California lawmakers pass bill to teach gay history

[The Brain]

War excites you, Malthus? Gives you a stiffie?

[The Brain]

Btw I'm shocked that Mart-gays are defined by the attention they get from others.

[Malthus]

War excites you, Malthus? Gives you a stiffie?

Naw, only painting little lead toy soldiers. Which is why I don't do that.

[Martinus]

Sorry I may have misunderstood your point. I'm not sure what it was now.

I should not have gone off on this tangent to begin with since it is mostly my frustration with the recent changes in the Texas curriculum and the ever expanding twisted political nature of the history curriculum that is really hamstrung by trying to pound political ideology into the kids...meanwhile their knowledge of the basics of American history are among the worst in the country.  One of the characteristics is they just keep adding more and more themes.

To my mind, this is sorta the problem.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with teaching gay history, or Black history, or the history of women, or whatever. All are legitimate parts of history, which after all included gays, Blacks, and women.

The problem is that the relative importance to be attached to these sub-groups is seperated from history as a whole and made subject, not to the requirement to explain history in sensible (and hopefully memorable and entertaining) manner, but to present-day political concerns - which are often as not intended to "correct" perceived imbalances in the narrative used in the past to teach the kiddies.

The problem of that approach is of course that the kiddies being taught today have no idea what was taught in the past, and so this approach makes no sense to them and appears instead as a context-less mish-mash of themes that are boring and unmemorable.

Canadian history in Ontario, when I was growing up, was a particular victim of this process, having been hijacked by earnest educators with an agenda formed by 1960s socialism. What passed for history was an earnest parade of hard-done-by natives, minorities, workers and women. Which is not to say that natives, minorities, workers and women were not hard done by, but rather that the historical context in which they were hard done by got short shift: the curriculum was a "corrective" to a narrative structure that we were not in fact provided with. 

This lead to the widespread notion among Ontario schoolkids that the history of Ontario was the most boring in the universe - hell, many were surprised to find out that Toronto had once been burned down in a war, and that the Niagra penninsula was once the site of battlefields - our history teaching made little mention of stuff like that.

I get your point and sympathise with it on an emotional level, but speaking more from a devil's advocate position, consider this.

History is a bit of an odd animal compared to other common topics taught at school, as it does not provide a pupil with any specific skill or ability - from a certain perspective it is simply an exercise in erudition, providing information and some background context but not teaching any practical thing (unlike, say, maths or physics etc.) From that perspective, and considering the fact that you cant teach kids *everything* about the past in a history class, one could make an argument that providing the kids with this sort of social backbone/background towards teaching tolerance and diversity is more important than providing kids with trivia about what town burned down when or when some major battles were fought, no?

And while I agree that educators should strive to make lessons as interesting as possible, surely the boredom vs. interest aspect should apply more to the way lessons are taught, and less to the actual choice of topics, no?

[Ed Anger]

If I home school, I will teach them about Sulla. There, I compromised for you goddamn faggots.

[The Brain]

Home schooling isn't worth it. You need metal detectors, have to deal with retarded parents etc etc.

[Ed Anger]

Home schooling isn't worth it. You need metal detectors, have to deal with retarded parents etc etc.

[DGuller]

Home schooling isn't worth it. You need metal detectors, have to deal with retarded parents etc etc.

[Malthus]

I get your point and sympathise with it on an emotional level, but speaking more from a devil's advocate position, consider this.

History is a bit of an odd animal compared to other common topics taught at school, as it does not provide a pupil with any specific skill or ability - from a certain perspective it is simply an exercise in erudition, providing information and some background context but not teaching any practical thing (unlike, say, maths or physics etc.) From that perspective, and considering the fact that you cant teach kids *everything* about the past in a history class, one could make an argument that providing the kids with this sort of social backbone/background towards teaching tolerance and diversity is more important than providing kids with trivia about what town burned down when or when some major battles were fought, no?

And while I agree that educators should strive to make lessons as interesting as possible, surely the boredom vs. interest aspect should apply more to the way lessons are taught, and less to the actual choice of topics, no?

I disagree. From what I've observed, attempting to force-feed a solid diet of tolerance and diversity is deadly boring and does not accomplish its aims - what it does, is turn kids off the subject generally.

It is true that you can't teach everything, but what I think kids should have is (1) a basic understanding of the structure of history, even in simple narrative form, on which they can later hang the details; and (2) a reason to find it interesting - basically through stories that are likely to fire their interest.

As distorting as the old eurocentric and patriachal patriotic narrative-type history was, at least it contained interesting-to-children stories - even if they weren't accurate - and provided an essential framework. 

Speaking as someone who has shepharded a five-and-a-half year old around museums and galleries - you gotta at some level engage their interest and imagination. Explaining the history of the struggles of gays to find acceptance in society is simply not going to engage a kid's interest in the same way as stories about explorers, princesses or soldiers.

That is not to say you can't slip an interesting narrative about a particular gay into the mix to illustrate the struggle. But making a solid diet of it and you will lose the audience, in my experience.

[Neil]

The story of Alan Turing isn't liable to excite much interest amongst the young, even though he was Martinus' example of a prominent gay.

[Martinus]

As distorting as the old eurocentric and patriachal patriotic narrative-type history was, at least it contained interesting-to-children stories - even if they weren't accurate - and provided an essential framework. 

But isn't this more of a chicken-and-egg kind of thing? These stories are "interesting" because we have built entire culture around such stories being "interesting".

Also, consider to what extent your "children" means "boys".

[Neil]

Girls will be interested in Turing?

[Martinus]

Girls will be interested in Turing?

Most bots are female. QED.

[Neil]

Girls will be interested in Turing?

Most bots are female. QED.

[Malthus]

But isn't this more of a chicken-and-egg kind of thing? These stories are "interesting" because we have built entire culture around such stories being "interesting".

That may be true and it may not, but one thing is for sure: you will not overturn 'our entire culture' by boring kids in history class. 

Also, consider to what extent your "children" means "boys".

Here's an experiment:

Take a young girl*, and see if she is more interested in learning about (a) famous princesses; or (b) famous gays.




*Not literally, of course.