From another thread regarding air battles. Context - Korea and Vietnam were mentioned, the poster had little idea of the wars. That begs the question; Is the US history curriculum a reasonable mirror of US history or not? Are, as the poster suggests, the nice bits cherry picked and the bad bits ignored. Again, as this poster suggests, are lies being given as fact and, is so, what lies? If that's the case, is there government interference in an attempt to rewrite history or simple keep the population ignorant?
History isn't really taught in American public schools. What passes for history is mostly leftist propaganda. The kids have no historical perspective. Talking to them is an exercise in wading through ignorance. I see little difference between these poorly educated kids and livestock.
That's quite a 'review'. Why leftist propaganda? Strikes me, ignoring Vietnam would be in the right wing interest.
I've been out of school for awhile, so I can't really comment on what the current state regarding history class is, because I have no children either although, I might see if you can find curriculum on the web maybe as an idea for a research path to see what it's like today, or even how prevalent such nonsense was in other schools at the time that I attended. But I can give you examples from my own experiences. Firstly, for whatever reason, we spent a cumulative total of months learning about native Americans, tribe names, what they called their tools, their vocabulary, battles they fought with European settlers etc... to the finest detail.. None of their actual settlements, or cities, (nowhere near in comparison to say the ones in Europe even hundreds of thousands of years before) but for the territory, a lot more than a couple of teepees, and for whatever reason ZERO mention of any Aztecs, Incas, Mayas etc. who weren't all that far away. Columbus was a brave and noble explorer who discovered America, and was the first to do so.. Not just the first European to do so, just the first to do so outright (the natives weren't reconciled with this, the kids wouldn't have thought about that because that was last unit we studied them).. I have thoroughly memorized his three ships, the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, and a nice little rhyme to remember when he set sail "in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue!" Now we know he wasn't even the first European there, just another.. But he was a great guy, no mention of the fact that he founded the transatlantic slave trade. His actual voyage was pretty inconsequential to history other than plunders for the Spanish royalty, so why so much about him, I don't know, perhaps so we don't get to wondering why we have a day off in his honor. Abraham Lincoln was OBSESSED with freeing the slaves.. The only reason he fought the war was to free the slaves.. He didn't even care about preserving the union, he just wanted those slaves to be freed, so he went to war for this. (omit any mentions of his suspension of habeus corpus, his extrajudicial executions of native Americans, and his terrorist strategy to target women, children, livestock and crops in the South as part of his "total war").. We learned the basic premise of the anaconda plan, but not what that actually entailed. The industrial revolution was sparked in the United States, at which point the rest of the world followed suit. Henry Ford invented the assembly line. First guy EVER to think of that. The Pearl Harbor attack came suddenly and without warning.. The US had NO IDEA and thought that Japan would NEVER attack. They attacked and they were all like WTF where did that come from? Who did that? Japan???!??! Nevermind the fact they knew it was coming for months, and no mention of the fact that enemy subs were spotted like 40 minutes prior, and enemy plane formation on their brand new fancy radar, the radar doing EXACTLY what it was put there to do! All the technology breakthroughs to gloat about but you forgot to mention the radar which worked PERFECTLY in detecting the incoming Japanese plane formation! It's first ever test and it worked like a charm and yet sailors died in their sleep and not at their battle stations, for some reason the history teacher wouldn't get into for a topic he would never delve. (multiple teachers for this one actually I had WWII study three times). Of course you had the false dichotomy drilled down your throat ad nauseum about how the a-bombs saved a million American lives and had to put that on your exam about why we dropped the a bombs.. No exploration of alternatives like just leave Japan sit there starving as we had them cut off and starving via blockade with a navy no more than floating wreckage by that point. Also "world history" covered European history only, with no lessons whatsoever, at any point, regarding Genghis Khan, the Middle East, Japan, Chinese dynasties etc. but they did branch out insofar as covering the Egyptians. Also you get lazy teachers that stick on a movie so they can sit there at their desk doing nothing for a week and not formulate any lesson plans. Not to mention the general insistence memorizing dates and names, and other tedious rote, which bores kids, and develops them little instead of where the real focus should be, which is the hows, whys, and will it happen again, which is what the REAL point of history is and what makes it interesting. You said you wanted my opinion so I opened the floodgate for ya! Sorry about that!
