[IAEP] Historian David McCullough endorses constructionism?

[James Simmons]

In the United States teaching History is very political.  A little
less than half the country believes that our civil war had nothing to
do with slavery, that our founding fathers were deeply religious and
wanted to create a Christian nation, and many other things that are
not true.  School boards may require children to be taught these
things, and they will not approve textbooks that have anything
negative to say about our history.  As a result the approved textbooks
of U.S. History are very dull reading.

If someone was foolish enough to allow me to teach a History class to
impressionable children there is a wealth of good material in Project
Gutenberg and the Internet Archive that I could have them do reports
on.  Thomas Paine, for instance, is considered a hero to the
conservatives here for writing the pamphlet Common Sense.  Their heads
would explode if they read some of his later writings, and PG has
them.

I do think that a U.S. History class could be valuable and enjoyable
for children if it was allowed to be.

James Simmons


On Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 11:11 AM, Sameer Verma <sverma at sfsu.edu> wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 2:05 AM, Yamandu Ploskonka <yamaplos at gmail.com> wrote:
>> It is a nagging feeling I have that in the lack of understanding of cause
>> and effect lies a lot of what is wrong everywhere, especially in countries
>> that do not seem to be able ever to get out of the "subdesarrollo"
>> (underdevelopment) - and also help us to avoid debt ...
>>
>> I see History and Science as venues where cause and effect can be learned,
>> understood, and hopefully become part of what people are empowered with.
>>
>> Interactive History can make that subject be useful, beyond the traditional
>> memorizing of dates and events, and actually start reflections of the "what
>> if?" type
>>
>>
>
> Yama,
>
> The are very good observations indeed. Not only does interactive
> history provide context, it provides a flow that explains how the
> world came about to being what it is today (not good or bad, but just
> how it is).
>
> Growing up in India, we were told how Sanskrit is the mother of all
> languages worldwide and nothing was ever before it. This is of course
> a very ethnocentric view, and is quite common around the world, but we
> were not allowed to question it. We also did not get to ask the how or
> why. For instance, learning about the origins of Brahmi script, which
> is considered to be the root of many South Asian languages, is very
> interesting because it connects Brahmi to Phoenecian and/or Aramaic
> (not to be confused with the language Amharic). Brahmi did not happen
> in a vacuum! Languages travel, and the world is a lot more fluid than
> a political map :-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmi_script
>
> I also find that learning about cause and effect helps in
> understanding the difference between causality and correlation -
> perhaps the most important lesson I learned in my doctoral program :-)
>
> cheers,
> Sameer
>
>>
>> On 06/19/2011 11:19 PM, Gonzalo Odiard wrote:
>>
>> Good reading, thanks.
>>
>> Gonzalo
>>
>> On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 5:45 PM, Nicholas Doiron <ndoiron at andrew.cmu.edu>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> This interview in the Wall Street Journal discusses history education and
>>> a couple of interesting, interactive lessons which could be programmed. We
>>> don't have many history activities in Sugar
>>>
>>>
>>> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304432304576369421525987128.html?mod=WSJ_hps_sections_opinion
>>>
>>> --
>>> Nick Doiron
>>>
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