scary

[pastwatcher]

What if the only significant educational "reform" we manage in the next few years is Christian-imperialist American history? The history classes I took were pretty bad even when it came to US history, and my world geography still sucks. (I still can't BELIEVE that I never learned about our 20th-century genocides, such as the Japanese in WWII, or the horrific cage-->abuse-->kill "educational" program for Native American children.) But I'm pretty sure this would be worse.

EDIT: Though maybe I should be taking seriously the threat that growing creationist education poses to scientists. (I've never been one to say that religion should be abolished altogether; spiritual religion is a comfort to people, institutionalized religion can do good things as well as bad. But I abhor any mentality that enables people not to take responsibility for their own morals and actions...so I'm starting to wonder.)

Comments

[scazon.livejournal.com]

If you are interested in bad American history taught in schools from elementary through high school levels, I can recommend no book better than James Loewen (http://sundown.afro.illinois.edu/)'s Lies My Teacher Told Me (http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780743296281-5). He tackles your question head on, exploring why we teach horribly distorted versions of history in schools (a significant part of it is the fault of the textbook publishing industry, which he discusses at great length in one of the best parts of the book). I also recommend his Lies Across America (http://www.powells.com/biblio/2-9780743296298-2), which is a similiar sort of idea except he looks specifically at historical sites/monuments and examines how and why they get wrong what they get wrong. (If it's not obvious, I'm a huge James Loewen fan. I've just embarked on reading his newest book (http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780807749913-0) which I picked up in Powells in Portland last weekend, which is about specific pedagogical methods for teaching history.)

[pastwatcher]

I've added them both to my to-read list (on Goodreads)! Thanks.