mostly you just never make it to the back of the book where the more recent events happen i don’t think there a standard text for all schools it’s been a while but i don’t believe the united states was ever portrayed as perfect in the books i had i suppose some events are picked over others because theirs to much to cover
I smell Howard Zinn. Government controlled education is a failure, look at the current generation, all over the message boards, spewing hate and contempt of the history of the USA and the World. We have the Marxist Howard Zinn to thank for that. I already see Zinn's diatribe spewed in this thread. Children believe in Santa Claus, very gullible, when their young you can teach them anything, hence the Marxist got their claws into our children through the government education system.
You have never heard of Howard Zinn? I would like to know if you have before I give you a nice example just to know where or what your position is before I respond.
There is a great quote that my Advanced Placement United States history teacher made during the first lecture for my class: "History is subjective." I think this is a succinct historiographical observation. Henceforth, I would say no, the United States history curriculum is not a reasonable (objective) mirror of United States history because the discipline in of itself manifests out of human subjectivity. The best of United States history teachers will acknowledge this before even rambling on about the first migrants to the Americas.
Just a general comment or two. And because I am not American I'm not going to pronounce on the American experience. I was schooled in the UK and Australia. In both countries I was exposed to an interesting history curriculum but it was never a detailed and objective exposure. I'm okay with that because a child should be educated appropriately to their age level and psychological development. I think it was Jerome Bruner who said you can teach a child anything, even nuclear physics, as long as you do so in an appropriate manner. The phrase "spiral curriculum" comes to mind. Of course we get a simplified version of history in our early education. Can you imagine trying to engage a ten year old with the nuances involved in the developments of the US Civil War? At that age they're more interested in the names of the various battles rather than the politics that created the situation. And, correspondingly, studying James Thurber's "If Grant Had Been Drinking at Appomattox" in literature class would have just been plain confusing instead of bloody funny to we adults who know what really happened. Having said there is no defence to omission of important events and I'm using Bruner to support me here. A child can learn about the Vietnam War in an appropriate manner and as they develop then they can study the event to gain a more nuanced knowledge. Omission is whitewashing, simplifying the study for the appropriate development level of the child is just good educational practice, at least I think it is.
This first link is the Howard Zinn effort to get his propaganda into every school as possible http://zinnedproject.org/ Howard Zinn admits the far left bias of The Peoples History of the United States of America http://chs.camas.wednet.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/2011_ap_us_history_zinns_history.pdf Howard Zinn was a Communist, a link to the FBI files released after Howard Zinn died. I have yet to read them and just gave the link without actually looking, its a big file, I just downloaded four separate pdf's. http://www.fbi.gov/fbi-search?q=zinn&siteurl=www.fbi.gov%2F&siteurl=www.fbi.gov%2Ffoia%2Ffoiaindex%2Fzinn_howard.htm#output=xml_no_dtd&client=google-csbe&cx=004748461833896749646%3Ae41lgwqry7w&cof=FORID%3A10%3BNB%3A1&ie=UTF-8&siteurl=www.fbi.gov%2Ffoia%2Ffoiaindex%2Fzinn_howard.htm&q=zinn The book is widely used in public schools. http://www.eagleforum.org/psr/2010/nov10/psrnov10.html Howard Zinn on objectivity http://zinnedproject.org/faq/why-students-should-study-history Howard Zinn's propaganda is all over this thread, all over the forums. I can go on and on. The guy is not hiding or nothing, he states his bias.
