Are American Universities the "Covert Enemies" of America?

Parent Cafe
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<p>Knowing about Athenian democracy won’t be helpful to your immediate problems perhaps, but it does make you an educated human being. And there has been a consensus over a long period of time as to what is truthful history; where there is no consensus, then present all viewpoints, not just one. And to say that one person’s fact is another person’s opinion is an extremely simplistic way of excusing what is going on in our classrooms.</p>

<p>I find the arrogance of the people in charge of educating our children utterly astonishing (certainly not pointing fingers at anyone here). You see, the generation that came of age in the late sixties feels it is their right, and even their duty, to “change the world.” Therefore, they feel entitled to present to our children only the “facts” necessary in order to accomplish their goals. </p>

<p>But I’ll bow out of the discussion here as I have learned over and over that there is no way to “win” it, and at this stage I am quite weary of even thinking about it. If you do not want your children educated with a certain world-view, you must remove them from the public schools–there is no other option.</p>

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<p>Allmusic: </p>

<p>Re: dates are facts. In the booklet that helps prepare applicants for US citizenship are “facts” they are supposed to memorize in asnwer to questions.</p>

<p>So the correct answer to “When did WWII begin?” is December 7, 1941. Funny, I’d thought all along that it began in September 1939. Oh, well…</p>

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<p>edit to my post above: SOME of the generation that came of age in the late sixties. I guess Barone is around my age. :)</p>

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<p>I think educators at all levels have slowly eroded the number of facts taught to students and increased the study of values. That is probably why so many students and young people, and even some older people, have a hard time answering questions about when WWII started and other facts that were once considered basic knowledge.</p>

<p>The problem is that our children aren’t born knowing these facts and, even if they live in an educated household, they may not learn these facts as well as if they had studied them (and been tested on them) in school. If schools don’t teach facts first, students have no common framework for discussion - a problem we’ve run into on this thread. Recall Hanna’s continued request for evidence? Reasonably enough, she wanted facts so we could have a meaningful discussion. My refusal to give her facts left us unable to discuss or do anything more than “agree to disagree”, an unsatisfying resolution. </p>

<p>Even if we don’t end up agreeing, a common framework based on facts is vital to the logical analysis and discussion of an issue. Sadly, American students aren’t being taught many facts.</p>

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<p>DRJ:</p>

<p>The pamphlet I mentioned was issued by the Justice Department. And since my citizenship application, I decided not to contest the idea that WWII began in 1941. I instanced this to show that even something factual can be subject to debate. For most Americans, WWII indeed only started when the US entered the war. For Europeans, it started in 1939. It is not a matter of being taught more or less history, but different perspectives on history.</p>

<p>A problem in education is the teaching of “facts” without connective tissue. Unfortunately, the connective tissue is usually interpretive. </p>

<p>Let me give you an anecdote. Many years ago, my niece (now a successful lawyer) was sudying for a history test; she was then in the French equivalent of 7th grade. I was visiting my brother, so I tried to help her review. She was cramming all the details surrounding Hitler’s invasion of Poland–down the flurry of diplomatic correspondence, claiming that her teacher demanded that students know all the facts. I thought it was overkill. But she could not answer a question about the causes of WWII (aside from Hitler). History, as she seemed to have been taught, was all about “just the facts.” She could not extract any meaningful lesson from it. </p>

<p>In 10th grade, my own S studied World History. There was a lot of debate and discussion in that class much encouraged by a teacher who liked students to focus as much on interpretation as on dates and names. I can tell you that S had no trouble discussing the interwar arms race and the issue of war reparations, or knowing that the Holocaust happened in WWII, not WWI. He also wrote a nice paper on the perennial topic of the Great men in history. It was definitely an interpretive essay, though he supplied plenty of evidence for his arguments. </p>

<p>I totally agree that interpretation without a basis of evidence is just unsupported opinion. But let’s not fall into a worship of fact-based history. What is not included–whether it’s Jefferson’s ownership of slaves or Clinton’s adultery–is as much a matter of authorial choice, in other words, interpretation, as what is included. This interpretative move is masked by the bland tone of textbooks.</p>

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<p>Agreed, Marite, but … </p>

<p>Taking WWII as an example, how could you ever understand the origins of WWII unless you have at some point looked at the timeline and understood what happened in 1939, and before, and after? And what about all those students that think it started in 1860 or 1960?</p>

<p>Here’s a 2004 article that looks at another aspect of WWII (British again. I apologize for focusing on British sources but some Brits can be quite serious and thoughtful on the subject of education):</p>

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<a href=“http://www.cre.org.uk/history.html[/url]”>http://www.cre.org.uk/history.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Sure, but if you only taught WWII as “fact” D-Day would be stripped of its heroism and end up just being the day that the Allies landed in Normandy.</p>

