I think ALL of it is important because it gives students a proper perspective. If all we do is harp on the bad, we ignore the many good things that have happened in our nation and the good things our nation has done abroad. Conversely, the opposite is true if we spend all our time flag waving with no honest introspection.
Random thoughts -
One problem with teaching history is that they keep making more of it!
This discussion is all over the map. I think part of that is because we all intuitively recognize that “history”, and anything for that matter, get taught differently to kids of different ages. Like learning music - one starts with the scales and practices those, then moves on to more complexity. The same with history: for little kids it’s useful to give the overall arc, major items, how we fit in, “great men”, etc. Later on, dig deeper into topics, society, motivations. And as kids are more mature bring it home with the echos and influences from the past that are relevant today. e.g. Puritans were very religious and rejected the society around them - what does that look like today? Discuss. e.g. Our founding fathers argued at length about the relationship of states to the federal government - how is that being argued today? Discuss.
But, again, a big issue is the sheer volume of material that can be covered.
I thought it was about States Rights!
Yes, the limited amount of time teachers have to impart history to their students is a huge stumbling block, one that I’m not sure how to overcome. Something needs to be sacrificed.
No, we should do away with the Great Man version of history especially when kids are little. If you don’t do it then, the rot will have set in and they’ll be looking for the Great Man in everything you teach them after.
I think the issue is whether you want to teach kids a list of things that happened or teach them the knock-on effects of those things.
At a very young age I’d say just teach them that certain events happened. Then in Junior high and high school you can delve into the deeper issues of how those events affected US history and the world.
When I talk about history with my kids, I “teach it backwards.” Here is a situation, here’s what happened right before that to bring it about, here’s what happened right before that, and so on.
I don’t know if you could design a formal curriculum around that, but it seems to hold their attention.
I do agree, in many cases it can be better to do it in flashback or “machete order”, what caused what, rather than strict chronological.
That can also help another thing that IMO is almost as bad as “great man” history, which is the temptation to try to make it somehow teleological, like, things were supposed all along to happen in this order, it had to happen, it was foreordained, the way it wound up happening is the right way because it’s what led to us here now.
I think the important thing is that kids understand that one thing begets another.
History is more than just some random things that happened. They are intertwined.
It need not even be on a global scale. It is understanding that these things happen in their personal life too. When a kid realizes that a choice today may have repercussions a year or more later they learn an important lesson.
I went to Kent, and few people know about the shootings at Mississippi State.
There could be an explanation……
Jackson State?
I assume the Constitution is most important by far since it is the document under which we live to this day. What then is its most essential principle of the Constitution that kids should learn? I’d say it is that the Constitution is designed to guarantee us freedom and liberty from govt. It does this by strictly limiting the govt to a few enumerated powers. This then sets up our modern politics where you have Republicans, however imperfectly, supporting the basic Constitutional principle and Democrats opposing it in favor of liberal progressive socialist nanny statism. Once kids have this under their belts they are in a position to read today’s news in a meaningful Constitutional context and be intelligent, informed participants in American political life.
Learning fully about the Constitution means that some students will see it as anachronistic and unrepresentative and that the world’s greatest nation should be able to do better.
Great idea! Kids will see right through this attempt to indoctrinate them in the Republican Anti-American movement and never support them. As usual, the Cons will poison the public well they drink from just to get one over on the Libs.
If you disagree with what I said can you give us the specific reason for the disagreement. Thanks
The following has no basis in reality and displays extreme disregard for reality in it’s senseless bias…
Can you give us the reason you think there is a specific disregard for reality. You could tell us exactly where the disregard is for reality and what reality really is.
You say there is bias but you don’t say exactly what the bias is. Can you tell us what specifically is biased.
Modnote: posting 3 of these valueless posts in this thread in this short amount of a time is pretty much a threadshit. Cease and desist. You can comment on other’s posts if you like or expand on what you believe. But enough of this nonsense.
(For reference I went to school in the same rural district from 1980 to 193 and high school specifically from 1989 to 1993).
When I was in high school they had two different tracks for courses for students–The AP(Advanced Placement) ones for the high performing students and the General ones for everyone else. I can NOT speak for the AP course because I was IN the General track.
Like others have mentioned by the end of the year we only got to World War II. I vaguely remember discussing the Vietnam War and the Anti-War Movement but the teachers tried to avoid discussing it because the parents did NOT want their side portrayed negatively.
I also remember our US History teacher struggling just to get us to do the rote work of memorizing the names and dates of events. I am not sure my classmates were smart enough to actually go through and see how past events affected the current policies of the present.
Frankly I think both posts above over-estimate the intellectual capacity of most students and represent an idealized view that the average person is a smart and rational individual capable having good insight into history and Today’s problems.
Or maybe I am just overly cynical and too blinded by own poor experiences dealing with the people and the general public over the years.
That was the emphasis in middle school.
High school was for reading primary sources, and arguments by historians, and then writing essays.
This obviously was a school that emphasized college prep.
I thought it was an outstanding sequence, and still do. So I was a bit surprised to find out later how much the 8th grade memorization, not just of dates, but also of lists of causes of wars, and causes of the depression, and Wilson’s 14 points, was disliked.
Not only did we mostly go to college — I think we also finished on time.