The failure of American public schools to teach children the truth regarding our history

[Jarhyn]

My children had history from 5th grade through 12th grade. If that is similar the norm, there is sufficient space in K12 curriculum fir an adequate treatment of the history of slavery.

I went to pretty good schools. I didn't take 7 years of history. Most of it was grade school. My vague recollection is only one required class in high school.

That's me. History wasn't my favorite subject. Better than STEM, but when I could choose I went straight for the art and literature.

Much to the annoyance of my Dad with a business and engineering degree.
Tom

For me through the end of the 90's, it was one major history course per year, at a minimum, after grade school

I hated every second of it because it was jingoism and names/dates, a curious mixture of ahistorical propaganda and exactly the sort of education that disinterests people in further investigation.

 

[Oleg]

I hated every second of it because it was jingoism and names/dates, a curious mixture of ahistorical propaganda and exactly the sort of education that disinterests people in further investigation.

Most kids don't care. They really don't care. And most forget most of what was taught shortly after leaving school - if they even learned it at all. Adults should stop trying to politicize children's history classes with their preferred narrative. Take activisim out of the classroom.

 

[laughing dog]

I hated every second of it because it was jingoism and names/dates, a curious mixture of ahistorical propaganda and exactly the sort of education that disinterests people in further investigation.

Most kids don't care. They really don't care. And most forget most of what was taught shortly after leaving school - if they even learned it at all.

Your opinion of school children does not jibe with my experience at all

Adults should stop trying to politicize children's history classes with their preferred narrative. Take activisim out of the classroom.

The “narrative” in the classroom comes from adults unless you think children should teach themselves using only materials from other children.

 

[Bomb#20]

the narrative of the opposition: with Oleg's narrative where every major society practiced slavery but it was only the West that was first to figure out it was wrong and take serious steps to end it.

That's not a "narrative of the opposition", that's just a bull... narrative. I have no compulsion to take illogical nonsense seriously just because it comes out of the mouth of someone I disagree with politically. It's obviously a tortured rendition of the facts, with a transparent political agenda.

So's this:

Where "scale" is measured in absolute rather than per capita terms, thereby taking all the horrors of the ancient and medieval worlds' slavery out of the running

Well... yes. Which is not a defense of ancient slavery at all. But they never built anything like the Transatlantic trade in size, reach, or general cruelty.

Where do you get this stuff? Of course some of the ancient world's slavery practices matched or exceeded the modern world's in general cruelty. Good lord, Sparta required every male citizen to murder a slave as part of his rite of becoming a man! And the size/reach argument is blatant special pleading -- it's just giving societies a pass for virtuously having low population and primitive technology. That's just the same old double-standard we always see from progressives when it comes to Western Civilization, with a political motive just as transparent as the conservatives' ...

And it's also internally inconsistent to cynically celebrate past progressive victories as an excuse to attack current progressive prerogatives.

...and there it is. Western Civilization is required to be uniquely wicked, a deterioration from the background level of human morality, so that it will need redemption from its sins that it can only get by buying what the progressives are selling. You guys are the mirror image of the Christians who tell us we need to be redeemed from the Fall of Man and can only be saved by buying what the Christians are selling. You guys don't want accurate history taught for the exact same reason Christians don't want accurate biology taught. Fallen angels need redemption. Rising apes don't.

Which is to say, no, the abolitionists' victory was not a progressive victory. Progressives had nothing to do with it. The progressive movement was created by abolition -- all those freed slaves getting jobs in northern factories resulted in downward pressure on wages, and in reaction, progressivism formed as a movement to protect the interests of the white working class. No one should be surprised the Progressive Era was the heyday of whites-only labor unions. But hey, if the Mormons get to baptize somebody's long dead ancestor as a Mormon, why shouldn't modern progressives anachronistically baptize William Wilberforce as a progressive?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I hated every second of it because it was jingoism and names/dates, a curious mixture of ahistorical propaganda and exactly the sort of education that disinterests people in further investigation.

Most kids don't care. They really don't care. And most forget most of what was taught shortly after leaving school - if they even learned it at all. Adults should stop trying to politicize children's history classes with their preferred narrative. Take activisim out of the classroom.

