes as well as its shining successes?

This is a matter of balance, so I am not asking about shifting the curriculum to either pole of total indoctrination or total critical sedition but rather I am seeking opinions on where the balance should be set and how to achieve it. Will too much cynical reality extinguish hope and optimism or will too much idealism and candy-coating trigger shock and paralysis in the early adult years? At what age should history be taught and should the balance between the ideal and the real be shifted as students grow and mature? Should public schools be tools of socialisation and social engineering which reward compliance and patriotism or should they develop shrewd and critical graduates who will question and be capable of reforming America for better or for worse? I guess it boils down to selecting for drones or radicals at the extremes and better citizens somewhere in the middle. But where in the middle?

Thank you in advance for your responses and please forgive me if I vigorously debate with you over them, as the clash of ideas is the crucible of learning and education.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
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I don't think history should be taught to "indoctrinate" for either "left or right." History should be taught to give people a sense of the past, and the present, so they can use that information to build their own futures.

To your specific point, both sides of any historical example should be addressed, with no side being held up as an example of how to think. IMO it should be presented as a series of facts, and then discussed in a format allowing the student's themselves to come to their own well-reasoned conclusions about each topic.

I think what we see happening in our schools today is a pendulum which has swung from the patriotic to the subversive, allowing no balance. No middle ground.

Much like the political climate, it is being presented as an absolute moralistic either/or weighted heavily on the negatives. IMO that does not make for a healthy social outlook.
 
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Evilroddy said:
Should the teaching of History, Current Events and Civics in American public schools be focused on building pride/patriotism and unquestioning loyalty to an ideal America and its public and private institutions or should History, Civics, et al be taught primarily as a cautionary tale, emphasising the missteps, mistakes, injustices and atrocities which also form a big part of American History in the hope of avoiding new disasters? Should students be indoctrinated into being patriotic and cooperative citizens who assume the best of their society and state or should students be fore-armed with the critical and analytical skills and a degree of cynicism in order to better understand and cope with the realpolitik of American domestic and international History and life in adulthood, with all its ugly warts and blemishes as well as its shining successes?

This is a matter of balance, so I am not asking about shifting the curriculum to either pole of total indoctrination or total critical sedition but rather I am seeking opinions on where the balance should be set and how to achieve it. Will too much cynical reality extinguish hope and optimism or will too much idealism and candy-coating trigger shock and paralysis in the early adult years? At what age should history be taught and should the balance between the ideal and the real be shifted as students grow and mature? Should public schools be tools of socialisation and social engineering which reward compliance and patriotism or should they develop shrewd and critical graduates who will question and be capable of reforming America for better or for worse? I guess it boils down to selecting for drones or radicals at the extremes and better citizens somewhere in the middle. But where in the middle?

Thank you in advance for your responses and please forgive me if I vigorously debate with you over them, as the clash of ideas is the crucible of learning and education.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
Click to expand...

:) I think you should allow schools to choose either of these positions, or, (better) teach honest history. As a precursor to that, you should additionally allow parents to choose which of these schools their children attend.

That way, if Little Johnny's parents want him to become an ill-formed whiner constantly blaming his problems on The System, they can choose an education system that will guide him towards that end, whereas if Little Leesha's parents want her to become a productive member of society who accepts personal responsibility for her life and acts accordingly, they can choose an education that will guide her towards that end. Since neithers' preference is imposed on the other's child, social hostility is reduced, and both are able to live together more amicably.
 
Neither, just teach kids how government works and how to get a job to pay their ****ing bills and maintain their house/cars so they are busy being productive citizens instead of marching in the streets like a bunch of ****ing angry morons with masks and bike locks or tiki torches because both sides are stupid as hell.

Historical facts can be learned on your own. Submitting kids to history is about as evil as it gets because bias from the teacher is always imposed.
 
Captain Adverse said:
I don't think history should be taught to "indoctrinate" for either "left or right." History should be taught to give people a sense of the past, and the present, so they can use that information to build their own futures.

To your specific point, both sides of any historical example should be addressed, with no side being held up as an example of how to think. IMO it should be presented as a series of facts, and then discussed in a format allowing the student's themselves to come to their own well-reasoned conclusions about each topic.

I think what we see happening in our schools today is a pendulum which has swung from the patriotic to the subversive, allowing no balance. No middle ground.

Much like the political climate, it is being presented as an absolute moralistic either/or weighted heavily on the negatives. IMO that does not make for a healthy social outlook.
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Captain Adverse:

I agree about the pendulum and about the tendency of educational systems and some educators to abuse the teaching of history due to agendas. However you mentioned that teachers should present both sides of any historical issue. That seems to imply the imposition of a binary analysis on historical issues which may have nothing to do with the topic under study. Now when you say both sides do you mean a patriotic and a cynical side, or a conservative and a progressive side or a Christian and a non-Christian side, etc.? What are the two sides to which you are referring and is history a binary topic of study?

