I hate my American history class and want to drop it.

Gah. “never reached” should read something like “were never destined for”. The book cites something like 500K slaves going to the USA/colonies and something like 4 million going to Brazil (other countries got their “fair share” as well).

I guess the bottom line is that yes, those thing perpetrated by Evil White Men happened, but they weren’t the only things that happened. Mind, Evil White Men were pretty damn, well, evil.

How many weeks are left in the class? “Four weeks” is no where near an entire term. Perhaps it will get more balanced as it goes on. Did the prof ask the class what they had already learned? Maybe he’s assuming that the DoI, etc. was already covered by your previous instructors.

That is interesting, iampunha, I didn’t know that.

Wow.

Gee. And it’s only mid-September…

Lissa,

I tend to agree with you. Often times instructors will overcompensate in presenting material in the hopes of getting students to actually think about things.

Note: Does anyone remember the old Doonesbury strip with the professor spouting nonsense while the students dutifully scribbling away?

Muad’Dib,

Maybe your history teacher really is a tool - but consider this. Why do you (and others) think that history (or any humanities class) requires some sort of balance? Why do you think it’s necessary to cover both the good and the bad? I don’t want you to get the impression that I think balance is necessarily a bad thing; but maybe the point is to get you thinking about the subject. After all, you are in college - a place where one should (in principle at least) be exposed to ideas that are contrary to one’s own.

And now that I think of it - if that was his goal (to get you thinking about the subject), then he’s succeeded in some way (or else you won’t be complaining about it!).

Here’s a thought - if you get a chance, why don’t you get to know the instructor by asking him questions about the course? Why don’t you point out some of the problems with the course (such as your belief that the course overemphasizes the negative aspects of American History). There are ways of getting your message across without sounding like your complaining. If you can provide a rationale to your arguments (especially if you can bring some aspect of history into the discussion), then there’s a good chance that you might find that the instructor will agree with you on some points. It might not help earn you brownie points, but at least you’ll be making the attempt to learn why the course is being taught the way it is.

On the other hand, if you try to discuss some of your concerns to the instructor in a reasonable manner and he dismisses your attemtps, then your probably justified in thinking he’s a tool. At least you made an effort to learn something about the class - that’s more than most students do.

Yeah, i must say that the whining over the content of the course is a little unbecoming. Does it shock you out of your complacency to have to face a few unpleasant historical stories? Well, if it does, then the class has probably at least served a purpose.

Just out of interest, how many times do the textbook and the professor actually use the word “evil”? Or are you just projecting? If you get so defensive when you hear a few stories of white imperfection that you have to resort to such hyperbole, maybe this course will actually do you some good.

I must say i find it pretty hard to believe that you actually spent three separate classes discussing the issue of whether Jefferson knocked up Sally Hemmings. In my experience, professors have enough trouble getting through all the material in a survey course without dawdling for days on one small issue.

Also, i really don’t see the problem with having to write a paper on the Pueblo Revolt. Unfortunately, too many people forget that the beginning of the history of European North America is not simply Jamestown or Plymouth Rock or Massachusetts Bay. The Spanish were also here, and i see nothing wrong with including the story of their settlements and their confrontations with the local native tribes. If the professor has enough time, it would also be good to deal with the Jesuit presence in what is now Canada, because the struggles between the French and the British and the Indian tribes of the Great Lakes area had many implications for the War of Independence and for subsequent US history.

I know that some people find it much easier to think of American history as little more than a series of great documents and great men (with a few outstanding minorities and women thrown in for good measure), but this approach not only tends to elide many of the important stories of the nation’s history, but it also often means that many of the most interesting stories–from a purely narrative point of view–get neglected.

Personally, i find Thomas Jefferson to be a fascinating and brilliant character, and i think the Declaration of Independence is a truly great document and an amazing example of Enlightenment thinking. But, important as this man and this document were and are, there is much more to the history of the United States than that.

As Lissa suggested, schoolkids in America tend to get pounded almost to death by heroic presidents and their noble deeds; conservatives like Lynn Cheney do their best to ensure that this situation doesn’t change. What’s wrong with expanding the story a bit, even if it sometimes comes at the expense of stories that many people concede are still important?

The problem is that knowing the entire history of the United States is impossible–there’s just too much of it. Any course has to be selective, and just about any selection is bound to cause someone or other to wish that things were different.

There’s one inconsistency in the OP that i’m having trouble with. First we are told that “this stupid class [is] a requirement,” and then we learn that the OP thinks “i should drop the class and see if I can find a better one next semester.” Well, is the class compulsory or not? Because if you can substitute another class for it, that suggests that this particular class is not “a requirement.”

I think what the OP means is that the US History class is compulsory. Sooner or later, he’s going to have to take it, and wants to know if he can get the same class elsewhere with a different instructor - one who may not have the same emphasis on EWM.

My history class sucks too.

So far all we have learned is that we are “citizens of the world,” 3rd world countries are impoverished and it’s all America’s fault, the rest of the world hates America, and Islam is good. You will read the Koran. You will study it. Islam is peaceful. At the count of three when Professor G snaps his fingers …

Etc., etc., etc.

Sorry, mhendo. I don’t know where that ‘r’ came from.

wonder what the reaction would be if the OP were complaining about a European history class in which all problems were blamed on people rebelling against the Divine authority of the Roman Catholic Church or a US history class in which the professor attributed all the problems of the 20th century to Edward Mandell House & friends.

Hmmmm, actually those are pretty good ideas (starts scribbling out syllabi!)

G

Sounds like your professor has been reading too much Howard Zinn.

For a long time, American history was taught as a series of presidents, wars, and documents. In reaction, some scholars have gone way too far in the other direction. You know what? It’s all important. Thomas Jefferson’s relationship with Sally Hemings is important, but so is the Second Continental Congress.

