Goodbye to Western Civilization- a failure of the school system
http://www.washingtonpac.com/Article...htm#BarryRubin
absolutely scary. also very saddening, that fear would restrict teachers from giving truth and knowledge to our children. and if this is how it's going to be, then we have a lot to worry about, this would be just the tip of the iceberg. soon we wont talk about freeing slaves for fear of bringing up controversy in the classroom. Imo, controversy is what fuels discussion and learning, without that, our teachers have failed at their jobs.
Re: Goodbye to Western Civilization- a failure of the school system
Chrissy, you should always check first if these are urban legends. Snopes is a good source to start.
Re: Goodbye to Western Civilization- a failure of the school system
i do live by snopes, but thats a real article in a newsletter i get...
Re: Goodbye to Western Civilization- a failure of the school system
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Chrissy68
...controversy is what fuels discussion and learning, without that, our teachers have failed at their jobs.
Yes, this is disturbing. The part that bothers me the most is that they aren't putting up a fight. They are surrenduring willingly, and that's why this is such a shock to me.. I would think that teachers, of all people, wouldn't worry about the backlash associated with speaking their minds. They are supposed to be supporters of knowledge, of learning, of expression and free thought... What the hell?! :O
Re: Goodbye to Western Civilization- a failure of the school system
Don't think for a minute that censoring of education is limited to the west. I went to China, where you get arrested if you speak ill of communism. They love to harp and victimize themselves about how the Japanese colonists brutally enslaved and raped them, but have conveniently forgotten how many people died in the multiple Leap Forward programs. In Japan, a lot of schools downplay or even deny the brutal treatment of "Comfort Women" during WWII. In England, they downplay Oliver Cromwell.
Every country does this except Germany, who is forced to be penitent for the sins of the fathers for eternity.
Re: Goodbye to Western Civilization- a failure of the school system
Okay. I found it a little misleading. It is not a mandate of the department of education and skills to remove the holocaust from teaching syllabus. It is a decision by individual teachers and classrooms and schools; The DfES is just noticing it. And while I disagree with it in reference to the holocaust - if you were teaching in a classroom where you knew or suspected that raising discussion of the holocaust was going to raise discussion of holocaust denial - I mean, you might take it off as well just sheerly in the interest of avoiding hate speech in the class. Like, Chrissy - how would you feel if you were 14 and were faced in class with a bunch of holocaust deniers? I mean you would probably feel... bad.
Again, not saying I agree with it, especially in that context - I don't. But from the other side, it is not just sensitivity to the nasty muslims that is likely fueling it.
Further, although the holocaust is as fairly certain a historical fact as anything is, there are other things that are maybe a little greyer. The contemporary Israel/Palestine conflict for example. It is a subject that many people who feel like they are party to it cannot be reasonable about. Is it justified keeping that out of classrooms? At least out of mandatory classrooms?
Re: Goodbye to Western Civilization- a failure of the school system
Boy was I surprised when I found out that people DIDN'T come over on the Mayflower and have a wonderful turkey dinner with the nice "Indian" people... History is biased (since it's all been recorded by PEOPLE) so there are often many ways to look at it... But I mean... come ooonnnn.
Re: Goodbye to Western Civilization- a failure of the school system
Jenny- you bring a good point about. sure, i realize what those particular teachers are trying to do but to spare anyone's feelings, on any side of the discussion, i think is the wrong way to go about teaching. it's like walking on eggshells for that discussion and then i feel it becomes a slippery slope of eggshell-walking. i agree, sure, 14 year old me would feel very bad abotu it, but i also know that i would go home and, on my own time, track down information and learn even more about the topic to come back into school with. i'd assume that the deniers may not react the same way, increasing their own knowledge about it on their own time, but if it's not being taught in schools, where will they ever get the opportunity or chance to hear the other side? sparing someone's feelings is one thing, but not teaching about the Holocaust, or freeing slaves etc., is a whole new level. IMO teachers need to know how to handle the situations of possible deniers to any historical fact before teaching it.
Re: Goodbye to Western Civilization- a failure of the school system
Boys and girls, say it with me:
HOME SCHOOL!
Re: Goodbye to Western Civilization- a failure of the school system
^^Home schooling in Britain isnt as popular as it seems to be in the USA, nor is it possible for alot of people to do.
I think the article says something about the British school system. I bet not all schools are considering dropping this topic. At a guess I would say just some of the inner city ones that already have other problems relating to lack of qualified teachers, order etc. I could be wrong, but that would be my guess.
On the other hand perhaps schools are considering teaching a more world view of history? I thought the report seems a little OTT and slightly biased, or maybe they read the worst into what they read in the paper - I would have liked to have seen the article and known which newspaper it was. (Britain has some real shitty ones :-D)
Probably the debate about the Holocaust would be better fitting for a different subject anyway. Do we really need to keep harping on about the war anyway?
What I learnt about WW2 in the British school system was different to what my Australian friends learnt and different again to what my European friends learnt. We also learnt almost nothing about other countries history.
Ah, thanks for the link to snopes Chicagoeditor! My first guess was pretty much right then (-:
Re: Goodbye to Western Civilization- a failure of the school system
History is pretty censored. Australian history seems pretty shame-free, though... but as my friend said, "We don't have to lie - there's not enough there to hide!"
But yeah... It's funny how you hear of the awesome turkey dinner about 10 years before the Trail of Tears.
Re: Goodbye to Western Civilization- a failure of the school system
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bella21
Boy was I surprised when I found out that people DIDN'T come over on the Mayflower and have a wonderful turkey dinner with the nice "Indian" people... History is biased (since it's all been recorded by PEOPLE) so there are often many ways to look at it... But I mean... come ooonnnn.
You mean they werent nice to the Indians? Im sure they have sorted things out and are friends now after the slavery and genocide of most Indian tribes.
This has been happening already. I went to both Catholic school and public school and learned different ways. If it wasnt bad enough that the history books were so old the last president was Nixon it was everything else around me. The classroom conditions of 35-45 kids per teacher, fattening food served at lunch, and the lack of actual helpful resources for a child to go to for help for anything. This is just going to be icing on the cake if this gains momentum. A cake that will lag behind in its foreign counterparts.