My next concern is the idea of facts. Historical facts are distilled from a much larger pool of unrefined and often contradictory facts and are cherry-picked to support the theses of historians doing the research and the writing of history. As this distillation process progresses over generations some facts become received dogma and other facts are either forgotten or even suppressed, in order to support an historical orthodoxy. So which facts should teachers use to teach the students under their instruction, especially when the pedigree of many historical facts is suspect due to the distillation process?

Should history teachers introduce and teach students with contradictory primary source material and let children make up their own minds about what is historical fact, or should they teach with state approved secondary sources and textbooks (paper or digital) in order to preserve the received orthodoxy of acceptable distilled history? Should students be taught to analyse and critically evaluate historical information for themselves or be taught to accept and learn a corpus of knowledge in order to give them a common cultural background to act as a societal cement used to reinforce American society and to make clearer the future adult's role in the society?

The devil is as always in the details.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
 
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I taught US Government and American History for 33 years in the public high school system here in Michigan. Unless we get the equal of programmed robots to present a sterilized curriculum to students and absolutely stay away from any current events and the questions they inevitably will spawn in our students, any bias is unavoidable and very much human.

The question of balance asked in the OP is a good one. I would think that the level of the course is crucial. If one is in Elementary school teaching a third or fourth grade Social Studies class, the emphasis should be on basic information and there should be very little of any effort at critical thinking skills where the student is taught to apply judgment to certain issues or questions or past events which are controversial.

As the students gains in knowledge, maturity and age going into Middle School, this changes. By time a student is in High School, the course should be very different and critical thinking skills should be the emphasis and their application to current events and past historical events is vital and important in developing a thinking American citizen.

When I run into former students who are now adults - I always ask them if they vote. For me, that is the test. And I never ask them who they vote for.
 
cpwill said:
:) I think you should allow schools to choose either of these positions, or, (better) teach honest history. As a precursor to that, you should additionally allow parents to choose which of these schools their children attend.

That way, if Little Johnny's parents want him to become an ill-formed whiner constantly blaming his problems on The System, they can choose an education system that will guide him towards that end, whereas if Little Leesha's parents want her to become a productive member of society who accepts personal responsibility for her life and acts accordingly, they can choose an education that will guide her towards that end. Since neithers' preference is imposed on the other's child, social hostility is reduced, and both are able to live together more amicably.
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cpwill:

What is honest history? History is the truths, half-truths, omissions and outright lies we all agree to believe in, as a collective transgenerational monomyth studded with raisins of cherry-picked fact. Everybody remembers that Abraham Lincoln made the Gettysburg Address but most don't know he invited others into his bed when away from home because he hated sleeping alone (no sexual motive but just a need for company). Why teach the first fact but ignore or suppress the other? All history is filled with lies, omissions and contortions, so I am not sure what you mean by the phrase, "honest history".

What happens if the system which Little Johnny is going to inherit is broken and seriously malfunctioning. Do you want Johnny to be blind to that and not to try to change the system?. Would you prefer your little Johnnies to be compliant, hard-working, patriots who bear the yoke of a flawed system on their shoulders or would you prefer acute, critical, fiercely radical Johnnies capable of fixing a fundamentally flawed system (and perhaps screwing you over in the process)? Also, what about the janies?

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
 
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Evilroddy said:
What is honest history?
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History told without the intent of pushing the child to arrive at a current-day political preference. People in the past (astonishingly, just like people today!) did not exist for our benefit, but rather faced their own dilemmas with their own driving conditions. They attempted to address those issues with their own understanding, and should be understood on their own terms.

History is the truths, half-truths, omissions and outright lies we all agree to believe in, as a collective transgenerational monomyth studded with raisins of cherry-picked fact.
Click to expand...

You are conflating history with public myth, which is quite different. The Story Of George Washington And The Cherry Tree isn't part of an academic study of American history.

Everybody remembers that Abraham Lincoln made the Gettysburg Address but most don't know he invited others into his bed when away from home because he hated sleeping alone (no sexual motive but just a need for company). Why teach the first fact but ignore or suppress the other?
Click to expand...

One actually impacted history, the other not so much. And sleeping multiple people to a bed was common part of traveling in those days as well, which, I suppose, could be part of economic history.

What happens if the system which Little Johnny is going to inherit is broken and seriously malfunctioning.
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Our current educational system includes many parts that are seriously malfunctioning. It turns out that children are not, actually, mere inputs into a mid-20th-century-style factory setting, and that systems built on the assumption that they are prove ill-suited to the task of their education.

Do you want Johnny to be blind to that and not to try to change the system?. Would you prefer your little Johnnies to be compliant, hard-working, patriots who bear the yoke of a flawed system on their shoulders or would you prefer acute, critical, fiercely radical Johnnies capable of fixing a fundamentally flawed system (and perhaps screwing you over in the process)? Also, what about the janies?
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Actually, I named her Leesha :) You could even read above.