I was wondering what blew the corner of my house off right before I went to sleep... and where my irony meter went to.

 

[Jarhyn]

I hated every second of it because it was jingoism and names/dates, a curious mixture of ahistorical propaganda and exactly the sort of education that disinterests people in further investigation.

Most kids don't care. They really don't care. And most forget most of what was taught shortly after leaving school - if they even learned it at all.

Your opinion of school children does not jibe with my experience at all

Adults should stop trying to politicize children's history classes with their preferred narrative. Take activisim out of the classroom.

The “narrative” in the classroom comes from adults unless you think children should teach themselves using only materials from other children.

Honestly, if kids were educated at how much rape, torture, slavery, lying, betrayal, revisionism, fascism, imperialism, genocide, and bare greed history was littered with, they might pay attention more.

Knowing that a king murdered half a nation because someone insulted his horse kind of puts things in perspective of how much power and how little oversight they had, much better than knowing when their armies matched and who led them.

Edit: of course kids are not passionate about learning history when all discussion to ignite and arouse their passions towards their principles is outright banned, as if people should not FEEL something when they hear of the past, or as if the only thing they are allowed to feel of the past is nostalgia.

 

[TomC]

For me through the end of the 90's, it was one major history course per year, at a minimum, after grade school

I hated every second of it because it was jingoism and names/dates, a curious mixture of ahistorical propaganda and exactly the sort of education that disinterests people in further investigation

I don't doubt that our age difference plays a big part in this. I graduated from high school in 1976. Were you even born then?

I have absolutely no doubt that standards for school curriculum changed during those years. You think yours was jingoistic? Imagine what a suburban white kid was taught in Indiana circa 1970. It took years for me to realize just how much of my "history" classes were about developing good little white Christian patriots.
Tom

 

[lostone]

I was taught in a small rural town in NE NC in the 1940s and 1950s. Joe McCarthy, the Red Scare et al. Teaching then was for sure 100% about teaching us to be white Christian patriots.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Ok maybe I need to clarify. People who RIGHTFULLY poke their chest out about property rights ought to not hand waive the atrocities that involved the stealing of land in the distant past. I'm not saying OMG GIVE THE LAND BACK im saying to have some fucking decency discussing history by attributing/understanding/sympathizing with REAL FUCKING PEOPLE THAT GOT THEIR SHIT TAKEN. The ole attitude that "everyone was doing it" should then be applied to folks doing it today. Sure, I'm not saying to let people take your property today, just have the same attitude towards them, such as "it is normal for people to try to take your property" as you do with discussions of historic events of that kind (if that's you).. Gosh.

Edit: For example Ukraine and Palestinian territory. What Russia and Israel is doing is normal. Right? Any country that attempts to invade America is just doing what's normal right?

That is all.

Basically everything anybody has has been taken. There comes a point where trying to remedy past wrongs is impractical, especially as the original owners are probably long gone with either no descendants or descendants that can't be identified.

Personally, I draw the line at no groups. Wronged individuals, yes, but not merely because you are part of a group whose ancestors were wronged.

 

[Oleg]

Personally, I draw the line at no groups. Wronged individuals, yes, but not merely because you are part of a group whose ancestors were wronged.

That makes the most sense.

 

[steve_bank]

Back in the early 70s I was working in Hartford Ct. Pratt & Whiney that made jest engines had to create a remedial math program for high school grads before they could enter apprenticeship programs. Machinists and metal working. It was said they did not have the same basic math skills past generations had.

Schools became an experiment in social engineering. In the 90s my sister was a teaching assitant in a Long Island grade school. Numerical grades were gotten rid of. Getting the right answer in math was no longer important.

Add to that today both police and teachers are expected to be social workers and psychologists. We hear it in the news around here, teachers leaving the profession faster than those who are cumming in.

Part of it is pay, a lot of it from interviews is they are simply overwhelmed with responsibilities and are just worn out.

I've seen angry immigrant parents at school meetings who complainer kids who do not speak English are falling behind, and what is the school going to do about it.

From what I see school has became a defacto day care for single or working couple parents.

It not the job of schools to raise kds and insill values like wrking at education, that is the resposibi;ity of parents.

The primary seduction system of the 30s,40,50s,60s produced the people that pit us on the moon and developed modern technology.

