The history wars, they are a comin'. Actually, they're here, as red states across the nation take a stand against teaching our kids about Critical Race Theory. Never mind that most of what they object to has nothing to do with CRT, which is just a handy label for scaring the rubes. The important point is that there really are things they object to and they're mad as hell about it.
It's worth noting that (a) this is nothing new, and (b) both sides take it seriously because they know that what we teach our kids will eventually become what they believe as adults. It's well to remember that 2,500 years ago Socrates was executed less for his heterodox beliefs than for the fact that he insisted on teaching them to the impressionable youth of Athens. More recently, these kinds of fights have been common in the postwar era, centering on evolution, reading, math, history, civics, and just about every other subject imaginable.
But I have a . . . test? Yes, a test for you. It's easy to vaguely take one side or another in the latest history war, which primarily relates to how much American children should be taught about slavery and racism in both the past and the present. So let's quantify this with a scale from 0 to 10. The extreme ends look something like this:
I imagine that few of you are on either of these extremes. But where are you? Let's expand our scale a bit:
A numerical score may seem almost pedantic at first, but it forces you to take a real stand. Just how much should our ugly past dominate the teaching of history? And how does this change at different grade levels? No one thinks we should teach third graders the full, gruesome facts about slavery and native genocide. At the same time, nobody (I hope) thinks we should withhold this kind of thing at the university level.
So go ahead. Pick a score for elementary school, high school, and college. Just how much should our history curriculum emphasize slavery in the past and systemic racism in the present?
Elementary school: 8
High school: 9
College: 10
Then in post college life, 7 or 8
Then after a few more years go by, and you add in some international travel; spend quite a bit more time reading from a wide variety of texts; and potentially develop a broader historical, cultural, economic, and political perspective: I'm betting that a 4-6 gets a lot more common.
Depends on the international travel. Travel to Europe has had no real impact on my views. Travel to SE asia and latin america has shifted me the way you say. My most recent trip was to Japan, and I came away from that ashamed of our culture.
Nothing like seeing a person park a bike on the border of a park in the middle of a city that causes Manhattan to look provincial, take their backpack off, slip their laptop into it, hang it on the bike and walk into the park without locking anything to give one some perspective on how shitty we are to each other here.
That’s a perfectly valid observation regarding your experience in Japan; nevertheless, I’m not convinced that it chimes with a broader picture. There are billions of people around the world living in outright autocracies and/or in brutally corrupt or crime filled societies that we would barely be able to wrap our heads around. Take a look at the writings of Rohinton Mistry on India, or of Teju Cole on Africa. Or, better, extensively visit those places:
I personally feel that it’s hard to come away from those literary or geographical experiences without a pretty clear sense that we are indeed astonishingly fortunate to live in one of the most relatively peaceful and crime free societies in the history of the human race.
The irony is that such a view should honestly, in my opinion, be obvious: this isn’t Ancient Rome, after all, where almost unimaginable levels of brutality, rape, and Slavery were largely taken for granted (for most social classes).
But: we get so worked up about the problems we still face that we lose track of how far we’ve come. And dealing with our problems is a good thing of course; but can’t we do it without losing seemingly all perspective ?
Somewhere around 7 for middle school, 8 for HS, 9 undergrad.
By the time they're in 11th grade every kid should have spent significant time, including original source documents and first-hand accounts, studying (1) native genocide; (2) antebellum slavery; (3) Jim Crow; (4) the scapegoating, exclusion, and exploitation of immigrant workers; (5) the systematic exclusion of women from political participation, economic opportunity, and bodily autonomy; (6) redlining, white flight, and the theft of generational black wealth; and (7) the pro-right-wing-dictator foreign policy of the Cold War era.
elementary school = 3
high school = 6
college = 8+
I would like to know German schools teach WW II?
This country is on the verge of collapse... or maybe just painfully slow decline into chaos driven by inner city gun violence in the short term and climate change over the long term. It is pointless to teach any of those versions of history now. It is an attempt to bind together a nation over some shared sense of community or nationalism and it is doomed to failure. America doesn't need a shared view of its past, it needs a divorce... several really. We are stuck in a group home with a substantial majority of lunatics and we need to move out.
https://theweek.com/politics/1001119/the-great-american-divorce
America can't walk and chew gum at the same time.
I'd start somewhere around 2 for elementary school, go to 4 for high school, and would prefer that college courses center around 6, with a wide range of views expected.
Elementary School: 5
High School: 6
College: 7
3rd graders: 5
High schoolers: 6
College: 7
Elementary school: 5. Under no circumstances should we go past "great country" to "greatest country ever."
High School: 7 at least, and 8 for mature students.
College: 8.
8's the truth. Give that to college students, and high schoolers who are ready for it.
I say 8 is the truth, rather than 10, because the descriptions of 8 and 10 are both entirely true, but the text of 8 contains the important elements of 10, while the text of 10 omits an important element of 8.
America WAS born in sin, built on slavery, and is still racist to the core. That's all true.
But America has sometimes been a force for good in the world. That's less true lately, and the recent trends aren't favorable, but America really did play an essential role in saving the world from fascism in the middle 20th, and that's an achievement that remains on the books.
