Random thoughts...

[conuly]

Believe it or not, this is a serious post prompted by Harry Potter. Two things came together at once.

First, there's the complaining I've seen before about how the History of Magic classes are structured - long, tedious, boring lectures. Essays? Well, if you can call "Witch Burnings were Completely Pointless" an essay.... Notice that it doesn't begin to observe the other side's view - burnings of witches were a good way to get property, intimidate the populace, and keep good control over the more dangerous parts of society, like little old ladies. (Yes, this remark is meant to be flippant.)

Then there's this old comment that mentions the horrors of public education's history classes.

Why do students traditionally have to memorize long lists of dates and names without knowing reasons? Why did I repeatedly get taught that inane story about Arch-Duke Ferdinand and his wife instead of learning about why the assassins were angry at him?

I have only theories, but they seem solid to me. Mind, I'm paranoid...

There's people in this world who want us to be ignorant of the past. They don't want us to think about history, to understand the other side - or even our own side! They want us to believe that we always made the right choices because we were right, whoever we were. The remaining groups of people argue so much over what to teach that it's simpler to stick to solid facts like dates than meatier questions of reasons and ethics and choices. And, as a plus, it makes the subject of history so boring that students are unlikely to learn more on their own. Despite claims to the contrary, a lot of good business is made by people being ignorant. That's how people get elected, sell their products, and generally get rich - they trust that the population won't know enough to see they're being fooled.

More than that, people who think of history as boring, and don't think of reasons in history may (completely unverified opinion!) be more likely to think of current events as boring - and not learn about them, enforcing their own ignorance.

It's a conspiracy, I tell you, a bona fide (that's fee-day!) conspiracy.

*nods*

Well. Maybe not. But I like to think that sometimes. It's better than the alternative, which is that our school systems suck because they do.

Comments

[atalantapendrag.livejournal.com]

I think it's a little of both.

[conuly]

Stop destroying the shreds of my faith in humanity! Wait. Nah, they've been gone a while. Destroy away.

[atalantapendrag.livejournal.com]

Faith in humanity? What are you, new?

[lakidaa.livejournal.com]

The Question would approve of this theory.

But I'm thinking it's one of those 'school systems suck because they do' things, unfortunately.

[conuly]

Yes, earthl... I mean, no, no, no! What gave it... what gave you that idea?

[sporks5000.livejournal.com]

I'm definitely showing this theory to all of my paranoid friends!

[marveen.livejournal.com]

I think you're right.

I learned a lot about history...after I left school.

[missizzy]

I read about schools being unable to really go into depth about material because they have to cover everything on the standardized test, I heard my own teachers lamenting over Virginia's SOLs, I heard my Chemistry teacher, who gave us all sorts of useful advice on life, declare he was going to give up and just teach to the SOLs, and I seriously wonder if they just don't want us learning anything. It seems the only explanation sometimes.

[conuly]

The standardized tests are surely a nefarious plot.

[adiva_calandia]

I think it has to do with what high schools (high schools especially, but school in general) used to be. As it was explained to me, high school was once primarily of educating new American citizens -- immigrants, immigrants' children. "Here's what you need to be a good citizen. Good citizen! You get a better job than that schmuck who didn't go to high school."

So high school's not about teaching us how to think. It's teaching us what to think. Like the Alliance. [/geek]

In other words, I think you've hit the nail on the head. There are certain advantages to keeping the malleable minds of the future masses ignorant of the past.

[raleighj.livejournal.com]

Woot! History major, here...and I want to teach it someday. Mostly because of the one incredible history teacher I had in high school, and the numerous awesome ones that I'm studying under right now up here.

-- Brute facts are far less controversial than trying to figure out the significance of those facts.

-- You don't have to have an organized, conscious conspiracy...you just have to have well-intentioned, ignorant people who honestly DO think that they are right, and that anyone who ever thought differently was wrong and/or evil. How you snap people out of it, I don't know. Reading original sources was part of what did it for me, I think.

-- There aren't enough original-source focused history classes. Or teachers who try to make you see history through the eyes of the people who lived it. Combined with textbooks that overgeneralize so freaking badly, it's no wonder we've got problems.

-- What grades are you talking about, here? The ability to think in more abstract terms doesn't kick in for several years.

-- History is DAMN hard to navigate and study -- you can't just start picking up books, or you'll lose yourself in a mess of brute facts and innumerable theories and who knows what else. More so than any other subject, I've found I need mentor-like, face-to-face instruction. And plenty of long conversations and discussions. Are there enough teachers well-read and versed enough to teach like this (instead of falling back on some textbook?) I really don't think so.