What has changed in culture? Public schools used to be about assimilation for immigrants, not it about diversity to an extreme. No single American culture. Is that working?


If kids are given a high school diploma and can on;y read at grade school level and can't do simple math who is to blame?

 

[Tigers!]

Back in the early 70s I was working in Hartford Ct. Pratt & Whiney that made jest engines had to create a remedial math program for high school grads before they could enter apprenticeship programs. Machinists and metal working. It was said they did not have the same basic math skills past generations had.

Schools became an experiment in social engineering. In the 90s my sister was a teaching assitant in a Long Island grade school. Numerical grades were gotten rid of. Getting the right answer in math was no longer important.

Add to that today both police and teachers are expected to be social workers and psychologists. We hear it in the news around here, teachers leaving the profession faster than those who are cumming in.

I can read the same in Australia. I know a few ex-teachers who burnt out and left. Too many children come to school, ill-mannered, boorish and/or hungry. They have an overwhelming sense of entitlement. Not a good start to the teaching day. The endless round of meetings, the paperwork etc. is a burden.
teachers are not immune from blame. In Australia teh teaching unions are at the forefront of wanting all these diversity, equity etc. programs. To justify the programs stats must be collected. Then the teachers complain that they are doing the paperwork. Be careful what you desire. You might get it.

Part of it is pay, a lot of it from interviews is they are simply overwhelmed with responsibilities and are just worn out.

I've seen angry immigrant parents at school meetings who complainer kids who do not speak English are falling behind, and what is the school going to do about it.

So are these parents learning English and using it at home? It is not the school's responsibility to teach the child English. (And while you are there teach proper English, not that bastardised version you yanks use.)

From what I see school has became a defacto day care for single or working couple parents.

It not the job of schools to raise kds and insill values like wrking at education, that is the resposibi;ity of parents.

Yet if the parents instill their values, a lot of schools and teachers would complain that said values are divise, incorrect, discriminatory etc.

The primary seduction system of the 30s,40,50s,60s produced the people that pit us on the moon and developed modern technology.

What has changed in culture? Public schools used to be about assimilation for immigrants, not it about diversity to an extreme. No single American culture. Is that working?

In Australia too many people, parents think it is the state's responsibility via the schools to educate children. It is the parent's responsibility to educate their children. They may choose to employ the state to do so but the ultimate responsibility lies with the parents. Sounds like the USA is the same.

Is is the

If kids are given a high school diploma and can on;y read at grade school level and can't do simple math who is to blame?

We have the same issues in Australia.
Blame? We all have some responsibility for the mess.

 

[bilby]

I was working in Hartford Ct. Pratt & Whiney that made jest engines

Surely a jest engine manufacturer would have been more productive if they had laughed instead of being whiney?

 

[bigfield]

Back in the early 70s I was working in Hartford Ct. Pratt & Whiney that made jest engines had to create a remedial math program for high school grads before they could enter apprenticeship programs. Machinists and metal working. It was said they did not have the same basic math skills past generations had.

That's an interesting observation, and one that leads to a lot of questions:

• Which past generations had better maths skills?
  • How far back does that go?
  • Was there just one or two generations with really good basic maths skills, or have Americans had basic maths skills since the Thirteen Colonies?
• Why did past generations of grads have better maths skills?
  • Were they more likely to immigrants who received their education outside of the US, or maybe less likely?
  • Were they more or less likely to be the children of immigrants?
  • Were they more likely to be homeschooled for part of their education?
  • Were they more likely to have attended schools in wealthier districts?
  • Had demand for high school graduates grown, meaning that the plant lowered their standards?
  • Were the better educated high school grads working in better jobs?
  • Did class sizes increase in the 60's and 70's as a result of the Baby Boom? Did this lead to an overall drop in education outcomes for students?
  • Did education standards decline from one generation to the next due to social engineering experiments?

I get the sense, from your post, that you've concluded that social engineering is to blame, but did you consider the other possibilities?

Schools became an experiment in social engineering. In the 90s my sister was a teaching assitant in a Long Island grade school. Numerical grades were gotten rid of. Getting the right answer in math was no longer important.