I reject your false dichotomy as a cartoonish, two-dimensional piece of hyperbole built on a flawed assumption. If teaching history has a proper modern role beyond academic study, it is to help create a sense of common community, not to either engender loyalty to a state or opposition to it.

Additionally, you have notions of who successfully changes systems that are very much at odds with - well - actual history. Radical Johnnnies who forego and look down on all that went before tend to lead "changes" that rather destructive, and often (thanks, Iron Law of Oligarchy!) to produce results far removed from what they thought they were seeking. Johnnies (and Leesha's) who understand the best of what came before and seek to build on and expand that tend to be more capable of producing lasting, beneficial reform.
 
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Evilroddy said:
I agree about the pendulum and about the tendency of educational systems and some educators to abuse the teaching of history due to agendas.
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Good. That's a start to address the problems. Have I ever mentioned in the Forum that I taught at both secondary and college levels; history and biology?

Evilroddy said:
However you mentioned that teachers should present both sides of any historical issue. That seems to imply the imposition of a binary analysis on historical issues which may have nothing to do with the topic under study. Now when you say both sides do you mean a patriotic and a cynical side, or a conservative and a progressive side or a Christian and a non-Christian side, etc.? What are the two sides to which you are referring and is history a binary topic of study?
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When it comes to social sciences there are usually at least two sides to any issue, although in fact there are often multiple "sides" not just two. It is your argument stated in the OP asserting "patriotic propaganda vs cautionary tale" that poses a two-sided view.

When I refer to "two-sides" I refer to the basic "pros and cons" of the historical incidents being discussed.

Take slavery, a hot-button topic which used to be glossed over (if mentioned at all), but is now taught as "An Evil Shame" of American history. A teacher can present facts about the socio-economic situation, along with historically conflicting views on slavery and internal/external pressures which led to compromises allowing it to perpetuate when our nation was founded. Discussions can then ensue, moderated by the teacher using all sorts of formats (ex. assigning teams to debate the "pros and cons") based on arguments presented by the factions at the time. This can lead students to realize how things like this can occur even in supposedly enlightened historical periods, without the teacher simply pushing a "good vs evil" political agenda.

Evilroddy said:
My next concern is the idea of facts. Historical facts are distilled from a much larger pool of unrefined and often contradictory facts and are cherry-picked to support the theses of historians doing the research and the writing of history. As this distillation process progresses over generations some facts become received dogma and other facts are either forgotten or even suppressed, in order to support an historical orthodoxy. So which facts should teachers use to teach the students under their instruction, especially when the pedigree of many historical facts is suspect due to the distillation process?
Click to expand...

Dogma and fact are two different things. IMO only lazy teachers rely solely on a textbook to "teach." Good teachers provide access to other source materials and methodologies. This includes options like reading lists, handouts, films, videos, guest speakers, class trips, debates, student presentations on assigned topics, etc.. No one should ever rely on a single source to instruct.

Evilroddy said:
[1.]Should history teachers introduce and teach students with contradictory primary source material and let children make up their own minds about what is historical fact, or [2.]should they teach with state approved secondary sources and textbooks (paper or digital) in order to preserve the received orthodoxy of acceptable distilled history? [3.] Should students be taught to analyse and critically evaluate historical information for themselves or [4.] be taught to accept and learn a corpus of knowledge in order to give them a common cultural background to act as a societal cement used to reinforce American society and to make clearer the future adult's role in the society?
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As shown above, YOU are making this a "binary" situation. A teacher should do both 1 and 2 above. I also advise 3 which then allows a student to make their own minds up about what "cements society together" referred to in suggestion 4.

Evilroddy said:
The devil is as always in the details.
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Yes, it is. But details seem to be sorely lacking in both forms of dogmatic instruction, patriotic and subversive.
 
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For me the question is history as in what really happened or history as in christopher columbus discovered america? Or paul revere riding through the streets warning the british are coming, even though at that time everyone was british and he never did that.

History should be taught truthfully and then discussed and people can make up their own minds as to who was good for mankind and who wasn't. If we are going to teach history we should be teaching it with all its warts included.
 
cpwill said:
History told without the intent of pushing the child to arrive at a current-day political preference. People in the past (astonishingly, just like people today!) did not exist for our benefit, but rather faced their own dilemmas with their own driving conditions. They attempted to address those issues with their own understanding, and should be understood on their own terms.
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When has such non-preferential "honest history" ever been taught in any state or nation of this world? Can such history in America be honest and non-preferential to the Native American, the European American, the Afro-American, the Chinese American and the Latin American experience and viewpoints of history simultaneously? I don't think so. When you laminate on historical preferences and biases from past historians and the past biases of Americans themselves it becomes impossible to construct and deliver a single historical narrative which satisfies the different historical pathways of these very different groups.