[conuly]

Those are good points, and I trust you to know what you're talking about here :)

I'll point out, before we go further, that when I say "conspiracy", I really don't mean it in the active sense - when I do, I don't use the word.

So ignoring that point, because it might be based on a misunderstanding, I'll try to reply.

1. Yeah, I know. I just... *shrugs* I think an education is wasted without a bit of controversy in it. Children and adults don't learn on a diet of gerber rice cereal.

2. N/A

3. Hell, yeah. The first time I ever *saw* an Original Source, it was like my world had opened up for me - and I was already in college!

4. Mmm? You *are* replying to me, right? (Even if you're not, I wanna reply to this, so I'll keep this comment up regardless)

5. I would consider that a failing of teacher training and history education in the US - more classes in general should be run in smaller groups, and discussions. At the very least, textbooks need to be better....

[raleighj.livejournal.com]

On the conspiracy deal...I probably did misinterpret stuff like "There's people in this world who want us to be ignorant of the past" as being a bit more active than you intended. But over all, it seemed you were attributing to people a lot more conscious evil choice in the matter than I've found people tend to have.

When you say "conspiracy," are you meaning something like, "A subconscious and self-rationalized conspiracy?" (Which I'd me more inclined to label as "perennial problems of human nature," or something along that line).

1. Hmm...maybe more to point would have been to say, "It's a lot easier, and safer, and more likely to let you keep your job, if you don't stir up too many hornets nests."

4. Definitely could have phrased this better, too. It was in response to complaints about having to memorize names and dates (instead of looking at broad scope and sweep of history, and cause-effect sequences, and ethical questions, and the like). For older kids -- hell yeah! You DEFINITELY need to be looking at those broader, more difficult, more controversial sorts of things. But for the youngest grades of kids, more concrete things are better and more productive. (Then again -- I'm not an education major, here. This is mostly going off of having attended a classical school that used the Trivium model. Plus five younger siblings :-)).

5. I really don't know how you'd go about making a better textbook.
A) They are damnedly uninteresting. Original sources are what knocked my socks off, and make me love studying history. Quick summaries of things (or even slightly detailed ones) don't do all that much.
B) I haven't yet run into one of them that manages to communicate the same humility about its conclusions that my history teachers here convey about theirs. Maybe the books can't afford to -- things have to at least have the appearance of getting wrapped up, neat and tidy?
C) It might just be that after trying to pull the "real story" out of Abeka books for most of high school, I'm always suspicious that textbook authors are trying to pull one over on me.

[conuly]

4. Oh, god. They don't even seem to teach *any* history in the lower grades, not even memorization. Or, rather, they teach the same history over and over again for eight years.

5. Well, at least it wouldn't have facts blatantly wrong, like I've seen. And the predigestion wouldn't be as... predigested.

1. True, very true, and it's a sad, sad state of affairs.

Conspiracy... hm. I don't know. I'll have to think on that, and if you saw my most recent post... yeah. I'm getting tiredtired already, and am really about to turn off the computer and go to sleeeeeeeep.

[atalantapendrag.livejournal.com]

I think it's a little of both.

[conuly]

Stop destroying the shreds of my faith in humanity! Wait. Nah, they've been gone a while. Destroy away.

[atalantapendrag.livejournal.com]

Faith in humanity? What are you, new?

[lakidaa.livejournal.com]

The Question would approve of this theory.

But I'm thinking it's one of those 'school systems suck because they do' things, unfortunately.

[conuly]

Yes, earthl... I mean, no, no, no! What gave it... what gave you that idea?

[sporks5000.livejournal.com]

I'm definitely showing this theory to all of my paranoid friends!

[marveen.livejournal.com]

I think you're right.

I learned a lot about history...after I left school.

[missizzy]

I read about schools being unable to really go into depth about material because they have to cover everything on the standardized test, I heard my own teachers lamenting over Virginia's SOLs, I heard my Chemistry teacher, who gave us all sorts of useful advice on life, declare he was going to give up and just teach to the SOLs, and I seriously wonder if they just don't want us learning anything. It seems the only explanation sometimes.

[conuly]

The standardized tests are surely a nefarious plot.

[adiva_calandia]

I think it has to do with what high schools (high schools especially, but school in general) used to be. As it was explained to me, high school was once primarily of educating new American citizens -- immigrants, immigrants' children. "Here's what you need to be a good citizen. Good citizen! You get a better job than that schmuck who didn't go to high school."

