(no subject)

[shipperx]

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Full Article:
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/otherviews/123497829.html


Excerpt:

Where history is concerned, this is fast becoming a nation of ignoramuses and amnesiacs.

The alarm bell has been ringing for years. Consider "Losing America's Memory: Historical Illiteracy in the 21st Century," a 2000 study by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a Washington-based advocacy group.

Researchers found that the majority of seniors at the nation's best colleges could not identify the words of the Gettysburg Address or explain the significance of Valley Forge. They did not know, the study concluded, because they had not been taught. History, the study said, was no longer a requirement in the nation's top schools.

And then, there is a 2006 assessment by the Education Department's National Center for Education Statistics, often called the Nation's Report Card. It found that nearly 40 percent of high school seniors could not identify the purpose of the Lewis and Clark Expedition {...}  If kids are bored by that, who can blame them? And who cares?

We all should. No child should be able to finish public school, much less college, without a firm grasp of American history. Because history is not dust. Nor is it myths we tell to comfort and acquit ourselves.  Nor is it a lever we twist in order to gain political advantage. No, our history is the master narrative of who we are.

It is a narrative of slaves and soldiers, inventors and investors, demagogues and visionaries, of homicide, fratricide and genocide, of truths held self-evident and of government of the people, by the people and for the people....

(rest of article: http://www.startribune.com/opinion/otherviews/123497829.html ) 

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Book Rec's in this regard:
Lies My Teacher Told Me 
(Professional review:  Americans have lost touch with their history, and in Lies My Teacher Told Me Professor James Loewen shows why. After surveying eighteen leading high school American history texts, he has concluded that not one does a decent job of making history interesting or memorable. Marred by an embarrassing combination of blind patriotism, mindless optimism, sheer misinformation, and outright lies, these books omit almost all the ambiguity, passion, conflict, and drama from our past.   From the truth about Columbus's historic voyages to our national leaders, Loewen revives our history, restoring the vitality and relevance it truly possesses.

Thought provoking, nonpartisan, and often shocking, Loewen unveils the real America in this iconoclastic classic beloved by high school teachers and history buffs alike. )

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Back to fannish material:

Meanwhile, in the totally fictional (and bloodsoaked) history of Westeros (Game of Thrones), I have finished about 85% of Storm of Swords now and...

OMG I hate Cersei Lannister!  I want deeply horrible, vile, horrible, dire, awful, painful, excruciating, horrible things to happen to her!

I don't hate her in a 'she's a villain and so I hate in  a love to hate" way where I wonder "Hmm... what scheme will she come up with next?" while mentally rubbing my hands together in anticipation (Littlefinger has me intrigued in this regard) .  No, the hate I bear for this character is  "I know she's only a fictional character but I want something truly permanent, horrible, and painful to happen to her, and I will most  likely cheer any character that can do it ...because did I mention that I HATE her?  Because I do!" 

*ahem*

Back to your usual LJ broadcasting....

Comments

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

So very true, most High Schoolers can tell you the plots of their favorite television shows or the goings-on of their favorite celebrities but are clueless to anything regarding their own history - including the name of the Mayor of their own City or their Governor. This I know because of a questionnaire the local High School would give out for the Seniors to find the answers to.

What a world.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

Yay history! Though I always find it a bit weird, quite how much emphasis is put on American history in the US. I think I would have been bored to death if we had that much Austrian history. And I still think even here we focus too strongly on western history. I mean all in all we spent maybe a month or so on Chinese history.

On Cersei: She's so horrible, isn't she. She gets even more horrible when she has her own chapters. She so insanely stupid.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Admittedly it was long ago, but as I remember it, most high school history was World History. A lot of U.S. history was bundled into "Civics" which was basically "Government". Although U.S. history did also feature in American Lit (Federalist papers and all that).

Generally, History as a subject is largely underdone. The main reason I scored highly in History on college entrance exams was the fact that I had a thing for historical novels when I was in high school. Otherwise I think I don't know how much history I would've had at all.

And, I think my Lannister hate has now focused on Cersei because, by this point, who else is left? My only internal debate is who most deserves the honor of getting to kill her. Tyrion, Sansa, Arya? Possibly Jaime? Can there be a gang killing? I want karmic justice to be done!

[paratti.livejournal.com]

She's definitely a Murder on the Orient Express stabbee in the making and only ever more so.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

I always had a thing for history and a really brilliant history teacher in school. He made history come alive and there's so much I still remember. If chemistry wasn't so much more lucrative it's what I would have gotten my degree in.

I hope I'm not spoilering you, if I say, it looks like you'll get your wish by the end of Feast. Only I'm not sure I want to read it. It's bound to be a horrorfest.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

OMG I hate Cersei Lannister! I want deeply horrible, vile, horrible, dire, awful, painful, excruciating, horrible things to happen to her!

Hee. I'm guessing you read the bits I was sort of alluding to in my journal now? The reason, I ended up skimming ahead, and even went and scanned parts of Feast for Crows - because I got worried about Tyrion and really, really wanted to strangle Cersei. I think I spent the last 100 pages of that book wishing Cersei would get it.