• Which grade levels?
• For how long was this experiment conducted?
• Before the 90's, did teachers award students partial marks for demonstrating correct working, even if they did not arrive at the correct answer?
• When have public schools, in their entire history, not been institutions of social engineering?

Add to that today both police and teachers are expected to be social workers and psychologists. We hear it in the news around here, teachers leaving the profession faster than those who are cumming in.

Part of it is pay, a lot of it from interviews is they are simply overwhelmed with responsibilities and are just worn out.

• What social work are teachers expected perform today that they did not perform at some point in the past?
• What psychological research do teachers perform today that they did not perform at some point in the past?
• What other factors could contribute to teacher retention?

I've seen angry immigrant parents at school meetings who complainer kids who do not speak English are falling behind, and what is the school going to do about it.

When was this? Why were you at a school meeting? Aren't you old enough to be a great grandfather?

From what I see school has became a defacto day care for single or working couple parents.

It not the job of schools to raise kds and insill values like wrking at education, that is the resposibi;ity of parents.

Was that back in the 70's? I'm having a hard time dating your experience of the education system.

• What makes a school a defacto day care?
• Under what conditions would you say that parents are not treating school like a day care?
• Which generations of parents were more likely to teach their children the value of education, and why was this the case?
• How did the post-war economic boom affect people's attitude towards education? Did people take a more relaxed attitude towards education because it was easier to get a good job without completing high school?

The primary seduction system of the 30s,40,50s,60s produced the people that pit us on the moon and developed modern technology.

I'm pretty sure the European schools educated a lot of those people, and there's a good chance you've giving too much credit to the US system.

What has changed in culture?

Holy shit, good question, but don't bother searching for an answer or anything.

What has changed in culture? Public schools used to be about assimilation for immigrants, not it about diversity to an extreme. No single American culture. Is that working?

• How did assimilation improve students' education outcomes?
• How did American schools engage in assimilation into a monoculture while also segregating students based on their ethnicity?
• How did American schools engage in assimilation despite ethnic segregation in residential areas, and therefore school districts?

If kids are given a high school diploma and can on;y read at grade school level and can't do simple math who is to blame?

It's the woke bleeding heart liberals and the lazy ethnics, right?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Back in the early 70s I was working in Hartford Ct. Pratt & Whiney that made jest engines had to create a remedial math program for high school grads before they could enter apprenticeship programs. Machinists and metal working. It was said they did not have the same basic math skills past generations had.

Schools became an experiment in social engineering. In the 90s my sister was a teaching assitant in a Long Island grade school. Numerical grades were gotten rid of. Getting the right answer in math was no longer important.

Add to that today both police and teachers are expected to be social workers and psychologists. We hear it in the news around here, teachers leaving the profession faster than those who are cumming in.

Part of it is pay, a lot of it from interviews is they are simply overwhelmed with responsibilities and are just worn out.

I've seen angry immigrant parents at school meetings who complainer kids who do not speak English are falling behind, and what is the school going to do about it.

From what I see school has became a defacto day care for single or working couple parents.

It not the job of schools to raise kds and insill values like wrking at education, that is the resposibi;ity of parents.

The primary seduction system of the 30s,40,50s,60s produced the people that pit us on the moon and developed modern technology.

What has changed in culture? Public schools used to be about assimilation for immigrants, not it about diversity to an extreme. No single American culture. Is that working?


If kids are given a high school diploma and can on;y read at grade school level and can't do simple math who is to blame?

So your sister was a TA in the 90s, and you are talking about schools today. Also, I was a student in the 90s, and getting the right answer in math as in other courses was definitely necessary! While partial credit existed, it wasn't what it was like in college, primarily in the engineering courses.

Don't we have movies talking about struggles of the poor in schools from the 30's (The Corn is Green), 60's (Up The Downstairs), 80's (Lean on Me / Stand and Deliver)? None of this is new. The added problems of lawyers and teachers needing to be first responders these days to mass shootings is definitely a weight, but schools were never a utopian paradise. And children graduating schools today have had to learn a boatload more than we did. Anecdotally, my daughter is learning pre-algebra in 4th grade.

So please stop thinking that your generation invented perfection.

 

[Gospel]

All property rights in land are squatters' rights. Except maybe a little bit of the Netherlands...