<p>My Ss were taught about the Holocaust in 7th/8th grades. It was a whole unit (developed in the Brookline, MA district and called Facing History, Facing Ourselves). It involved a lot of what one would call “intepretation” But I am morally certain that the kids who went through the simulations, wrote papers on it, went to visit the Holocaust Museum as part of the unit, are not in danger of thinking it happened in WWI or downplaying its horrors. But in order to make room for that unit, something else had to go in the curriculum. </p>

<p>In order for history to come alive, you have to sacrifice some factual knowledge. What’s the use knowing about who said what to whom in September 1939 if you don’t know why WWII erupted at all, if you cannot connect the dots between the Great Depression, the arms race, German resentment over war reparations, unsettled borders and ethnic conflicts, etc…?</p>

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<p>This sounds like a criticism that could be leveled at NCLB, but extending it to include high schools since the high stakes exit tests administered in 10th grade overwhelmingly focus on literacy and numeracy.</p>

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<p>I think we are saying the same thing, Marite. I agree students need to learn context and “connective tissue”. I just think they need facts, too. Perhaps where we differ is I’m willing to forego discussion in favor of teaching as many facts as possible if you have to make a choice. My view is that students can always learn context, either from independent study or as they progress in traditional education. A poor foundation in facts, however, can skew learning forever.</p>

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<p>The part of Michael Barone’s op-ed that most affected me was this sentence:</p>

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I don’t care about labeling someone as an enemy, covert or otherwise, especially here at CC. I do care that some of us apparently believe that America is morally worse than other nations. I am very interested in hearing from someone who believes that because I want to understand why you feel that way and when you developed those beliefs.</p>

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<p>Actually, I disagree with you, though not entirely. It’s easy to look up facts-- I do it all the time. Of course, you need to know that you must look up facts, and you need to know what facts to looke up. But it’s harder to make them connect. And only through discussion can we realize that there may be other points of view and different ways of looking at the same facts, that we may have overlooked some important factors, etc… If I had been my niece’s teacher, I would have forgone all this rubbish about the diplomatic correspondence and the to and fro between different capitals and asked the students to discuss why they thought WWII erupted, the role of Hitler the man as opposed to some more abstract factors, what is meant by the Munich syndrome, etc… Not only would they be able to extract meaning from the dry facts but they would be able to retain the facts and their meaning longer. </p>

<p>I am still troubled though about the mission you ascribe to history: of making students more aware of democratic values and the contributions of Western civilization. Should history carry such a mission? I’d like you to think about this: the most value-laden education is to be found in madrassas.</p>

<p>EDIT: I cross-posted. I don’t know anyone who thinks the US is morally worse than some other countries. I used to, in the 1960s. I’m sure those people have changed their minds since. This does not mean that there are not plenty of people who are critical of certain aspects of the US. After all, the religious right thinks we are going to hell in a handbasket. But morally worse than other countries? Nope.</p>

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<p>The point of my personal anecdote was to illustrate that even facts alone do not in any way do history justice. Even “facts”, such as they are, remain open to huge interpretation.</p>

<p>Teaching history through facts (if one can even agree on what is factual, that is), however, becomes as Marite described with her niece, an exercise in memorization only. So, a kid can regurgitate facts back, spew them out…but without understanding context, what good are facts? </p>

<p>I am very familiar with the Facing History program, and it is excellent for precisely the reason that it makes history real for children, and not just an exercise in memorization of disconnected facts. </p>

<p>And for the sake of discussion, I think I know exactly what DRJ means about those who believe in the “inferior morality” of the US, even if I disagree vehemently that it is being taught in public schools. There clearly are those who do hold this belief, absolutely, but they are mostly fringe members of either end of the political spectrum: the far right wing (for the hell in the handbasket reasons) and the far left (for the Abu Graib, military rapes, etc). </p>

<p>However, I don’t think either view is representative of the mainstream American, either liberal or conservative. And I certainly don’t think this is the goal of US History, as it is taught in public school.</p>

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<p>That “morally worse” line was the bottom of Barone’s barrel. I know LOTS of people who consider themselves Old Left, or old New Left, or new New Left, including people who teach at the secondary and university level. Not a single one of them considers the US morally worse than anybody as a general matter (OK, maybe there are a few who idealize non-technological indigenous cultures, but that doesn’t enter into this kind of debate much), and certainly all of them love this country and its structure, and consider it superior to all available alternatives, although not yet perfect. The constant – and empty – rhetorical trick of neocon columnists is to equate any criticism of specific actions or policies with across-the-board endorsement of whatever the most extreme opposition to the US is. So opposing the use of torture and indefinite protective detention at Guantanamo is endorsing al-Qaeda.</p>

<p>I’m sure people on the left do this too, but I don’t notice it nearly as often.</p>

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<p>How about the 8th grade ENGLISH teacher in our middle school who took it upon himself to spend the entire year teaching his class about Haiti? He has a Ph.D. in education and his hero is Pablo Freire, author of “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” His school website lists all of the far left influences on his teaching for all to see, yet most parents are too intimidated to complain. I felt sorry for the poor kids in that class who actually needed to learn to read and write more proficiently before entering high school. Thank goodness my son was not in that class, or I might have yanked him out of the school then and there instead of waiting to the end of 8th grade.</p>

