[Adjutant Stormy~]

Now of all the assertions, you begin to press into the racist borderlands with the notion of a race of bastards.

Worry, you can hate the brevity, you can hate the listlessness of teachers, or the choices of administrators in history education. All of those symptoms are completely disagreeable, and in many cases, despicable.
But history is always a debate. Someone inevitably wins the argument by strength of their evidence and their correlations (or by the importance of their POV, in a POV-based argument).

And I can see that we differ plainly on my striving for constant objectivity.

[Cause]

worrywort, on 12 May 2010 - 09:29 AM, said:

1. That last line was half-joking, but I find it strange that you seem unwilling to accept that some people are simply bigger rat bastards than others. Nurture undoubtedly plays a role in the development of a child's rat bastardy but we can also see from rat bastard prodigies that the luck of the draw on genes can play a role as well. Jews, blacks, indians, white people all form groups which while not sexually distinct from the other groups do seldom share genetic material with each other. Why not a race of total rat bastards?

Well played Sir! Well played. However while its undoubtedly an effective debating strategy making me seem a fool, it does little to answer what I said. I Still stand by what I said earlier in this thread and what I have said in my last post. I believe intelligence like height and even aggression must in some part be linked to our genes and environment. I myself suffer a genetic mutation/variation from the base stock, I'm color blind, such things undoubtedly exists and occur. If we can breed a better race horse we can breed a better human. Though so often its hard to tell what would be better, depends on circumstance.

However where innate intelligence or aggression is linked to our genes so too is what we do with it. All humans black, White or Indian strive for the same basic needs. We need food, water and shelter for ourselves. We want food, water and shelter for our immediate group. When our group is stronger than another we can all see the advantage of taking their goods or forcing them to make goods for us. Every race in history has been shown to behave in this manner. In the same way while Asians might be smarter than white people or vice versa both eventually got around to inventing writing, the printing press, watercraft etc. After all while someone with an IQ (I know its controversial but I got nothing else) of 107 is better than someone with 105 I have nou doubt they can both work out the same problem. The only difference is when.

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2. And I believe you are 100% wrong. It's a pat, completely depersonalized, completely un-nuanced perspective that would describe history in any other terms but as a debate.

History is a science like any other. It can be divided into facts (WW2 happened), hypothesis (WW2 happened because Hitler was a suppressed homo), theory (ww2 happened because the treaty of Versailles placed economic and social pressures on Germany which allowed an extremist national socialist party to assume power in .....). Its hardly difficult to agree that WW2 is a more important historical event than the Spanish civil war that occurred only a year earlier. As for nuance, the story of Anne frank is an exciting, heart wrenching story that puts a human face of history. In the grand scheme of things such nuance is pointless. History is not a story, it can be told in such a form, it can be enjoyed in such a form but true history is an understanding and exploration of past events.

Similarly blacks were slaves in america. We can learn about the economic benefits, the economic pitfalls and the human suffering of slavery. We can learn about the causes that lead to it happening and ultimately how it created the civil war which ended it. At no time do we need to examine the life of every black slave for his nuanced perspective.

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3. I'm not striving for objectivity. In fact, if one can say I have a thesis at all, it's that POV is vital to historical study and that the more POVs you marginalize in the debate (to an extent, not going overboard here), the weaker your overall grasp on history will be. It's not really taught as a debate at all in grade school, which is one of the great disservices to young inquiring minds as far as I'm concerned. On another note, I'm not atoning to anyone, and your accusation ain't appreciated. America survived on tobacco and then "King" Cotton, the latter not at all exclusive to the South given northern textile manufacture and the overall cash intake to the US from exports. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the colonies wouldn't have had their revolution without slavery turbo-charging the economy.

I answer some of this above. Yes history must be undertsood from the viewpoint of every culture that participates but nuance and POV is a mistake in anything but the broadest brush strokes.

As for the rest yes I have agreed that slave power gave the colonies their power. But does the wielding of that power which allowed their revolution belong with the black slaves or with the whites who had had them captured in africa, shipped to america and finally owned in america. To say that blacks saved america is as I have said intellectual dishonesty and bending over backwards to find a positive spin on black history when their is none.

[worry]

1. Stormy, it was still a joke, even the second time. Get offended all you want, but I was quoting (with slight tweaks) a post you personally repped. Cause, I can't argue with your first point and was never really arguing against it. People are violent. But in terms of the thread I figured turnaround is fair play. Have whites ever had to confront this issue in terms of their inferiority rather than assumed superiority? Not historically. In terms of intelligence I think the notion is pretty silly, but we've covered that in this thread pretty extensively already.

2. History is not simply the documenting of past events, and learning from the most "important" of them. I can see we disagree here pretty much entirely. You can dictate to me and everyone else that we don't need to get the perspective of individual slaves, because what's important is the science, and I'd say you're left with a Frankenstein's monster version of events (the movie version, not that sprightly young chap from the novel).