My point is that folks who recognize property rights (as I do) ought to also acknowledge said property was stolen when speaking of history rather than hand wave and make excuses.

Are we allowed to also acknowledge that the people said property was stolen from had inherited it from some earlier passel of thieves?

Absolutely. It is worth noting that while previous groups of thieves have come and gone, America remains and has the power to make positive changes. America has been a incredible ally to the people of Israel (which I support) and American's weren't responsible for the atrocities that befell them at the hand of Nazis. America did however play a role in the Transatlantic holocaust but god forbid anyone talk about helping a nigger.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Which is to say, no, the abolitionists' victory was not a progressive victory. Progressives had nothing to do with it. The progressive movement was created by abolition -- all those freed slaves getting jobs in northern factories resulted in downward pressure on wages, and in reaction, progressivism formed as a movement to protect the interests of the white working class. No one should be surprised the Progressive Era was the heyday of whites-only labor unions. But hey, if the Mormons get to baptize somebody's long dead ancestor as a Mormon, why shouldn't modern progressives anachronistically baptize William Wilberforce as a progressive?

Not exactly that simple, as the progressive movement was in large part a general reaction to the industrialization of the United States and the relationship between labor and massive corporations, something we saw in Europe too. Laws were indeed passed to keep blacks from being used as cheap imported labor. And the north was hardly enlightened with their attitudes on African Americans. BUT... to say abolition was the main leader in the progressive movement is just wrong. The likes of Eugene Debs and William Jennings Bryan weren't enlightened about blacks, but their lances were primarily pointed at the coal mines, railroads, and steel mills.

 

[lostone]

Back in the early 70s I was working in Hartford Ct. Pratt & Whiney that made jest engines had to create a remedial math program for high school grads before they could enter apprenticeship programs. Machinists and metal working. It was said they did not have the same basic math skills past generations had.

Schools became an experiment in social engineering. In the 90s my sister was a teaching assitant in a Long Island grade school. Numerical grades were gotten rid of. Getting the right answer in math was no longer important.

Add to that today both police and teachers are expected to be social workers and psychologists. We hear it in the news around here, teachers leaving the profession faster than those who are cumming in.

Part of it is pay, a lot of it from interviews is they are simply overwhelmed with responsibilities and are just worn out.

I've seen angry immigrant parents at school meetings who complainer kids who do not speak English are falling behind, and what is the school going to do about it.

From what I see school has became a defacto day care for single or working couple parents.

It not the job of schools to raise kds and insill values like wrking at education, that is the resposibi;ity of parents.

The primary seduction system of the 30s,40,50s,60s produced the people that pit us on the moon and developed modern technology.

What has changed in culture? Public schools used to be about assimilation for immigrants, not it about diversity to an extreme. No single American culture. Is that working?


If kids are given a high school diploma and can on;y read at grade school level and can't do simple math who is to blame?

So your sister was a TA in the 90s, and you are talking about schools today. Also, I was a student in the 90s, and getting the right answer in math as in other courses was definitely necessary! While partial credit existed, it wasn't what it was like in college, primarily in the engineering courses.

Don't we have movies talking about struggles of the poor in schools from the 30's (The Corn is Green), 60's (Up The Downstairs), 80's (Lean on Me / Stand and Deliver)? None of this is new. The added problems of lawyers and teachers needing to be first responders these days to mass shootings is definitely a weight, but schools were never a utopian paradise. And children graduating schools today have had to learn a boatload more than we did. Anecdotally, my daughter is learning pre-algebra in 4th grade.

So please stop thinking that your generation invented perfection.

I was taking STEM courses in college in the 1950s and 1960s, including grading papers in STEM math courses, and even back then, partial credit was always given in STEM courses on exams. The right answer was less important than taking the correct approach to the problem.

 

[TomC]

America did however play a role in the Transatlantic holocaust but god forbid anyone talk about helping a nigger.

Ha ha ha!

Oh wait.
You're serious?
Tom

 

[Gospel]

America did however play a role in the Transatlantic holocaust but god forbid anyone talk about helping a nigger.

Ha ha ha!

Oh wait.
You're serious?
Tom

Yeah. Care to actually post something?