<p>Am I on the “fringe” for thinking that teaching kids about oppressed people around the world is kind of ODD for 8th grade ENGLISH class? Maybe you think I’m making up all my examples?</p>

<p>Sol Stern is a former new left radical who has been a vocal critic of public education for years now. I think you’ll enjoy this article:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_3_ed_school.html[/url]”>http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_3_ed_school.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>When I was in 7th grade, in 1969, at a very traditional prep school, my English teacher (a VERY crusty old New Englander and Harvard graduate) had me read Soul On Ice and Soledad Brother, and write a paper comparing and contrasting then-current Black revolutionaries with the Founding Fathers. (This was in lieu of reading Johnny Tremaine, which I had read anyway; I was a little bit beyond that academically.) It didn’t turn me into a Black revolutionary; it did expand my world a whole bunch. </p>

<p>I always thought that was an example of fabulous education. Of course, I had to have the grammar down cold in order to get to that point. Teaching the basics is crucial. But it was far more interesting for me to be engaged with primary sources relevant to the issues I was reading about in the papers every day than to be reading yet another bit of schoolboy historical fiction, even good schoolboy historical fiction. (I read Johnny Tremaine to my kids years later, and cried all through the last chapters.)</p>

<p>For the past few years, my son has had an analogous experience. The only Latin teacher in his school is a Haitian politician in exile, a former senator from an evangelical Christian party. So every once in a while, the Latin class devolves into a seminar on Haitian politics and civic duty (at various points, the teacher has struggled with whether he should return to Haiti). As far as I can tell, my son’s Latin has not suffered too much from this – the guy is a very demanding, traditional teacher – and his understanding of the world and its complexities has increased immeasurably from it. It has been great education.</p>

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<p>I loved Johnny Tremain too!
“Teaching the basics is crucial.” - Yes. The problem is, in many of our classrooms, obviously, the “basics” are suffering. Not all of our teachers are of the caliber you were lucky enough to have.</p>

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<p>When S was in 7/8 grade, each week one social studies class started with a discussion of current events. Students were encouraged to bring in an article from the newspaper on a topic that they deemed of importance. The discussion did not take up the whole class, but it reminded students that they needed to keep themselves well informed.</p>

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<p>DRJ4, I’m really glad you posted this, because it cuts to the essence of the underlying dialog. I’m sure your query is sincere, and is based on a view of the world you honestly believe in. But the short answer is: You’re not going to get one. Because the people you are asking to respond don’t exist in the real world. They are a construct of the right wing blogosphere.</p>

<p>Yes, there are left-wing nutjobs, just like there are right-wing nutjobs, and in roughly equal quantities. I don’t paint everyone on the right with the philosophy of Timothy McVeigh or David Duke; and that cuts both ways. </p>

<p>But you’re not talking about the fringe nutjobs - you actually think that hating America is a widely held “liberal” philosophy. This is the reality: all those liberals who “hate America” are a fiction created to avoid addressing the criticisms of the realists who accept that America is not perfect, that our political leaders make errors, and that the job of a responsible citizen in a nation based on ideals is to continuously strive to improve it, not to mindlessly cheer everything done in her name.</p>

<p>I am a product of the 60’s, and a liberal. I don’t consider America to be morally inferior to other nations. But I feel that the highest responsibility of Americans is not just to “talk the talk” but to “walk the walk.” That means not shrinking from the responsibility to acknowledge and address the numerous ways in which the reality of our nation falls short of the ideals upon which it is founded, and - to America’s great credit - towards which we as a nation have striven for over 200 years. Yes, some of the nation’s founders were slave owners. But the civil rights movement used the words and philosophy of those same slave owners as a basis for attacking the vestiges of slavery 200 years later. How cool is that?</p>

<p>DRJ4: you’re chasing a phantom, the hordes of America-hating “relativist” liberals. The phantom only exists because the right needs a straw man to attack so as to avoid the actual issues being presented - responsibly, and in a sincere effort to actual live the ideals which are the basis for America’s existence as a nation.</p>

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<p>Thank you, kluge.</p>

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<p>I brought in current event articles in 7th grade, etc. also. I am talking about something very, very different, obviously, as I am sure everyone reading this knows.
No one asked me, but I don’t think that hating America is a widely held liberal belief at all, especially since I was nominally a liberal myself (Democrat) until about 7 years ago. In fact, it was my younger son who opened my eyes to what is going on in the schools,which is what I believe we are talking about here.
A certain left/liberal mentality has taken over our public school system, as well as higher education at most institutions, in some, not all, disciplines.
You don’t have to be a right-wing nut-job, nor a rocket scientist, to figure this out.
Once again, disagree with how our schools are run and one is a right-wing paranoid nut, a Christian fundamentalist zealot, or most definitely stupid. Take your pick.
P.S. I’m sure you didn’t notice, kluge, but you paint conservatives in your posts with as broad a brush as you are accusing the OP of painting liberals.</p>