You are conflating history with public myth, which is quite different. The Story Of George Washington And The Cherry Tree isn't part of an academic study of American history.
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No, I am saying a good part of history is and always has been public myth created by the biases of those who shaped and wrote history. You cannot conflate one thing with itself by definition. Honesty and Cherry Trees aside, there is much of American history which has been distilled into national myths by powerfully wielded hammers of orthodoxy over the centuries. This is true for all countries and nations too, so I am not singling out America unfairly here.

One actually impacted history, the other not so much. And sleeping multiple people to a bed was common part of traveling in those days as well, which, I suppose, could be part of economic history.
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How do you know that? The Gettysburg Address was public speech but what policies and critical decisions were discussed in those beds and how did those private conversations effect and affect American history?

Our current educational system includes many parts that are seriously malfunctioning. It turns out that children are not, actually, mere inputs into a mid-20th-century-style factory setting, and that systems built on the assumption that they are prove ill-suited to the task of their education.
Click to expand...

I agree with this whole-heartedly about the pedagogic methodology, but curriculum must still be developed and therein lies the problem.

Actually, I named her Leesha :) You could even read above.
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Yes you did and I blanked on it. Apologies to both you and all the Leeshas out there.

I reject your false dichotomy as a cartoonish, two-dimensional piece of hyperbole built on a flawed assumption. If teaching history has a proper modern role beyond academic study, it is to help create a sense of common community, not to either engender loyalty to a state or opposition to it.
Click to expand...

Please remember that the positions I described were the extremes at the poles of education and not the ideals or even the realities. However how does one create a history programme which can foster a sense of common community which will satisfy Native Americans, European Americans, Latin Americans, Afro-Americans and all the other subsets of hyphenated Americans found in US public schools today?

Additionally, you have notions of who successfully changes systems that are very much at odds with - well - actual history. Radical Johnnnies who forego and look down on all that went before tend to lead "changes" that rather destructive, and often (thanks, Iron Law of Oligarchy!) to produce results far removed from what they thought they were seeking. Johnnies (and Leesha's) who understand the best of what came before and seek to build on and expand that tend to be more capable of producing lasting, beneficial reform.
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Not really. I understand that much progress can be attributed to the notion of constructive gradualism which you describe but it is also true that the gradualism is often superseded or undone by punctuated and rapid changes in history through crises and that punctuated dynamic equilibrium is often the source or cause of great historical changes which eclipse the achievements of constructive gradualism. To deny that is to deny one of the chief movers of history.

Finally a very good and thought provoking post, so thanks for taking the time and effort to post it.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
 
Sheepdog said:
Neither, just teach kids how government works and how to get a job to pay their ****ing bills and maintain their house/cars so they are busy being productive citizens instead of marching in the streets like a bunch of ****ing angry morons with masks and bike locks or tiki torches because both sides are stupid as hell.

Historical facts can be learned on your own. Submitting kids to history is about as evil as it gets because bias from the teacher is always imposed.
Click to expand...

An interesting and alarming take on history and education. What else can be said to one who labels the teaching of history as evil and the exercise of political protest as moronic. Congratulation on the complete commodification of the roles of your fellow citizens in your all work, no dissent America. The drones must remain productive above all else. Benito Mussolini would be proud of you.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
 
Evilroddy said:
An interesting and alarming take on history and education. What else can be said to one who labels the teaching of history as evil and the exercise of political protest as moronic. Congratulation on the complete commodification of the roles of your fellow citizens in your all work, no dissent America. The drones must remain productive above all else. Benito Mussolini would be proud of you.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
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hahah yep...I promote raising children without indoctrination, which of course results in me getting accused of promoting indoctrinating children. Im surprised you didnt call me a racist bigot sexist homophobe islamophobe xenophobe while you were at it.

Never ****ing fails on this website.

"Kids growing up to be productive adults isnt important, what is important is they are pumped full of cortisol and stress by getting into political discourse early and often". Politics is not healthy for people, especially kids.
 
Sheepdog said:
hahah yep...I promote raising children without indoctrination, which of course results in me getting accused of promoting indoctrinating children. Im surprised you didnt call me a racist bigot sexist homophobe islamophobe xenophobe while you were at it.

Never ****ing fails on this website.

"Kids growing up to be productive adults isnt important, what is important is they are pumped full of cortisol and stress by getting into political discourse early and often". Politics is not healthy for people, especially kids.
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Sheepdog:

In post #4 you wrote the following:

Neither, just teach kids how government works and how to get a job to pay their ****ing bills and maintain their house/cars so they are busy being productive citizens instead of marching in the streets like a bunch of ****ing angry morons with masks and bike locks or tiki torches because both sides are stupid as hell.

Historical facts can be learned on your own. Submitting kids to history is about as evil as it gets because bias from the teacher is always imposed.
Click to expand...

