There is something that has been bothering me for years. We had Black History Month come out of seemingly nowhere not long after BLM and other things. We've since had pushes for other history months. Why is it assumed we were not taught about these things? I know I was.
Yet it had me doing something I doubt many of the complainers making demands actually take the time to do.
Imagine this...
You have children entering the education system and perhaps starting to get education in history starting at 1st grade and assuming they make it all the way through the K-12 system they may have history up through the 12th grade. This means if your lucky you have 12 years in which to teach history that might reach everyone.
Yet in that 12 years you might have a 1 hour class per semester. In some of those years you don't even have that as it is likely mixed into social studies or some other class that is a combination of things. You will get a little of it in the other courses where they can tie it in.
Even so... What is the value of history?
I personally think it is to learn about where we came from, what we've done, the mistakes we've made, and the successes we have had.
Understanding that there is a limited amount of time...
What would you teach?
What would you not teach because you needed to make sure you had time to cover other things?
To me history just IS. It is not a thing that needs a racial or cultural label attached to it. It is just information of what came before.
It is of course going to be flavored by what was deemed important to make certain I knew, and what could be deemed as less important.
It is rammed at us in a rapid pace and we typically would take tests to regurgitate what we had memorized.
We might quickly forget what was memorized... I know a lot of people do.
Now we have black history month... why? Apparently because we need to treat people special due to the color of skin. I don't actually think it is for that reason. I think it is propaganda tactics used to divide us by making us think some are inferior, and others are superior.
They occasionally call people that speak against it "White supremacists". Why? We're not the ones thinking that black people or white people need special treatment. Why do they need special treatment? It actually seems a lot more like the people calling people "white supremacists" are the ones deserving of that label.
Look at all the things they'll say are signs of WHITENESS (e.g. hard work, family values, etc.) and think about it?
There is a lot of projection going on.
There shouldn't be a black history month, indigenous people's history month, pride month, etc. Those are all special treatment. It certainly has zero to do with equality.
We just need to teach history. Race, culture, etc. are all irrelevant. We need as much information passed onto our children as we can.
We need that information to be available to help them succeed in the future, learn from mistakes, and push society forward.
Valuable insights into that can come from all directions. Yet that doesn't mean we have time to teach it all.
We must choose wisely. That is no easy task.
There are people who spend their entire life studying history. Even they cannot know it all.
Should we be covering history from "Black History", "Indigenous History", etc. Yes, yet we must choose wisely. Making sure we don't repeat mistakes certainly should be part of that.
Making sure we don't repeat atrocities of the past should be one of our highest goals.
We also should teach people to respect creation, building, and moving forward. We must point out some of the greatest successes that make what and who we are possible.
History doesn't care about skin color when it comes to these things. The lesson is important.
If we fixate on things of lesser importance just to check some quota box for skin color or heritage then that means we had to toss something else aside.
What do you think should be tossed aside?
What do you think should replace it and why?
What lesson and important thing will that convey to our children so they can better be prepared in the future?
Much can be said on this topic.
You are correct that learning from past mistakes should be a huge part of any history curricula.
I also find it useful to carefully instruct students of history to remain skeptical of historical accounts, because they rarely survive unscathed by bias.
Always assume the historian has an agenda, try to critically assess what that agenda might be, and consider the possible counterpoints.
The other challenge of history lies in the fact that we almost never have counterfactuals. That means we rarely can make truly definitive statements about historical causes and effects.
We do have a few significant natural experiments, like East and West Germany and North and South Korea.
By and large, though, I fear that we know far less than we think we do.
I think it is safe if we do our best to not become dogmatic about ANYTHING. Everything should be open to be challenged. That doesn't mean changing a view should be easy, yet someone should not be attacked for attempting to do so. Also part of things can be informative and true while the WHOLE can have incorrect parts. We often treat things as ALL or NOTHING when really it is very often SOME.
Yes. There are very few instances in life where ALL the discordant parts are correct.
Yes, Socrates was a master of this approach. Wisdom is being aware of one’s ignorance.
I would replace history/bullshit with truth but that would create issues with not making people into mind programmed zombies...so it won't be happening.
"Black History Month" was a big deal in colleges and universities decades ago. It always struck me as pandering to assuage progressive collective guilt, but what do I know?
I have been listening to an audiobook critical of the education system today. Coincidence? It seems teaching obedience, loyalty, and a hagiographic brand of history has always been the main thrust of "public education."