History Haters In The House
There’s a lot of reasons certain people hate history. Those reasons usually have something to do with stupid teachers who could bore children at a birthday party. Apparently some of these brainless yahoos are in charge of educating the youth of North Caroli
na.
Some Tar Heel State educators don’t think much of George Washington, Abe Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson or any other historical figures before 1877. According to proposed curriculum changes, teenagers shouldn’t have to bother with trivial little events from the past like the American Revolution or the Civil War or like, you know, irrelevant stuff like that.
In other news, the North
Carolina Department of Public Instruction is apparently hiring idiots just in case you are in the job market, completely clueless, and eager to contribute to another bloated government agency that uses tax dollars to issue moronic and dangerous initiatives.
In a nutshell, the idea is to teach high school juniors and seniors American history from 1877 on. Instead of getting the story before that time period, freshman would take a global studies course, ostensibly to learn about the environment and what makes polar bears cry. I guess this plan will remove the challenges of explaining slavery and the war it caused; although, good luck explaining every Founding Father reference Martin Luther King Jr. ever made. Does this make LBJ the new Abraham Lincoln? Yuck. My fingers just threw up in their mouth a little.
The goal of this flubtubbery* is to help students learn about recent history in greater depth. And to think, for years I’ve been explaining to students how impossible it is to understand our current world without the proper context of the past.
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Don’t just take my word for it. Listen to what Rebecca Garland, chief executive officer for the aforem
entioned N.C. Dept. of Public Instruction, has to say. She’s left plenty of slack here to strangle her own logic. You’ll have to pardon my interruptions.
“We are certainly not trying to go away from American history,” she began in a recent interview. TRANSLATION: We are trying to go away from American history.
“What we are trying to do is figure out a way to teach it where students are connected to it…” TRANSLATION: The reason teachers (oh, I’m sorry, educators) like me are boring is because we are so bored. REALITY: Why don’t these people call me? I’ll gladly charge the government exorbitant consulting fees to teach teachers how to impact students. It’s a wild strategy I’ve developed called teaching the freaking American Revolution through the eyes of people who were actually there! One recent problem has been using guesswork texts from modern blowhards who write boring and self-serving books about history. They are boring, not Thomas Paine and Ben Franklin.
Garland also said they were trying to figure out a way for students to “see the big idea, where they are able to make connections and draw relationships between parts of our history and the present day.” TRANSLATION: I have no idea what I’m talking about because I want people to see the “big idea” without discussing the big picture. I want students to make connections while eliminating all the most relevant connecting points.
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I’ll spare the obvious problems this expanded modern history would contain. Let’s just say you could expect six months on “The Awesomeness of Franklin Roosevelt” followed by a section on ”How Ronald Reagan Managed To Not Destroy The World.” I guess it would be confusing to explain to students how tax hikes and big government are really awesome when those stupid Founding Fathers insist on fighting to the death for opposing principles.
Even if these proposed changes go nowhere, the fact that an agency in charge of curriculum planning could even think this way goes a long way in explaining what’s wrong with our education system. You can read the full story here. I’m sure some of you think I’m overreacting, but these folks aren’t even trying subversion anymore. They are openly and literally proposing that we cut the first half of our history in order to help students understand our history. With thinking like this trying to take over education, I may not always have a job, but I’ll have no trouble pulling students in from the boring and clueless.
*Flubtubbery–A nice way to say dirty things about stupid ideas from stupider people. Says me.
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Life. Culture. Education.
Life as Pop Culture Professor Clay Morgan
In The Matrix, Morpheus tells Neo he can take the blue pill and go on believing whatever he wants to believe. Or he can take the red pill to stay in Wonderland and find out how deep the rabbit hole goes.
This is a red pill type site that provides information in an entertaining way. It’s about clear thinking and good writing. It’s about finding meaning amidst the absurd. It’s about humor and truth.
I’m a writer / speaker who teaches history and political courses at a couple of local colleges. Where is local, you say? Well, that would be Wonderland of course.
On topics ranging from pop culture to the meaning of life, my brain’s always poppin’. Take the red pill and unplug.
Admittedly, the farther back in history I go, the harder it is to connect to it on the level I connect with 20th century history. I can feel the Civil Was as real, but before that and into the 18th century it’s not quite as vivid. But going backwards makes it easier. Start with what’s obviously real and then go back and you can get there and then the epiphany, these people were just as real as I am!
This is obviously insane. A mixture of the big picture and the littler guy and not magically excluding half the history of your country is the way to reach people. It’s also the truth.
This just smacks of not wanting to stretch people’s brains. It’s the reason that the “Little House” book now have covers with real people laughing, even though the one book is about how they almost all died during the incredibly bleak winter. People want things familiar. The past is alien and full of real humans.
Changing history to make it easier to understand is not the way to teach it. Your endless enthusiasm is the way. If I hadn’t already loved history before I took your class, I suspect I would have soon learned.
I think this smacks of worse things than not wanting to stretch people’s brains. You’re a shrewd observer. Thanks for the encouragement.