Bolding mine:

Grooming kids to be workers and consumers is indoctrination as much as encouraging them to question and examine what they are taught is. So you can't in all honesty claim that your quote does not recommend indoctrination. Capitalism and consumerism are doctrines and isms and thus their promotion through education is indoctrination.

As to racism, bigotry, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, xenophobia and any other expected labels, there is no evidence yet for those labels to be used but the conversation is young and should you provide any I'll be sure to mention it to you. Perhaps your expectations never *#%&ing fail to come true because you ignore what others actually post and only see what you want to see in the words of others. Your entire rebuttal had nothing to do with what I actually posted but rather what you interpreted as my post.

So off you go to guard the flock of lambs, ewes and rams with your sharp teeth and your tightly tied-up bundle of sticks while the shepherds talk turkey.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
 
Evilroddy said:
Sheepdog:

In post #4 you wrote the following:



Bolding mine:

Grooming kids to be workers and consumers is indoctrination as much as encouraging them to question and examine what they are taught is. So you can't in all honesty claim that your quote does not recommend indoctrination. Capitalism and consumerism are doctrines and isms and thus their promotion through education is indoctrination.

As to racism, bigotry, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, xenophobia and any other expected labels, there is no evidence yet for those labels to be used but the conversation is young and should you provide any I'll be sure to mention it to you. Perhaps your expectations never *#%&ing fail to come true because you ignore what others actually post and only see what you want to see in the words of others. Your entire rebuttal had nothing to do with what I actually posted but rather what you interpreted as my post.

So off you go to guard the flock of lambs, ewes and rams with your sharp teeth and your tightly tied-up bundle of sticks while the shepherds talk turkey.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
Click to expand...

My way: Happiness, fulfillment, purpose, accomplishment, prosperity, family.

Your way: Anger, resentment, mental illness, debt, disease, hate.
 
My two best instructors in this area were a high school teacher and a college professor. The HS teach was rather free wheeling who let people freely express whatever it was they wanted to express and no matter what position you took, she would be the devil's advocate against you. The college prof (granted it was senior honors class) gave us a syllabus of what books we would discuss on what schedule, gave us a recommended reading list of related books we could explore if we so desired across a wide spectrum, told us all grades would be 20% participation, 80% papers about whatever we wanted to write about, and sat down. Never taught a single class. He would randomly ask a person to say something about the assigned reading and after that it was up to the class to discuss whatever we wanted to discuss, argue, question, or debate. He wouldn't even answer questions if it was related to discussion.
 
Sheepdog said:
My way: Happiness, fulfillment, purpose, accomplishment, prosperity, family.

Your way: Anger, resentment, mental illness, debt, disease, hate.
Click to expand...

Sheepdog:

Clearly you are not reading the posts. I do not have a way which I have articulated in this thread yet. I have set out the extreme polar boundaries of the goals of public school education and I am asking others what they think about how to approach the setting of goals between those extremes and the methodology and pedagogy of realising those goals. So to say my way leads to anger, resentment, mental illness, debt, disease, hate, is absurd since you have no idea what my way is. Please try to keep up old boy.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
 
Captain Adverse:

Captain Adverse said:
Good. That's a start to address the problems. Have I ever mentioned in the Forum that I taught at both secondary and college levels; history and biology?
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Hmm, a bit of parallel evolution going on then. I have been a teacher of Maths, Sciences, Biology, History and Economics for 33 years at the Secondary school level so we have some common ground to work from.

When it comes to social sciences there are usually at least two sides to any issue, although in fact there are often multiple "sides" not just two. It is your argument stated in the OP asserting "patriotic propaganda vs cautionary tale" that poses a two-sided view.
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My questions were intended to suss out which two sides you were referring to and you have clarified them as pros and cons so we are clear on that. I agree that a binary model is deficient in social science learning and teaching so we are clear on that now too.

When I refer to "two-sides" I refer to the basic "pros and cons" of the historical incidents being discussed.
Click to expand...

Clear and understood now.

Take slavery, a hot-button topic which used to be glossed over (if mentioned at all), but is now taught as "An Evil Shame" of American history. A teacher can present facts about the socio-economic situation, along with historically conflicting views on slavery and internal/external pressures which led to compromises allowing it to perpetuate when our nation was founded. Discussions can then ensue, moderated by the teacher using all sorts of formats (ex. assigning teams to debate the "pros and cons") based on arguments presented by the factions at the time. This can lead students to realize how things like this can occur even in supposedly enlightened historical periods, without the teacher simply pushing a "good vs evil" political agenda.
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One of the important goals for me in education is building character and having students develop and defend their own moral compasses in history. So while I agree that a dispassionate treatment of the facts of slavery is needed to form a foundation for studying the topic, at some point students in my classes must make ethical (not moral) judgements about certain issues and be prepared to defend their decisions to their peers and to their teacher. If you don't intoduce moral (personal) and ethical (societal) questions and critical analysis of them into topics like slavery in a history programme then character and ethical judgements dissolve in a corrosive bath of unstructured moral relativism. That's okay if the topic is the history of pop music but on issues like slavery, war, colonialism and other topics where unguided moral relativism leads to weak character. For example there are presently more people enduring the privation and misery of wage-slavery in modern day America than were ever actually enslaved at any time in America's pre-emancipation history, so defacto slavery is a worse problem demographically today than it was in 1850.