One of the cool things about college is that students can finally look at our history without the inoffensiveness required of the high school curriculum. It certainly puts a whole different spin on things when you learn that Thomas Jefferson was fucking his slave, but to spend 3 days on it in a freshman survey class? Absurd.

Personally, I think virtually everything in American history and culture is reflected in the tension between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. I was a 20th century social/cultural historian, completely uninterested in wars and presidents and stuff like that, but even someone like me knew that the Founding Fathers and the products of their brilliance are what made this country great.

p.s. Noble Indians? Ha! Indians could be real shitheads, too.

Assuming it was actually him and not his brother or father. They jever did really answer that question.

Sounds like a graduate level communications/anthropology class I had once. It was, ostensibly, about intercultural communications. I was the only white male there. Discussions were…aggravating. The professor had a habit of leading discussion by asking a barrage of questions…all leading up to “proving” a point he had in mind from the very beginning, usually a paraphrase of something to the effect that people like me are insensitive clods and our culture is destroying the world.

I’d usually tell him the point he was leading up to as the answer to his first question. He’d shake his head, tell me that’s not what he was looking for, and…5 minutes later, parrot back what I told him in the first place, word for freaking word. You see, I didn’t have enough cultural authenticity to divine his intent. Aaaarrggghhh.

On the other hand, I actually got to be “The Man” for once, which was kinda nice. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to do much oppressing. Did get an A, though. :rolleyes:

I think the problem with a history class is that there is so much leeway as far as what exactly the professor decides to cover. So if the professor has an agenda, they can base their class off their beliefs.

I really hate it when professors push their agendas onto students. It really isn’t fair in that kind of environment, where having different beliefs can jeopardize your grade.

After enough of this sort of history, you sort of become desensitized for the whole thing. Didn’t bug me in the least, for instance, when they told me that my evil white overlords were responsible for 9/11 because they were foisting the evil American way off on those poor middle eastern people; after all, I had already killed all those African-Americans and Jews back in what I obviously think of as the “good old days” :rolleyes:

I think the issue here isn’t that the class focuses on the negative aspects of history, but rather that it (appears to from what is being said) specifically demonizes the “evil white man” throughout history. It’s politically correct to do that, historically, though you naturally have to step softly around any and all “minorities”. It would be too much to explore the motivations for an expansionist culture as it (often brutally, often not so) colonized the New World… but that would take time away from talking about good old TJ and his slave getting it on, so we chalk another one up to the evil white man.

For the record, I will also state that the possibility of a Jefferson-Hemmings episode, while worthy of note, should receive no more than a passing mention in a class likely already strapped for time as it endeavors to cover the breadth of American history.

Question for the OP: Is the class title “American History” or “United States History”? It might seem a subtle difference, but I would argue that the Pueblo incident might be germane enough to the former to warrant a paper, but not to the latter.

-K.

Along the lines of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, I would expect to see it in classes covering one of these topics:

History of New Mexico
History of Spanish Colonization of the New World
History of the Various Native American Peoples
Maybe US History, but I’m with Kiros on the distinction.

Similarly, while I might expect it to be covered at UNM, I would not expect it where I actually do go to school (not that I’ve taken the US History class here to find out.)

And yes, I did have to learn about the Pueblo Revolt in 7th grade. I was bored out of mind with that entire “History of New Mexico” class.

I once had a writing class that wasn’t. The “professor” would hand out leftist propoganda everyday and we would “discuss” it. I finally gave up and just started writing papers about how my male friends made me a pig and gave me a degrading attitude toward women. I started getting As. :smiley:

I believe it is misguided and wrong for a professor to purposely provide a skewed view in order to ‘make the students think’. We don’t know from the OP whether the prof in question is doing this, but if he/she is then I disagree strongly with his/her methodology.

Why should a professor necessarily assume that High School students received the Disney version of American history? Does a professor only make a person think by exposing them to a biased presentation? Why would a less biased class exhibit less critical thinking? IMO there is no real evidence available to the prof that he/she can use as a basis for making conclusions regarding his/her students prior exposure to history. At the same time the prof can not make assumptions about what history students will be exposed to in the future (especially with freshmen taking a required course and who may never take another history course). Since it is by no means assured what the students historical teaching consisted of and there is no way to know what level of further historical study the student will pursue it is misguided and sloppy to provide such an unbalanced overview of American history. Make the students think, yes, but do it in a way that doesn’t sacrifice intellectual honesty. The willingness of some professors to use their position of authority to provide a distorted worldview is disheartening.

Newbie college literature instructor here, and in some ways I’ve got similar concerns from the opposite side of the desk – does the class discussion revolve too much around my interests? Are the students who don’t talk sitting in silent resentment, or are they just sleepy? Believe me, I’d love to hear from them before the course evaluations come out, so I’d strongly recommend that you listen to what eponymous said. Please bring some of your concerns up in class discussion, or, if you’re not comfortable doing that, go and talk to the professor during his or her office hours. It’s possible that the prof will be offended or dismissive, of course, but you don’t have that much to lose – at worst, you’ll know for sure that dropping the class is the right choice. But more likely than not, you’ll get a fair hearing and an explanation of the reasoning behind the way the course is set up, and you may even persuade the instructor to change his or her emphasis.

Now this thread is getting interesting!

I even had a had a junior year math class where my professor was still in his 60’s garb (in 1987) and still spouting off his liberal views and had his propaganda posted outside his office door for reading while waiting for my turn to talk to him…

On the other hand, I had a history professor who was well balanced in curriculum for the History of the United States and he was African American…

I guess my math teacher was one of those EWM…:rolleyes: