My american history text bled red white and blue. Unfortunately I don’t recall the title. The course itself, thanks to a truly great teacher, was excellent and reasonably free of bias in either direction. IMHO Half the problem is Texas, the largest and therefore most influential market for school textbooks, and the other half is teachers who, hating the textbooks, overcompensate. I don’t give a shit about the Alamo, the legenda of davy crocket etc.
In NY, american history gets one year of HS and about three previously. The lower level texts are just plain bad, focus too much on the “glory days”, and somehow fail to teach people what century the civil war happened in. No amount of tinkering with the history curiculum will enhance civic involvement, we want people passonate about the present, not the past. NY has a separate course designed to teach about the american government, its functioning, origins etc. At the regular level it is titled Participation in Government. It is in courses like that a difference can be made as it’s main goal is to explain how our system functions and how we, its citiens, can influence it . To the extent that our system is good, this course can highlight it. To the extent that it is not, the course just might be able to get people excited enough to do something about it. Playing politics with history gives you mindless zombies. If you want to teach civics, keep it in poli sci, keep it separate, and keep it honest.
Actually wouldn’t California be the largest market for textbooks? I went to high school in Texas about four or five years ago and I don’t remember the texts books being particurally bad. I took two years of American history (They didn’t add European history until the year I graduated) and one of world. We spent like at least a month talking about Native and their initial encounters with the west. The class’s and the textbook’s sympathy was definatly for the Natives. A month or so was spent on slavery, like its beginings, the legality of it, the daily lives of slaves, abolitionists, and its end. We even had a seperate text book about women in the US, that was also pretty fair and interesting. Although I had a great world history teacher he didn’t have enough time to cover everything that needed to be covered. He complained a lot about they refused to split the class into two years. So consequently we learned nothing about East Asia before the 1880s, nothing about the middle east after the Mohammid and before WWI, and nothing about Sub-Sarahan Africa.
If I were in charge of the schools I’d make everyone take two years of World History lets say the dawn of man to 1700 and then 1700 to today.
Actually, he was never impeached…he resigned after it became apparent that impeachment was inevitable.
I graduated from high school several decades ago and I had really hoped that things had improved since then. Sounds like it hasn’t.
We had American history of some sort presented in grade school and junior high school, followed up by two years of American History I and II in high school. Every darn time, the first part started with Columbus and Queen Isabella and proceeded with the usual suspects up until the American Civil War. Part Two went from the Civil War, a bunch of forgettable Presidents and dates, through the start of the 20th century. We usually had “current events” once a week. Shortly after the outbreak of World War I, which was caused by a freak shooting an archduke, whatever that is, the teacher would realize there was only a couple of weeks until the end of the term, so we basically left it at “good guys beat bad guys – twice.”
It wasn’t until I got into college that I learned anything about the rest of the world or how to do research in original sources, or how to actually analyze the material presented. (I had a couple of exquisitely excellent college history teachers.)
That was just my one little suburban town, of course, and I wouldn’t condemn the entire educational system on that basis.
Another thing to keep in mind is that, as XT said, a good number of high school students couldn’t care less about a great deal that is important. I know some younger folks who are incredibly smart about technical matters and who are abysmally ignorant on most cultural and historical subjects. They have no idea what an “abolitionist” was, or the difference between Winston Churchill and Neville Chamberlain.
A short question from a European point of view:
Reading all these postings I get the idea that all you learn is American history???
I mean, our history lessons started with the beginnings of Man, the stone age, the bronze age, the iron age … Then, we should not forget the great peoples of the Antike. Babylon, then the Greek, the Romans. I mean, European (and therefore, American) history is based on Hellenistic and Roman culture!!!
How about Asian history? The Chinese etc.?
Never heard about that?
No wonder that CNN only shows news from America and the ME.
I can’t speak to any other experiences, but from 7th to 12th grades, I had three years of World History, one year of World geography, and one year, each, of American History and American Government. It is quite variable from state to state, district to district, and decade to decade just what will be presented. Few texts geared toward students between the ages of 12 and 17 are actually worth the trees that were destroyed to print them, however. The quality of one’s historical education is directly proportional to whether one had a teacher who was truly interested in the topic or whether one got an athletic coach who picked up social studies as a minor in college so that he could get a job in a district that could not afford to pay both a coach and a history teacher.*
- (The latter is a horrible stereotype–I actually had an athletic coach/history teacher who was outstanding–but there is a certain bitter truth behind the stereotype in too many instances.)
Well if all you’ve done is read an article about the report, as opposed to the report itself, I don’t know what you’d expect to find. But if you find humor in that, more power to you.
Well that’s fine, as far as opinion goes. Frankly, despite the above, it is not unlikely that they did not isolate for education. It is not uncommon for people who are considered (or who consider themselves) experts in a field to put out reports which rely for key assumptions on their status as experts. So they could have held it to be self-evident that too much negativity causes cynicism, and devoted their study to discovering just how much negativity there is out there. Or something similar. And of course, as you suggest, you are just as entitled to express your own opinion that the primary factor is “continued lies” etc. But you attempted to go past that, by bringing evidence to your position by looking at what you called “Among the most cynical and disaffected group in the country”. I challenged your evidence, and you don’t get off the hook by noting that the other guys didn’t bring any evidence at all.
In sum, if you want to just offer opinions, join the club. But if you want to present your position as being backed by evidence, make it valid evidence.
Isabelle, I agree with you wholeheartedly. The problem, as I see it, lies with finding competent teachers. Many American history teachers don’t have degrees in U.S. history. How can they be expected to adequately teach a subject they don’t possess mastery of? If you had teachers who were passionate about history and who remained engaged with current developments among in the profession, then they might be more willing to challenge the textbooks. Unfortunately, all too many unqualified teachers get shunted into the history/social studies department.
Although I had amazing world and European history teachers, my American history classes were a joke. The instance I remember most is when our teacher told the class (at a predominantly black high school, mind you), “The Ku Klux Klan wasn’t that bad. They maintained community morals by punishing adulterers.”
Actually we talked a whole lot more about classical and pre-classical civilation than anything that happened past WWII. Our world history class probibly spent at least two or three months on it. I remember spending 4 or 5 days on the Assyrians alone. Which is odd concidering there are only around million Assyrians left in the world and yet we spent not a day on china with its 1/5th the world’s population. We also spent at least a month on greek literature in English classes. And Latin was taken about as much as french and german combined. As for the non western world, we learned next to nothing. I take that cack we did go into some detail about Japan, to discover why they attacked us. Thats about it.
Speaking of Japan, I was amazed to discover while I was in Germany that not a single one of the people I was hanging out with knew Japan was in WWII. They had no idea why the US dropped the bomb. Just goes to show the US hasn’t cornered the market on stupid just yet. There seems to be plenty to go around.
Well, if all you’ve done is cherry-picked some quotes about the report from the extreme Right wing Hoover Institute and thrown this IMHO topic into GD without actually reading the report, itself, then you should probably be glad that I resorted to humor instead of the scorn you apparently sought.
Since I have actually read, not only the complete report but the précis from the Albert Shanker Institute (that explicitly does call for a “warts and all” presentation of history and civics in the U.S. and the world), I am already aware that their focus was not on the cynicism of students but on the ignorance on the American public. The notion that American History now focuses on the negative was simply a bit of opinion thrown in by the Hoover people and does not actually appear anywhere in the report.
Since this seems to be merely an IMHO topic in the GD Forum, but one in which only selected views are challenged for substantiation while others are simply accepted because they favor your perspective, I will continue to cherish my good humor. I am touched by your faith that the Hoover people (who are not, actually, experts in the field of education) are at liberty to make key assumptions without providing evidence, (and, indeed, by actually misrepresenting the conclusions of the report on which they are commenting), but since the opinions expressed on one side are unsubstantiated, I feel free to make mine on the other side.