Dogma and fact are two different things. IMO only lazy teachers rely solely on a textbook to "teach." Good teachers provide access to other source materials and methodologies. This includes options like reading lists, handouts, films, videos, guest speakers, class trips, debates, student presentations on assigned topics, etc.. No one should ever rely on a single source to instruct.
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Dogma often imposes false facts on education systems. For years I taught in Quebec where the dogma of territorial ownership between Canada and Quebec was in direct conflict with the historical facts. Teachers were forced to teach the dogma and were not allowed to present the contradicting facts as part of the curriculum. Mandatory province-wide provincial government examinations were used to assure that the orthodoxy remained dominant and both students and teachers were punished if they challenged the dogma on the exams. Worse still a nationalist and separatist organisation completely separate from the education department reviewed the examination results and took it upon itself to publicly award students and teachers who followed dogma and shamed schools which did not. Lest Americans think that such things could never happen in American schools, I call your attention to the creationism/intelligent design/evolution/Darwinism struggles going on in some states of your Union.

Continued next post.
 
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As shown above, YOU are making this a "binary" situation. A teacher should do both 1 and 2 above. I also advise 3 which then allows a student to make their own minds up about what "cements society together" referred to in suggestion 4.
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Not really. I have identified the polar extremes of socialisation, social engineering and indoctrination for collective goals of societal harmony and efficiency at one extreme and fostering analytical and critical thinking plus a measure of cynicism in individuals in order to lower societal homogenisation and to foster dissent and debate in the service of creating a constantly self-challenging and reforming society which has many citizens adept at prroblem identification and problem solving.

Yes, it is. But details seem to be sorely lacking in both forms of dogmatic instruction, patriotic and subversive.
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I am not sure what you mean here. Do you wish me to provide details or is this a more general philosophical observation.

A very good post which forced me to hopefully clarify some things. So thank you for taking the time and making the effort to present this post.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
 
Evilroddy said:
Should the teaching of History, Current Events and Civics in American public schools be focused on building pride/patriotism and unquestioning loyalty to an ideal America and its public and private institutions or should History, Civics, et al be taught primarily as a cautionary tale, emphasizing the missteps, mistakes, injustices, and atrocities which also form a big part of American History in the hope of avoiding new disasters? Should students be indoctrinated into being patriotic and cooperative citizens who assume the best of their society and state or should students be fore-armed with the critical and analytical skills and a degree of cynicism in order to better understand and cope with the realpolitik of American domestic and international History and life in adulthood, with all its ugly warts and blemishes as well as its shining successes?
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With all due respect, you left out an important possibility. On moral ground, if you look hard enough, there is not a soul that you will find to be without sin. Nobody can make a sane argument that America and its history is without fault. However, a strong case can be made that it's been more good than bad. If you advocate cynicism on account that no one ever lived up completely to its own ideals, you will throw mostly good people into the same pit as very bad people. Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

On a factual ground, a lot of history textbooks are written by pretty radical professors who have a very bad opinion of America and they leave a lot of very relevant details out of their textbooks. The bias is not patriotic, quite the contrary. Here are two pieces of important information that can change your view of slavery in America.


For example, are you aware of the argument laid out in the majority opinion of the Dred Scott decision? Roughly speaking, it argues that the Founding Fathers did not mean to include black people when they declared all men to be equal. It's a very interesting proposition given that slavery survived almost a century after the Declaration of Independence. Do you know who made the best argument against this? Lincoln did it in his 1860 Cooper address. He shows that of the 39 Founders who signed the US Constitution, 23 of them had an opportunity in their office to vote on abolishing or restricting slavery. 21 of them voted in this direction, a clear majority. Lincoln also makes mentions of what the Founders wrote on top of what they did. That sounds like a crucial bit of history to me. His argument was not "let's radically change the country." His argument was "this is the foundational ideal of this country."

Another important bit of information is missing. Following the Secession, Southern Democrats were not allowed to vote in Congress for the 13, 14 and 15th amendments. Only Northern Republicans and Northern Democrats were allowed to vote. The percentage of each party who voted in favor in these laws is thus extremely important because it is a decisive test of two competing explanations. Slavery could have been a dispute between the North and the South, but it could also have been a dispute between Democrats and Republicans. Since only Northerners voted, you get to answer that question without a shred of doubt: just take the roll count per party in both the Senate and the House and you will know. Guess how Northern Democrats voted? Yes: they voted overwhelmingly against those laws. If I am not mistaken, they did not cast a single vote in favor of the 14th Amendment. All votes in favor were Republican and all votes against it were Democrat.