I would have trouble answering this question, because history is a selective (and frequently a fictional) interpretation of the past. At some point in their junior or senior year of high school, I'd add a month-long module on the history of History in the US — i.e. how our historical perspectives have changed, and how political movements use and abuse history to propaganda tool, with examples of how both progressive and conservative movements have created their own historical narratives to justify their goals.
I'd go 8 all the way, but I think it is fair to point out that many countries have been 10s for much of their existence. Why sugar coat it? the USA has been expansionist at the expense of others since day 1, and when we couldn't expand any more, we have spent trillions and killed millions to keep poor people poor all over the world because it scared rich Americans.
Elementary - 5, Middle - 6, High 7, College 10
Elementary School: 5
High School: 5
College: 5
Beyond 5, meaning "deeply flawed" and "racist to the core", are political judgments coming from the left. Teachers can teach students to "face the past squarely" without delcaring the country today is a crappy place.
Pretty disturbing to me to see that many poeple here pick "10" for what should be taught in college. A "racist to the core" society was the old south in 1860 or Hitler's Germany. US laws today don't allow discrimintion based on race. Now that will not stop all discrimintion against blacks, but it should at least mean teachers don't tell students that the US is "racist to the core".
And US society was not "built on slavery". I grew up in the north, and none of my anscestors owned slaves. Slavery held the south back - it did not help them to prosper. The south was stuck relying on an agrarian economy while the north industrialized. For teachers to teach that the US is "built on slavery" would be to teach a fuzzy political narrative embraced by the left.
'Beyond 5, meaning "deeply flawed" and "racist to the core", are political judgments coming from the left.'
Demonstrably untrue, as opposed to levels 1-4, which are nothing but right-wing ignorant propaganda designed to get rubes to vote against their own interests. MAGA!
I guess that actual History really doesn't interest you very much, does it?
teach the history, teach it honestly and let students come to their own conclusions. the purpose of education is to teach kids how to think, not what to think.
"Never mind that most of what they object to has nothing to do with CRT"
Nonsense. CRT makes a break with the civils rights thinking of the 1960s. CRT is deeply destructive. It should be rejected by the responsible people on the left rather than dismissed like KD is doing.
CRT crosses a new threshold in the culture wars - that is what is causing reactions from conservatives. The people picking "10" on KD's scoring system will love it. The US sucks and it laws and institutions are all racist to the core (even if the laws are all written to not allow discrimination, and the leaders and managers of major institutions all say they strive to not discriminate on race).
KD should be telling us the flaws with CRT rather than dismissing the whole subject.
CRT is Trumpism for the left. You must agree, you must go along, and don't ask questions.
'Critical race theory (CRT), intellectual movement and loosely organized framework of legal analysis based on the premise that race is not a natural, biologically grounded feature of physically distinct subgroups of human beings but a socially constructed (culturally invented) category that is used to oppress and exploit people of colour. Critical race theorists hold that the law and legal institutions in the United States are inherently racist insofar as they function to create and maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and nonwhites, especially African Americans.'
The first point is a genetic, scientific fact; and the second point is a social, historical fact. Both proven by scientific and statistical analysis. Which FACT upsets you and the GOP so much?
That quote isn’t very convincing without knowing where it’s coming from, and your response is either intentionally or unintentionally off-point. The post you are responding to is complaining about the extremes to which Leftist views are carried. The views themselves could easily lead one to arrive at a 5-6 on Kevin’s scale. But when those Leftists views insist not just on pointing out flaws, but also on refusing to acknowledge anything good: that’s when they veer into extremism. Also, the post you respond to is basically correct to point out that there is a tendency among those who hold these extremist views to enforce them with bullying, misleading, or otherwise dishonest tactics. And that may be something for you to consider about your own statements.
'At the same time, nobody (I hope) thinks we should withhold this kind of thing at the university level.'
The same people that claim that libruls want to send EVERYONE to college and that just ain't right, are the ones that will be overjoyed to hear that the genocide, slavery, and racism inherent to our past will not be taught on the High school level. Namely, the GOP.
Let's face it: white privilege is like all privilege- it despises being told that its privileged, that it didn't achieve its social/political/financial blessing through sheer talent and hard work, no matter how much of a comical delusion that is...
I'd say 5 for all grades. The score represents what I think of the country, but no matter what, you have to teach history at an age appropriate level, which by the time you're in high school, should be pretty inclusive of all the events we're talking about.
I think you go for 0 in elementary school. George Washington never told a lie. America is the great metlting pot behind the statue of liberty welcoming diversity and providing opportunity. All people are created Equal; all have a voice and all are listened to.
Then in High School things drift toward a 5. We have all these great ideals, but damn, we haven't always been able to live up to them, and we need to stay on our toes to stay the course.
And then in College, you realize it's a 9. Trump told a lie everytime he opened his mouth. Americans regularly engage in torture instead of holding themselves up as better people. America incarcerates more people per capita than any other country. America regularly destabilizes countries. America has the same entrenched elites preserving privilege at the cost of growth that every third world country has. America just some times pretends to be better.
In grade school, you learn that there are ideals you expect everyone to live up to. In college, you realize everyone doesn't live up to those ideals and it's still your job to move the needle.
I think that the premise of the test -- that history should teach to what degree the US is good or bad -- is flawed. History should teach what happened, what caused it to happen, and what people thought was good and bad about it, then and now.
For your survey:
Elementary: 6,
High School: 8,
College: 8