I don’t have one handy. Can we all just pretend that my pet ferret is a small, laughing child?
Ferrets are responsible for most of history, you know. The Hundred Years’ War was ignited because Edward III couldn’t find his damn keys.
We have a very limited amount of time to cover a whole lot of information in our public schools. Even at the college level most students are only going to be taking one or two American history courses and one or two Civilization courses as part of their basic curriculum. You couldn’t even cram all of the history of the United States in two semesters let alone the history of the world. So that means instructors are going to have to pick and choose what they teach.
Before we decide how we’re going to pick and choose what to teach, we have to decide what the purpose of teaching history is. Do we teach history in order to give people an inspiring role model? While I would love it if my children were inspired to be brave and do what’s right by Harriet Tubman I’d be hard pressed to declare inspiration as the primary reason for teaching history. If that were the case, then the Mississippi text book board may have had a case when they tried to ban a history book intended for classrooms on the grounds that it might upset some students.
I’m going to have to go along with Greek historian Polybius. We teach history so people can understand why things are the way they are now, what things were done right in the past, what things were done wrong, and how can we do right in the present and in the future. If positive inspiration is a side effect then that’s just fantastic. It’s not the primary purpose though.
So how do we pick and choose what to report? Because of our limited time we have to stick with the great people, movements, and events that most broadly shaped our history. When discussing civil rights in the United States we come up with names like W.E.B. Dubois, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X, but not many people know who Yick Wo was because we’ve only got so much time to spend. It’s lamentable that we don’t spend time on some of those who did not make such a huge impact in history but I’m at a loss as to where we can find the time to do so.
I understand where you’re coming from fessie. I certainly enjoy learning about the regular people from the past.
Boo fucking hoo. Honey, are you frakkin’ serious? Why not try being well read or informed first before waxing depressive/caustic? Do you think you are being incisive? How old are you?