We are having the same problem in the UK. He who controls the past controls the future, and it suits different groups and classes to recall different things. Look at the Balkans - all those saintly nations totally surrounded by evil devils. It always makes me want to get out fast!
Vietnam was began under Eisenhower, escalated under Kennedy, completely politicized, and escalated under Johnson, continued and withdrawn from under Nixon, and then completely de-funded by the Democratic controlled Congress. After the Democrats in Congress ended funding for Vietnam the Communist took over much of Indochina resulting in millions of deaths. Strikes me blaming it on anybody but the Liberal/Democrats is in the best interest of Liberal/Democrats.
"Completely politicized"? All wars are about politics. That was a civil war in which the US and several other nations got involved on the basis of the need to contain Communism in SE Asia. On that basis it was a failure.
I disagree that all wars about politics, but I guess I should ask what your idea of politics include, like if we go to war for oil, I guess that is politics. What about a simple tyrant, I should come up with examples, but that is what I am thinking when you say they are all about politics.
There really ought to be a measure of hate and contempt at your history. Much of it is despicable. You're kidding if you think Zinn's work has had a significant influence on the curriculum. If it did, then US students would be taught a lot of things that they aren't. Like how the US has supported genocide and terrorism. Or how the allies committed innumerable war crimes during WWII. Or how Marx was one of Lincoln's friends. And on and on.
So much so, it is amazing! See 98% of my fellow Americans view on the Russians role in WWII as evidence.
Howard Zinn a communist? Why? Because he wrote about things that made authority uncomfortable, similar to Chomsky. But I guess people can take the FBI at their word without taking the time to even preview their evidence, let alone, read their justification. I mean, its not like they've ever called someone a communist without justification before... Regarding the way in which History is taught to Americans: It's complicated. Looking back, and with James Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me, I can say that my public educational years mirrored what Loewen described: history wasn't taught as something memorable or interesting, and it was embarrassed by "blind patriotism, mindless optimism, sheer misinformation, and outright lies." HFD already listed many large ones. But what bothers me are the omissions. We're taught about our military and some military engagements, but we're not taught about the backstage power-plays that Washington makes - as violence just suddenly erupts in the textbook world. Notwithstanding, there are instances where "combustible violence" has erupted without notice, but not nearly to the extent that is portrayed in the textbooks. The textbooks, to my recollection, barely talked about intelligence agencies, or even mentioned the National Security Council. This: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R41677.pdf is largely untaught material for Americans. I mean the extent, as some of the conflicts on there are certainly taught. As I said: "It's complicated." You can't teach young ones all of the dirty secrets at an early age, as I suspect that they'd become quite resentful of their homeland given that they're being told that this-and-that their country is doing is bad. Ergo, why the government has an interest in the way the young are taught. If all of the stories in your head about American History are from public school textbooks, your view of America is sanitized. Highly sanitized. That's why I think it is worrisome that so many young adults walk out of high school with a diploma and never engage themselves, truly, intellectually again. History is one subject in particular that gets pushed to the wayside. Look at any Presidential speech. What jobs are they looking to fund and develop new openings for? Math and science. I've never heard, say, Obama, go out and say, "We need more History teachers!" I would definitely re-organize the way History is taught though. I'm not advocating a full-on propaganda campaign of truth i.e. negative press, but a more balanced approach to the equation of building patriotism and nationalism through History is required. I say that because when youths leave high school, they're close to, or are at voting age. And I believe that if they're engaged properly, they will be better voters to this nation (more educated) - something this forum has complained about. Furthermore, I believe that if they're more educated, not only will their votes reflect upon that, but that they'll have a voice against the machinery of authority whensoever it abuses us.
I'm about to make a timeline of England to put up in my office. It will include the nasty bits as well as the good. Any person, regardless of nationality, should be aware of the history of their country, good and bad, and never excuse any of it. It may no longer matter but that's not to excuse it, just to be aware so it never happens again.