So high school's not about teaching us how to think. It's teaching us what to think. Like the Alliance. [/geek]

In other words, I think you've hit the nail on the head. There are certain advantages to keeping the malleable minds of the future masses ignorant of the past.

[raleighj.livejournal.com]

Woot! History major, here...and I want to teach it someday. Mostly because of the one incredible history teacher I had in high school, and the numerous awesome ones that I'm studying under right now up here.

-- Brute facts are far less controversial than trying to figure out the significance of those facts.

-- You don't have to have an organized, conscious conspiracy...you just have to have well-intentioned, ignorant people who honestly DO think that they are right, and that anyone who ever thought differently was wrong and/or evil. How you snap people out of it, I don't know. Reading original sources was part of what did it for me, I think.

-- There aren't enough original-source focused history classes. Or teachers who try to make you see history through the eyes of the people who lived it. Combined with textbooks that overgeneralize so freaking badly, it's no wonder we've got problems.

-- What grades are you talking about, here? The ability to think in more abstract terms doesn't kick in for several years.

-- History is DAMN hard to navigate and study -- you can't just start picking up books, or you'll lose yourself in a mess of brute facts and innumerable theories and who knows what else. More so than any other subject, I've found I need mentor-like, face-to-face instruction. And plenty of long conversations and discussions. Are there enough teachers well-read and versed enough to teach like this (instead of falling back on some textbook?) I really don't think so.

[conuly]

Those are good points, and I trust you to know what you're talking about here :)

I'll point out, before we go further, that when I say "conspiracy", I really don't mean it in the active sense - when I do, I don't use the word.

So ignoring that point, because it might be based on a misunderstanding, I'll try to reply.

1. Yeah, I know. I just... *shrugs* I think an education is wasted without a bit of controversy in it. Children and adults don't learn on a diet of gerber rice cereal.

2. N/A

3. Hell, yeah. The first time I ever *saw* an Original Source, it was like my world had opened up for me - and I was already in college!

4. Mmm? You *are* replying to me, right? (Even if you're not, I wanna reply to this, so I'll keep this comment up regardless)

5. I would consider that a failing of teacher training and history education in the US - more classes in general should be run in smaller groups, and discussions. At the very least, textbooks need to be better....

[raleighj.livejournal.com]

On the conspiracy deal...I probably did misinterpret stuff like "There's people in this world who want us to be ignorant of the past" as being a bit more active than you intended. But over all, it seemed you were attributing to people a lot more conscious evil choice in the matter than I've found people tend to have.

When you say "conspiracy," are you meaning something like, "A subconscious and self-rationalized conspiracy?" (Which I'd me more inclined to label as "perennial problems of human nature," or something along that line).

1. Hmm...maybe more to point would have been to say, "It's a lot easier, and safer, and more likely to let you keep your job, if you don't stir up too many hornets nests."

4. Definitely could have phrased this better, too. It was in response to complaints about having to memorize names and dates (instead of looking at broad scope and sweep of history, and cause-effect sequences, and ethical questions, and the like). For older kids -- hell yeah! You DEFINITELY need to be looking at those broader, more difficult, more controversial sorts of things. But for the youngest grades of kids, more concrete things are better and more productive. (Then again -- I'm not an education major, here. This is mostly going off of having attended a classical school that used the Trivium model. Plus five younger siblings :-)).

5. I really don't know how you'd go about making a better textbook.
A) They are damnedly uninteresting. Original sources are what knocked my socks off, and make me love studying history. Quick summaries of things (or even slightly detailed ones) don't do all that much.
B) I haven't yet run into one of them that manages to communicate the same humility about its conclusions that my history teachers here convey about theirs. Maybe the books can't afford to -- things have to at least have the appearance of getting wrapped up, neat and tidy?
C) It might just be that after trying to pull the "real story" out of Abeka books for most of high school, I'm always suspicious that textbook authors are trying to pull one over on me.

[conuly]

4. Oh, god. They don't even seem to teach *any* history in the lower grades, not even memorization. Or, rather, they teach the same history over and over again for eight years.

5. Well, at least it wouldn't have facts blatantly wrong, like I've seen. And the predigestion wouldn't be as... predigested.

1. True, very true, and it's a sad, sad state of affairs.

Conspiracy... hm. I don't know. I'll have to think on that, and if you saw my most recent post... yeah. I'm getting tiredtired already, and am really about to turn off the computer and go to sleeeeeeeep.