California lawmakers pass bill to teach gay history

[DGuller]

And I googled it, and was wrong.  Jefferson was a decade before, Jackson only the last two years.  The 1820s saw the memorable presidencies of Munro and John Quincy Adams.

Both were actually pretty memorable for certain things.  One for the foreign policy decision that defined US, and one as an example of subversion of the will of the people.  And I knew that in high school without googling it.

[Queequeg]

Every Greek, most Romans, a lot of Arabs, and David Bowie.

Bowie is married.  To a model.  And he has kids.

[HVC]

ya, but how much do you know about William Mackenzie King

[crazy canuck]

ya, but how much do you know about William Mackenzie King

Now that is one memorable guy!

[HVC]

ya, but how much do you know about William Mackenzie King

Now that is one memorable guy!

and he's from the 20's*. it's a perfect fit!

*different century though

[Valmy]

Now that is one memorable guy!

Wasn't he famous for being really boring?

[Barrister]

Now that is one memorable guy!

Wasn't he famous for being really boring?

He's famous for talking to his dead mother...

[HVC]

Now that is one memorable guy!

Wasn't he famous for being really boring?

and a slighlty insane momma's boy. what made it insane was that his momma was dead. Still, longerest running PM in common wealth history, helped make the foundation of canada what it is today (semi-socialist, peacekeepers). Plus he somehow managed to win even though everyone hated him.

[Razgovory]

Now that is one memorable guy!

Wasn't he famous for being really boring?

He's famous for talking to his dead mother...

That's all I remember him for.

[crazy canuck]

Now that is one memorable guy!

Wasn't he famous for being really boring?

and a slighlty insane momma's boy. what made it insane was that his momma was dead. Still, longerest running PM in common wealth history, helped make the foundation of canada what it is today (semi-socialist, peacekeepers). Plus he somehow managed to win even though everyone hated him.

Plus the King-Bing affair, starting us down the road to our current ineffective drug laws but making opiates illegal  - mainly to reduce the ability of Chinese immigrants to pay the head tax and generally being an icon of Liberal Party policy.

[alfred russel]

You know what, I couldn't tell you who was president in the 1820s.  I can make some educated guesses (Jefferson? Jackson?), but I don't know for sure.

I think there's more to being informed than giving out rote information of names and dates.

And I googled it, and was wrong.  Jefferson was a decade before, Jackson only the last two years.  The 1820s saw the memorable presidencies of Munro and John Quincy Adams.

It differs from place to place, but I think the general rule is for Americans to have 3-4 years of American history from middle school on. If after that much focus on American history you were putting the presidencies of Jefferson and Jackson in the same decade, there would be a major problem.

A few of the pivotal moments of American political history were the Missouri Compromise, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Tariff of Abominations. Arguably you could be knowledgable about the Missouri Compromise without knowing who was president, but the Monroe Doctrine and the tariff you could not. The basic background of the Monroe Doctrine was the post napoleonic fragmentation of the spanish empire, so any student should know both the president and the approximate dates. That Quincy Adams (and the tariff) followed Monroe and that Jackson followed Quincy Adams is really fundamental to the period.

[Martinus]

I always found "Black history" terribly dull.  It seemed to be aimed at making African Americans feel better about their heritage.  As a consequence I always felt it was not meant for me.  I remember we watched some kind of video about African American history, with a bunch of notable accomplishments.  I got in trouble when I scoffed at the line "We (presumably meaning African-Americans), built the pyramids."   I pointed out that I could have said, "We built the Kremlin or the Great Wall of China", and would have been about as correct.

And this show the other reasons why this approach to teaching history is problematic.  It is aimed at making members of certain groups feel good about themselves, rather than actually teaching anything;  and while it's a method that claims to be inclusive (it can be summed up as "hey, let's not leave out the contributions of women and minorities"), it's actually exclusionary.

I think it's kinda funny since all history is what you describe. In fact, if I remember correctly, the original reason to include history on curriculum - in the 19th century or the 20th - was to instill patriotism - i.e. be both exclusionary and make people feel good about themselves. Only now the focus changes to other people, so don't be a spoil sport only because it is no longer about white heterosexual male.

[Oexmelin]

I can tell you, without going into the need for reciting theory, that the teaching of history in Ontario in the early 1980s was a dismal failure because it was deadly boring

Yes, you've already said that much. Though how we are supposed to evaluate failure - or dismal failure - remains a mystery. I think you had a better point when you diagnosed the problem as the providing of a corrective narrative without the original one having been presented.

It does not take a degree in psychology to understand that such pandering is not as interesting to children as tales of royal scandals, political skullduggery, and military conflict.

I bow before your superior knowledge of human psychology, but I still have high doubts about the mind-riveting power of political skullduggery amongst the general crowd of early teens - when one excepts young boys - boys, mind you - who come from already highly politicized families. In any case, it would be much better to know *what* history we are talking about, and for whom. History for Carl running around in a museum? For 7 y.o. kids? For teenagers?

Grumbler already made the better point, I think, and it accords with my experience as a museum educator: kids (and people in general) crave stories. The stories of war have been an easy answer to such a craving, because it contains high level drama, usually had clear-cut good guys and bad guys, or, more politically correct, winners and losers, and a more easily identified beginning, middle, or end.

But when one wants to move away from great men theories of history, or individual actions, it is not that stories become impossible to tell. It is just that such stories either become much more anonymous, and that their subsequent strength lies in numbers ; or they become much more abstract.

Still, it is highly possible to find such stories to tell. People are fascinated by the daily lives of their ancestors - and this has very little to do with great men and what not. They find good stories there. Kids also like to think about the various ways people lived, what they ate, how they made clothes - so it is not like this is hugely boring. It might be to a crowd which craves blood and war, but that is not the only kind of student there is.

Underscoring the importance of political or military history on Languish is playing to the crowd, and emphasizing social history attracts mockery, so let's consider instead economic history. Is it not important? Should it be left out of curriculum? It is not like economic history lends itself well to any sort of highly personalized story with heroes, villains, clear beginings, high-level drama... It has to be constructed that way, tied with all sorts of other concepts which we consider have relevance to our daily lives, whether we want to emphasize the rise of liberalism or denounce its side-effects. Nothing prevents us from doing the same with social history - nothing, that is, short of our own biases.

[Valmy]

Underscoring the importance of political or military history on Languish is playing to the crowd, and emphasizing social history attracts mockery, so let's consider instead economic history. Is it not important?

The key parts of any history curriculum, IMO, are the big three: social, political, and economic history.  They should be taught chronilogically with clear cause and effect links to the best extent we can.  At least those are the characteristics of the strongest history curriculums currently, and I believe historically, taught in the United States.  Once you nail that down then extra themes and particular overarching forces can be added.

Do people on here hold social history as being worthy of mockery?

[derspiess]

The key parts of any history curriculum, IMO, are the big three: social, political, and economic history.  They should be taught chronilogically with clear cause and effect links to the best extent we can.  At least those are the characteristics of the strongest history curriculums currently, and I believe historically, taught in the United States.  Once you nail that down then extra themes and particular overarching forces can be added.

Do people on here hold social history as being worthy of mockery?

No, but I'd rather replace it with sports history.  Kids these days don't know any sports history