This week, I got cable internet installed in my home. Since it no longer takes half of my day to catch up on email, blogging, banking etc., I am free to surf the web in the classic sense of the word. My favorite thing about Pandora.com is not that they play any music you want, but that they have information about said music. I was reading about Peter Tosh, who was Bob Marley's guitarist and later a solo act, and came across references to some controversial political statements that got him banned in his native Jamaica. This lead me to some black nationalist websites. This led me to read about some astonishingly blatant abuses of the justice system that took place in the 1960's. This lead me to read about some equally astonishing abuses of the justice system that are taking place right now. This lead me to this very some very disturbing questions:
1. Why is the civil rights movement taught to us in schools as history? It's current events. Mumia Abu Jamal is still on death row for an obvious frame-up.
2. Why did they teach me about MLK, but not X? He was equally important, just not as nice.
3. Why do I know that England fought a hundred year war with France, but absolutely nothing about China, who is far more important in the world?
4. Why did I have to read penny paperback garbage like Bronte instead of Faulkner? I never studied Faulkner in school. Only at the ripe age of 27 am I finally able to grip the true brilliance of his work because I had to figure it all out by myself just like Salman Rushdie (thanks, Mom,) and Lao Tzu (thanks, Angela,) and Fyodor Dostoyevsky (thanks, Dad.)
There have got to be more of them: vast gaps in my American education which gave me some gross misconceptions about the world around me. Good thing I'm still young, because I've still got a lot to learn.
"Little Moab" with Logan
12 years ago
4 comments:
But I just changed my blog background just for you! You said you couldn't read the light-colored words since the page loaded so slow. And now I hear you've remidied the problem all by yourself. Oh well.
And as for the rest of your thoughts, good for you for discovering more of the picture. No doubt we are taught a rose-colored picture of history in schools. But that's why it's so great that we now have the internet and great books. Thank goodness for Freedom of Speech so that we can still learn things on our own.
Except when using your freedom of speech gets you put on death row for 26 years and counting, but you're right. In China, they even censor the Internet.
I think there's a book about just this thing--something like _What they didn't teach me..._ I'll keep my eyes out for it.
Here's the thing--you're talking about a liberal arts college education--that's where you get to the good stuff. You should take a world cultures or world civilizations or history of thought class or something online.
Let me follow up on the word "liberal" that Angela used.
The process for creating textbooks, especially history textbooks, for high schools is incredible conservative. And you went to HS in Texas, right?
Check this out to hear some discussion on the problems with the process and the resulting books: http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A102441
Two paragraphs from that:
Rather than have schoolchildren study the approved texts, it might be better to require them to watch the hearings. In the process they would learn a lot more about history -- the highly subjective art of forging a coherent narrative out of the debris of our past -- than they ever will from the current group of textbooks proposed for adoption. The textbook hearings -- long, tedious, and repetitious as they are -- provide an intimate look at how Texans feel about history. That is a useful lesson, but the SBOE's mission -- spelled out in state law as the goal of the review process -- is to make Texans as different as Judy Strickland and Lucy Camarillo just feel good about the past.
That may be a comforting and reassuring goal -- but textbooks that actually succeed in placating all sides will be more boring and horrible than ever. The books look great, with pages bursting with photos and illustrations, but the central text meanders between the images like a child lost at the circus. Storytelling techniques, such as narrative and interpretation, are ignored. Instead, we have a chronicle of progress, neatly compartmentalized into people, places, and events. It is no wonder that, according to the National Assessment of Education Progress, only one in 10 high school seniors is considered "proficient" in history. The kids are all right; we just haven't been giving them a reason to care.
I can't argue, Josh, you would love hanging out in a liberal arts school.
Bill
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