This will vary all over the place, from state to state and from town to town within the state. There is no nationally mandated curriculum in the US. In my state (New Jersey) there is no state mandated curriculum, either. There are guidelines, sometimes, but the local school board is responsible for setting the standards (or designating someone to do so on their behalf). From time to time somebody suggests that it should be otherwise, but it has so far proved impossible to get any kind of consensus across such a diverse population. Locals can get really perturbed at the suggestion that some unknown entity in an ivory tower (or, worse yet, Washington DC) might make such a personal decision for them.
So there are undoubtedly schools in which comprehensive world history classes exist, and there are undoubtedly those whose borders are decidedly more narrow.
I’m sorry, but this is dishonest. The OP quoted an AP article about the report, not a Hoover Institute one. There is nothing in the AP report that suggests anything different than the one Hoover Institute quote that happened to make it’s way into the OP - the very title of the article was “Report says schools are unfair to America”, as noted in the OP, and the opening paragraph (also quoted in the OP) repeats this theme. No reference to the Hoover Institute there. Unless the tomndebb delusion is that the Hoover Institute, part of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, is secretly controlling the AP.
FTR, I was unaware that the Hoover Institute was a right wing institution, let alone an extreme one (I am still highly doubtful of that) but it makes no difference, as above. And immediately following the Hoover Institute quote is one from Sandra Feldman, no right winger, and she says the same thing.
In sum, your charge of “cherry picking” quotes from the HI is a blatant misrepresentation.
This is more dishonesty from you, assuming that you have actually read all the stuff that you claim. From your second link:
I also note that in your earlier post on the subject you made repeated references to the Albert Shanker people as not having supported this point (i.e. too much negativity) - this idea that it was all the evil Hoover Institute people is a new shtick of yours. So I am rather inclined to think that at the time you had not read the study, as I implied, but subsequently skimmed it a bit. And failing to see the negativity issue (which is not the main focus of the report) you came out triumphantly with a new round of baloney. Nice work.
The mods can decide if this is IMHO or GD material. But my practice of challenging statements that I disagree with while accepting those that I agree with is not all that revolutionary - in fact I rather suspect that you do the same, what do you know. Perhaps there are schizophrenic or argumentative posters out there who go about challenging statements that they agree with. But that is not my policy - you got me there.
But again, I said specifically that you can say your opinion like anyone else, despite your credentials being perhaps even less than the Hoover Institution people (horrors!) let alone the Shanker people. It’s only when you start bringing data in support of yourself that I ask you to substantiate and validate your data. It doesn’t seem like too much to ask for. But maybe it is…
Again, I am not specifically relying on the Hoover people - there does not appear to be any divergence between the Hoover people and the report itself, in the view of the AP, and this is supported by the Feldman quote in the article and quote from the “précis” above, despite your attempts to pretend otherwise.
My ex was a victim of the Mississippi public school systems.
She made a comment once about Cuba being so far away, and wondering why anyone in the USA was so concerned about them.
I asked her where she thought Cuba was.
Her answer?
“Isn’t it somewhere near Vietnam?”
-Joe, on a timeline, I suppose they are, kinda
OK. The report that is being currently reviewed is an addendum to the report, Educating Democracy, to which I originally linked. Adobe was giving me touble downloading and I found only the original report, which makes no mention of a negative portrayal in the textbooks. (Feldman’s comment that you quoted mentions outside studies, and she then repeats the need to not hide the faults that we also find in history.)
I have now discovered the current report, the draft of which is located at Education for Democracy and it does make a compelling case that some texts have gone too far in a negative portrayal of U.S. History.
Since the texts that my kids use are not among the texts criticized and given the disparity between the comments from the Hoover spokesperson (and I find it difficult to belive you are unaware of their orientation) and the text that I found, it looked like a clear case of spin. Now it appears more evenhanded.
Once again, we see a European wallowing in their own ignorance about the US, and then running with it.
Yes, our history lessons started with the beginnings of man. They cover Asian history. They cover African history. They cover American (pre-colonial) history. We cover the beginnings of civilization in the Fertile Crescent.