She does by the way - at the end of Feast, from a surprising source and in a satisfying way. (I know because I scanned ahead.) I'll give Martin this - he does plot a fairly karmic universe, but much like daytime soap operas it takes forever for the character to pay for their crimes and when they do, you often forget why you wanted them to in the first place. (Although I don't think that was ever true about Cersei - she's a bit too mwwaaahhaahaa evil - which is a big weakness in the books that they appear to be trying to remedy in the television series. They've already added two things to make her more likable and sympathetic. I think Martin's original intent was to make Cersei the female equivalent of Tywin Lannister, cold, calculating, all about his own legacy and power. Her father's daughter literally. Which isn't sexist at all. It's actually interesting. Except...for the fact that Jamie and Tyrion are nicer and have redeemptive arcs and Cersei is painted fairly black and white. I remember it grating on me.)

Regarding the history?

They don't know Valley Forge, the Gettysburg Address or Lewis and Clarke? Well, that does explain a lot...but..
okay, granted, my father is a frustrated historian so I was going to get that information regardless, but still- I remember being inundated with early American history leading up to the Civil War from the first grade to the fifth grade, to the point that I could recite it by memory. How much of it was truly accurate is another thing entirely. Remember my father being annoyed that my high school history teachers' had degrees in Physical Education, not *cough*history*cough* and one was a libertarian (we were living in Kansas - 85% of Kansas considers itself to be libertarian and they define it the same way Sarah Palin does.) Too much emphasis on math and science, not enough on the humanities...except our math and science departments suck too. Should rephrase that - too much emphasis on "computer science".

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

When I was in elementary school, every year we had World History, but there were breaks where one year would be Geography and another year might be Tennessee History. In high school, it was required that we have one year of World History, one year of U.S. History, and one year of U.S. Government. However, these classes were not taught per say. The teachers were the male coaches who didn't feel they had to do their jobs because of "FOOTBALL!" so we were on our own. I enjoyed history quite a bit, so I would carefully read through the textbooks and do the worksheets the coaches always "forgot" to pass out. The most memorable thing any teacher in a history class ever did was he forced us to watch an online clip of an aid worker being beheaded just after the start of Bush's war. It was memorable in being something I wish I could forgot.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Holy cow. Seriously? He wasn't censured for that?

Weirdly enough the best history teacher I had in high school was the year I had the head football coach. Admittedly, he liked to spend a lot of time on WWII, but at least it was clear that the subject interested him... or at least WWII did.

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

Holy cow. Seriously? He wasn't censured for that?
Nope! And he wasn't censured for letting the football players chew tobacco and spit huge gobs of it in the trash can so that the janitorial staff got slimed when they emptied the bins. He called the Japanese exchange student a derogatory name for a Chinese person, frequently made statements that any woman who didn't want to bang him was obviously a man-hating lesbian, made "Democrat-bashing" part of the curriculum, and eventually had to quit his job because he had sex with a 15 year old cheerleader who then claimed she was pregnant and her father was going to make the two of them get married... until it was discovered that she wasn't actually pregnant, just wanted to marry the coach... I hear he's currently teaching at an all girls high school.

[powerofthebook.livejournal.com]

I had this exact experience when taking history in high school in North Carolina! The only class with a formal history teacher was the one class that we all needed to pass as a requirement - US History. My World History teacher was the golf coach, who would assign us keywords to define from each chapter, then stand in front of the class and practice his golf club swings. I think students would be more historically literate if public schools would take it seriously.

Another interesting phenomenon is the incomplete historical course - no course I ever took in public school ever got closer to the present day than the end of WWII. Whether things like the Vietnam War or more present politics were considered too controversial to teach, it was never really touched upon. It's a shame, because I don't know half as much about the Vietnam, Korean, or Cold Wars as I would like to.

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

Now that you mention it, I don't remember ever getting through the end of WWII until I was in college (I had many, many marvelous history classes in college), but I think that the farthest I've gotten in a class was still around the end of the Vietnam War. I've been really interested in learning about what was going on in the 1980's as far as world and U.S. politics go, but I'm wary of researching on the Internet about it... I really wish we had a decent library where I live.

[queenofattolia.livejournal.com]

I hate Cersei too, so it drives me nuts that the TV series is softening the character. I suspect this is because the actress's participation hinged on making the character more "complex" - that is, rewriting her history and motivations so that she doesn't come off as a complete monster. Please.

Cersei is one of the great villains of the books and they've turned her into someone who used to "love" her husband (and had an otherwise non-existent baby with him out of "love") and who is carrying out her father's mandate because 1) her brothers are incapable of it, 2) she is a mother fiercely protecting her child and 3) she was wronged and thwarted by her awful husband and so had to take his power. Please. Martin was pretty plain about Cersei's nature in the books: she's a power-mad, selfish, vicious LOON.

I'm really tired of watching Lena Headey furrowing her brow thoughtfully and making quiet, measured observations. CERSEI IS CRAZY. When the hell are they going to show it?

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

I think I learned as much history in SCHOOL as every other American kid (i.e., not much, or summed up as John Adams says in 1776, "Franklin smote the ground and out sprang George Washington, fully grown, and on his horse, and then the three of them, Washington, Franklin, and the horse, conducted the entire revolution"), but I was so fascinated by it, and I read so many books, that I just sort of continued learning.

Of course, I never understand people who AREN'T interested in learning more about any subject... I can't figure why Americans are so proud of being dumb. There's a girl I work with who seems to be bright and on-the-ball, and she honest-to-God doesn't know the order of the months. "November is eight, right?" "No, eleven!"