To me, these two sets of facts are crucial. The argument made by Lincoln shows that America was not founded on white supremacy. It also shows that he didn't see himself as a radical but as a rather conservative person, preserving the intent expressed in original documents. The roll counts also are very important because it shows you where the divide laid on slavery. It wasn't just Southern Democrats. It was also Northern Democrats who peddled white supremacist arguments.

But, if you are trying to argue that America is responsible, or you are trying to suggest that Southerners are still racist today (to make the very nonsubtle suggestion that Republicans have been the racist party since the 1960s), many facts are cumbersome and become disposable.
 
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Evilroddy said:
Not really. I have identified the polar extremes of socialisation, social engineering and indoctrination (...).
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You can indoctrinate people to love their country. You can also indoctrinate people to hate their country.

The problem is that you left out the possibility that someone might be excessively critical for ideological reasons just as someone might be excessively supportive for ideological reasons. It is a peculiarly vexing problem because I think that this scenario is the likeliest outcome at the moment. Academic historians are not exactly an overwhelmingly conservative crowd...
 
TheEconomist said:
With all due respect, you left out an important possibility. On moral ground, if you look hard enough, there is not a soul that you will find to be without sin. Nobody can make a sane argument that America and its history is without fault. However, a strong case can be made that it's been more good than bad. If you advocate cynicism on account that no one ever lived up completely to its own ideals, you will throw mostly good people into the same pit as very bad people. Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

On a factual ground, a lot of history textbooks are written by pretty radical professors who have a very bad opinion of America and they leave a lot of very relevant details out of their textbooks. The bias is not patriotic, quite the contrary. Here are two pieces of important information that can change your view of slavery in America.


For example, are you aware of the argument laid out in the majority opinion of the Dred Scott decision? Roughly speaking, it argues that the Founding Fathers did not mean to include black people when they declared all men to be equal. It's a very interesting proposition given that slavery survived almost a century after the Declaration of Independence. Do you know who made the best argument against this? Lincoln did it in his 1860 Cooper address. He shows that of the 39 Founders who signed the US Constitution, 23 of them had an opportunity in their office to vote on abolishing or restricting slavery. 21 of them voted in this direction, a clear majority. Lincoln also makes mentions of what the Founders wrote on top of what they did. That sounds like a crucial bit of history to me. His argument was not "let's radically change the country." His argument was "this is the foundational ideal of this country."

Another important bit of information is missing. Following the Secession, Southern Democrats were not allowed to vote in Congress for the 13, 14 and 15th amendments. Only Northern Republicans and Northern Democrats were allowed to vote. The percentage of each party who voted in favor in these laws is thus extremely important because it is a decisive test of two competing explanations. Slavery could have been a dispute between the North and the South, but it could also have been a dispute between Democrats and Republicans. Since only Northerners voted, you get to answer that question without a shred of doubt: just take the roll count per party in both the Senate and the House and you will know. Guess how Northern Democrats voted? Yes: they voted overwhelmingly against those laws. If I am not mistaken, they did not cast a single vote in favor of the 14th Amendment. All votes in favor were Republican and all votes against it were Democrat.


To me, these two sets of facts are crucial. The argument made by Lincoln shows that America was not founded on white supremacy. It also shows that he didn't see himself as a radical but as a rather conservative person, preserving the intent expressed in original documents. The roll counts also are very important because it shows you where the divide laid on slavery. It wasn't just Southern Democrats. It was also Northern Democrats who peddled white supremacist arguments.

But, if you are trying to argue that America is responsible, or you are trying to suggest that Southerners are still racist today (to make the very nonsubtle suggestion that Republicans have been the racist party since the 1960s), many facts are cumbersome and become disposable. The roll count on Civil Right laws, the election results in 1968, the number of Dixiecrats who changed party (out of the 200 or so people concerned, Strom Thurmond is the only guy who changed sides), etc. That's all extremely inconvenient if you want to make it sound like Republicans suddenly became racists in the 1960s and 1970s.
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TheEconomist:

A very thoughtful and interesting post which is about to send me scrambling to my US Constitutional Law and History books. Thank you for taking the time and making the effort to craft such an interesting post. Now I have some homework to do.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
 
TheEconomist said:
You can indoctrinate people to love their country. You can also indoctrinate people to hate their country.

The problem is that you left out the possibility that someone might be excessively critical for ideological reasons just as someone might be excessively supportive for ideological reasons. It is a peculiarly vexing problem because I think that this scenario is the likeliest outcome at the moment. Academic historians are not exactly an overwhelmingly conservative crowd...
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TheEconomist:

Yup, both conscious and unconscious ideological bias in history or pedagogy is a big problem in just about every country that values free thought. America is certainly not alone in that respect.