However, this thread is specifically about the way US history is taught. So why would that other stuff be discussed here?
Do yourself a favor and refrain from making assumptions about the US then using your strawmen to further solidify your ignorant conclusions about American culture until you actually find out what’s what. M’kay?
What in the world are you talking about? I quoted your own link, which made specific reference to textbooks in studies the American Textbook Council and Diane Ravitch. How did you miss that?
Also, there is no point in your repeated emphasis on the fact that Feldman said we should not hide the faults. Everyone agrees to this. This does not imply that textbooks are not overly negative.
But what about the AP article? How do you justify claiming that I had cherry picked quotes from the Hoover Institute when the AP said this independently, as quoted in the OP? And why did you initially lay the blame on both the HI and the Shanker people only to turn around and claim that the Hoover people made it up (and that I had “cherry-picked” their quotes)?
(And I’m sorry you don’t believe me about the Hoover Institute. What with one thing and another these days I am not always well informed about the orientation (or even existence) of various “think tanks”. The Hoover Institute sounds vaguely familiar, but that’s about it.)
I went to high school in a rather liberal Midwestern university town, and took AP US History in high school, which was supposed to be more hardcore than the regular history classes. (In grade school, we did at least some U.S. History every year, and I really remember feeling like we were covering the same material over and over again. But we never made it past WWII before the school year ended.)
The grade school material I remember being very traditionally presented, with perhaps a greater emphasis placed on slavery and such than in many schools (my K-5 school was the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Experimental Laboratory School, or King Lab for short). I remember not really understanding why most of the wars were fought, particularly the Spanish-American War (which was quite interesting to learn about form the opposite side, in Spain; then it all made sense. Somehow in the U.S. we never learned anything about the territories changed hands in 1898). In general, various parties’ motivations were barely explored at all.
There was exactly one sentence on Hiroshima in our textbook, which read something like “the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and then the war ended.” (We did read John Hersey’s Hiroshima in high school, and I remember wanting to throw up.)
In high school, we did touch on more controversial issues; I remember learning about the internment of Japanese-Americans in WWII for the first time, although the Eastern Front in WWI and WWII was completely ignored. Basically, the Holocaust was presented as nearly the sole angle of WWII, and anything east of Germany might as well not have existed. I honestly had no idea that the USSR had fought in WWII, let alone been a U.S. ally. (That was another bit of history that was pretty mind-blowing to learn about from the other side, later on.) The Korean War and Vietnam were also completely ignored, and most of my initial information about Vietnam came from Doonesbury strips.
So unless quite a lot has changed since 1986, when I graduated high school, I really think we could have had a much more thorough grounding in many things. I don’t think we were taught anything grossly inaccurate, but really I felt like information was spoon-fed to us, and history could have been presented in a much more complete and complex manner and still have been age-appropriate.
I went to school in a rather middle ground Orange County, CA town and I took AP US History as well. I remember in grade school we made it up to Vietnam in 5th grade (I don’t remember much earlier). That wasn’t bad for 1990-1991. In high school we made it much further - up through the end of the Cold War.
In grade school, I agree. We didn’t go into motivations very much. But my high school and junior high were all about motivations. And we most certainly learned about the territory cessations from both the Mexican and the Spanish wars. We even went into the Philippines revolt (in high school, anyway).
We read Hiroshima in 7th grade. In grade school we dedicated quite a bit of space to the atomic bombs. High school was much more.
I think that the internment was first broached in high school, as well. We had to read Farewell to Manzanar in 9th grade.
The Eastern Front was very much discussed in high school. WWII was divided into the Pacific theater and the European theater, with both given pretty much equal time. The European theater was further divided into the Eastern and Western fronts and while the Western front was given a bit more focus, the Eastern didn’t receive short shrift. We were taught about Stalingrad as the turning point in the European theater and of the enormous Russian losses.
The Korean War and Vietnam were both covered, as well. Including sections on the domino theory and containment policy. The Gulf of Tonkin resolution was talked about and we learned how it was probably made up.
Well, either things have changed a lot or you got a piss-poor education.