Not just less objective, less informative. For example, who learned about the Tulsa Black Wall Street in history class? I know I didn't. I didn't learn about that until I was living in Tulsa and read placards on the street talking about it. Who learned that there were Black Wall Streets in more than one city? I didn't, I learned that thru internet research a few years ago. If you did happen to learn of their existence, you probably were taught that it was destroyed in the Tulsa Race Riot of 1920. You probably never learned that they rebuilt after that. Why? Because the actual history of their demise is wrapped up with redlining, and that embarrasses the conservatives in Texas who don't want anybody to know the full extent of what this country did to African Americans, while also embarrassing the progressives in California who uphold FDR as a god.
How Can The Education System Stay Relevant?
- Thread starter Kellan Sullivan
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Not just less objective, less informative. For example, who learned about the Tulsa Black Wall Street in history class? I know I didn't. I didn't learn about that until I was living in Tulsa and read placards on the street talking about it. Who learned that there were Black Wall Streets in more than one city? I didn't, I learned that thru internet research a few years ago. If you did happen to learn of their existence, you probably were taught that it was destroyed in the Tulsa Race Riot of 1920. You probably never learned that they rebuilt after that. Why? Because the actual history of their demise is wrapped up with redlining, and that embarrasses the conservatives in Texas who don't want anybody to know the full extent of what this country did to African Americans, while also embarrassing the progressives in California who uphold FDR as a god.
Exactly. Let the students dig through ALL the information that they can find...the teacher can be the "Guide on the Side" rather than "the Sage on the Stage"..and the students can find that history is complicated, that the good guys aren't always good...that bad guys sometimes do bad things for "good reasons"..that the story doesn't end there...or ever. I had a professor that knocked me down a grade and taught me a great lesson when he said, "..true, the other side's argument doesn't hold water..but you need to show WHY it doesn't" It was concerning the overthrow of Allende and the US role in it. I said I didn't buy our "I know nuthink" routine..and his point was..fine, why don't you buy it? Textbooks..for history..remove the student from the role of Explorer and Discoverer.
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But for almost 99% of people history will never concern them again after they finish school. If I wasn't into history and looked into it on my own after I finished school it would never come up again. The most important things for my job are dealing with people, being punctual, writing and math. Other than that not much of what I learned in school is useful outside of that specific instance. What it gave me is a degree saying I have a four year degree and so should get paid as appropriate for that.
I can also say that about science, philosophy, literature, art...and I can thank PBS and NPR for much of that learning. It also helped that my dad, a child of the Great Depression and WWII veteran filled our home with encyclopedias, the Book of Knowledge, various Life/Time Library Series, Child Craft, just..books and magazines on a wide range of topics and interests. He never was formally educated beyond a high school technical diploma, but he never failed to pass books on to me that he thought I would find interesting..take my brothers and me to museums (a day trip to Chicago got us a run through the Museum of Science and Industry, the Field Museum of Natural History, the Adler Planetarium and the Shedd Aquarium//well, at least several at a time) and on vacations we never missed a historical marker or site. I was very lucky to have a father like that..and I've tried very hard to be that kind of father.
If history is taught correctly then, no, you don't need to remember every detail about the Polk Administration, Caesar's Gallic Campaign, or the cause of the War of 1812..but hopefully you will know what constitutes a decent argument for and against a proposition...how to recognize a weak hypothesis, how to debate an issue intelligently. Were you taught what were good resources to use for finding various types of information...did you retain a basic idea of how the government functions. If you view a university education as an expensive technical college or community college..some place you go to learn the skills of a job, then you missed the true glory of what you had offered. I'd like to think that my plumber knows and appreciates poetry, that my doctor is a Civil War buff, and the guy that repaired my roof is on the city council and has read, "Commonsense". I want a well educated and thoughtful electorate, not just one that completed the licensing course.
Does it really matter? What exactly am I going to be debating? My college experience was mostly taking major required courses except for the required gen eds. In order to get a degree I had to have a certain number of hours in my major and I didn't want to pay the large extra charges associated with going over the hours per semester limit. So pretty much from sophomore year on I was taking almost only classes related to my major and nothing else. And I would like my plumber to know how to sweat pipe, my doctor know how to correctly diagnose me, and the guy who repairs my roof know how to fix my roof beyond that I don't care because it is irrelevant to my life.
I think that is directly to my point. I want an educational system that can produce a literate, thoughtful, intelligent, knowledgeable, skilled, talented electorate..workforce..citizenry. Of course I want my plumber to be able to do his job well...but why can't he do several things well..why can't the doctor be assumed to be skilled at more than his profession...and the roofer at his craft? I'm sorry but your argument reminds me way too much of the students in my history class who would complain that I graded them down for poor wording, spelling and grammar..."What is this, English class?" they would whine. God forbid I would expect them to be able to remember what they were taught from one class to the next. "Is this gonna get me a job?: Another of my "favorites". "No, but it will make you a better citizen of the United States" was my usual response. Actually...yes, being a literate, thoughtful 'citizen' might just impress someone doing the interview...depends on what type of worker the boss is looking for.
Me too - grammar school in my case. In particular, I got into US history at about 13 through encountering a library book on the Civil War, by none other than Sir Winston Churchill. Some three years later, at the same library, I found Toynbee's Nationality and the War, which got me into WW1.
Can't speak for the American education system as such, but if you think a textbook's primary purpose is to convey bulk information then you must have a pretty low view of the people that put them together. They very obviously are not very good at giving more than a broad outline of any given topic and, to be blunt, very obviously aren't meant for that. What they are is an extremely convenient sourcebook for a vast array of different learning activities that a teacher can construct. The provide sufficient information for an hour or two of teaching, in a variety of different formats, which can be sorted and changed very quickly into a range of tasks. Some teachers do use them as a crutch and just say 'do the textbook', but this is not what they are for.
It does matter, because it allows you to be a lot less vulnerable to political propaganda, lies and outright manipulation. Understanding History is not about academia or debating but about understanding why your society ended up having this or that solution to an issue, how it came to be, etc. Without knowledge of History, without interest for it? You are clay to be molded by anyone who talks loud enough, convinced of anything whatsoever. A society made of people who barely know anything unrelated to their job specialty is a society of tools to be used by other people, a nicely ordered caste society that won't think by itself.
But then, I wonder whether it is unfortunately the goal of those who strike at education. After all, it reminds me so much of 1984, a society where the past is a thing that changes according to the political whim du jour, where curiosity and interest outside of your required knowledge is discouraged pretty harshly. A good thing would be to stop having degrees cost so much, get them down to realistic prices that do not make education a huge choice. Say, 500 bucks or less for a year in Masters would be OK.
More like our school system is vastly outdated because it was built to deal with economies and societies of decades ago.
One doesn't preclude the other. It was built for one reason, maintained for another.