However being a non-American looking into the giant fishbowl of America, I am struck by how polarised even the historical facts have become in America and how many alternative realities have arisen even among very well educated Americans. You might disagree on ideological lines or on political party lines but reality is now being successfully mutated or manufactured and few Americans seem armed with the necessary analytical and critical skills to question and debunk this mutation/marketing. Myth, marketing and history are melding into many different and discreet Frankenstein sub-realities, and that is disturbing to me. Common reality and common ground are subducting under the immense weight of ersatz realities being hard sold to different facets of the American population. But common ground and enlightened compromise are the glues which holds a free society together.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
 
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Evilroddy said:
Should the teaching of History, Current Events and Civics in American public schools be focused on building pride/patriotism and unquestioning loyalty to an ideal America and its public and private institutions or should History, Civics, et al be taught primarily as a cautionary tale, emphasising the missteps, mistakes, injustices and atrocities which also form a big part of American History in the hope of avoiding new disasters? Should students be indoctrinated into being patriotic and cooperative citizens who assume the best of their society and state or should students be fore-armed with the critical and analytical skills and a degree of cynicism in order to better understand and cope with the realpolitik of American domestic and international History and life in adulthood, with all its ugly warts and blemishes as well as its shining successes?

This is a matter of balance, so I am not asking about shifting the curriculum to either pole of total indoctrination or total critical sedition but rather I am seeking opinions on where the balance should be set and how to achieve it. Will too much cynical reality extinguish hope and optimism or will too much idealism and candy-coating trigger shock and paralysis in the early adult years? At what age should history be taught and should the balance between the ideal and the real be shifted as students grow and mature? Should public schools be tools of socialisation and social engineering which reward compliance and patriotism or should they develop shrewd and critical graduates who will question and be capable of reforming America for better or for worse? I guess it boils down to selecting for drones or radicals at the extremes and better citizens somewhere in the middle. But where in the middle?

Thank you in advance for your responses and please forgive me if I vigorously debate with you over them, as the clash of ideas is the crucible of learning and education.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
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Clearly written from a left wing ideological mindset. History, facts should be taught, the good the bad and the ugly. The basic beliefs the country was founded around as well as how we got to where we are. If you don't know the past you are doomed to repeat it. But the left seems to see almost everything in Americans history to be evil, they are missing most of the picture by dwelling on the negatives and not any positives. Fine, but if you do that you are not teaching you are indoctrinating which it seems the left only wants to use its version of history to tear down the country. Every civilization, empire, country, has it's ugly past as well as it's great victories and triumphs. Often they don't come as quickly as we wish but they are hard fought and great prices are paid for the victories. The U.S. has so many good qualities that the left tends to ignore and only criticize.
 
Integrityrespec said:
Clearly written from a left wing ideological mindset. History, facts should be taught, the good the bad and the ugly. The basic beliefs the country was founded around as well as how we got to where we are. If you don't know the past you are doomed to repeat it. But the left seems to see almost everything in Americans history to be evil, they are missing most of the picture by dwelling on the negatives and not any positives. Fine, but if you do that you are not teaching you are indoctrinating which it seems the left only wants to use its version of history to tear down the country. Every civilization, empire, country, has it's ugly past as well as it's great victories and triumphs. Often they don't come as quickly as we wish but they are hard fought and great prices are paid for the victories. The U.S. has so many good qualities that the left tends to ignore and only criticize.
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Integrityrespec:

Easy to say but now very hard to do, because "historical facts" are often only partially factual and are born out of the historical biases of those who wrote/write or patronise the writing of history. One history of America will be very different from another written fifty years later, notwithstanding the new fifty years of history. What was important in the past may seem trivial later or vice versa. So what historical facts should be included in the curriculum? Those who decide will be guided by their own biases and perhaps ideologies.

Education has changed over the last twenty five years and the last fifteen have seen revolutionary change. The idea of a teacher standing before a classroom of receptive or bored students is fast becoming an anachronism. Now students are encouraged to do as much of their own research as possible and to come to their own conclusions with minimal guidance from their teachers. Events, names, dates and sequences are not being taught as the assumption now is that in a wired world kids can look it up if needed and do not have to carry it around in their heads. The emphasis in education has shifted from what is learned from the teacher to how to learn on your own with minimal guidance from the teacher. That means kids do not receive a common corpus of historical facts which they are required to learn and internalise. Each student goes down their own road rather than a common road of shared experience. The paradigms of education are shifting rapidly as are the teaching and learning of History (and many other subjects).

So this is not the expression of a left-wing, a right-wing or even a centrist mindset. It is an expression of an education system and pedagogical mindsets which are in rapid and extensive flux. This is from a teacher riding a technological and cultural wave which is fundamentally changing the goals, methods and content of schooling and this wave might land us all on jagged rocks or deliver us to a safer sandy cove. The problem is no one really knows where the wave will bring us.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
 
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