3. We seem to disagree on what the facts are, let alone how to interpret them. Our argument there could simply be variations of "You're wrong" back and forth. It appears you are arguing that the individuals harnessing slave power trump the actual toil of the slaves, a very top-down view of events. If you're getting the sense that I think slaves saved America like Superman saves Lois Lane, then you're just being dismissive. If you're getting the sense that I believe teaching the experiences of slaves is just as important as teaching the Declaration of Independence, then you're right on the money. I believe it would be intellectually dishonest not to address slave perspectives in the United States. See how I used similar language to express a different opinion, and somehow find that my position is at least as valid as yours? That's history. I mean, you suggest that slavery ended with the Civil War as if that was a fact. It was outlawed, can't argue that, but it didn't end by a long shot. We get taught it did, because that is what the popular narrative has settled on, and that's why I think the rigidity in your argument is dangerous. Even in science, what was once settled can be upset by new observations. With history the tendency is to say "facts are facts," and I understand that inclination...but sometimes the facts aren't facts, and sometimes all we have is a Rashomon situation, and sometimes there is more than one lesson to be learned from a set of events -- lessons that aren't universally of equal importance to every individual. And why should they be?

This post has been edited by worrywort: 12 May 2010 - 07:22 PM

[Adjutant Stormy~]

Don't worry, worry. Not offended, just observing.

Historiography is a realm of debate that we'll never make any headway on. My brother and I have this argument all the time.

[Horangi]

@ Worry

I guess the one clarification I would like is- just how bad was your history class? I remember that my AP US history class at a public high school in South Carolina spent probably over a third of the days studying Native American tribes (pre-columbian and post colonial interactions), the institution of slavery, and the civil rights movement. In fact, I remember we were essentially required to spend the last month on civil rights knowing that at least one of the major essays for the test was likely to be on the movement. While I'd love to think that South Carolina deserves credit for being on the cutting edge of educational reform, I'm forced to skepticism by the fact that we once believed that, in reference to the education system, our license plates should have read "thank god for Mississippi." I just recently started rewatching the PBS documentary series Ken Burns: The Civil War on netflix and noted that the thing is just filled with quotes from Fredrick Douglas (eloquently voiced by Morgan Freeman). While I don't doubt that there are some parts of the country that are so inculcated with 'rah rah' America jingoism that negative sides are glossed over, I have a hard time thinking that your average school is ignoring black history in the curriculum.

The historian in me does think that we succumb too much to 'great man syndrome' when it comes to teaching the subject. However, the realist in me agrees with others that, quite frankly, the average student out there is unwilling to (note I didnt say 'unable to') learn history through the lens of social theory, cause-and-effect relationships, or virtually any other facet that includes critical thinking. Before we can correct the method of teaching history we have to make education the number one priority of parents as a whole. I think that attitudes such as 'let kids be kids' or 'it was good enough for my parents, so its good enough for my children' have become convenient excuses for parents not to make their primary goal in life be the education of their children.

This post has been edited by Horangi: 12 May 2010 - 08:32 PM

[Cause]

Will respond in greater detail tomorrow. Im off to sleep. Just wanted to quickly say that black slaves no more saved america than my car will drive me to varsity tomorrow morning. I see now that you obviously meant something other than what you said or at least not as strong as what your words suggest. However, I still must argue that my 'top-down' view of history in this case is the more accurate. Slavery (The institution) empowered america, its wealth and its power not the slaves themselves. Slavery and the suffering it causes and how the abolitionist movement grew ground for various reasons including humanitarian concerns is best illistarted with a more personal point of view.

I apologize for stating that the civil war ended slavery. I of course ignored the outliers (if I may use that term) and the rest of the world. I was trying to be simple for the sake of our argument an must also confess a great deal of ignorance on american history beyond its broader scope.

[worry]

Stormy, I meant "offended" with a decidedly little o. We're all just talking here, no biggie. Just pointing out that it was a joke made in the context of this thread, not an anti-white non sequitur straight from the gall bladder.

Horangi, that's awesome, but my experience wasn't nearly so great. I had a near-retirement WWII buff for a teacher who left our lessons up to the textbook. Again, the argument I'm making is in the context of this thread (and the Black History Month stuff). I don't think racial bias is the only problem by any means, but I do think it's a major problem. I also think the fact that we have one year of world history and one year of US history in high school is ridiculous. Freshman year is wasted, and we only got one semester on civics (shared the year with economics) in the final year. I'm in Southern California, don't know how universal that is. And obviously it varies teacher to teacher, but in terms of school textbooks I (obviously) think I'm right...and there are plenty of students and teachers who learn rote from textbooks. Ideally, I think we should spread US History over two years, perhaps the colonization (itself a problematic place to "start" history) up through Civil War, followed by Reconstruction through the present.

[Epiph]

Horangi, I think judging the entirety of the educational system by your AP classes is going to be a little misleading. I took Pre-AP World History in 9th grade (and AP US History in 11th and AP Gov't and Econ in 12th) from the Most Awesome Social Studies Teacher Ever. I learned so much in that class that, in 10th grade, when I went back to regular world history to avoid the bitchy AP European History teacher, I knew more than my teacher and corrected him so much that he let me spend the period in the library and just take the tests. Which really doesn't say much for a non-AP history class.

[Adjutant Stormy~]

I can say that I don't really understand the terrible high-school history education experience, because mine was awesome. I mean, history in middle school was a waste of my time, and elementary school? Who pays attention in elementary? I have a bit of a skewed POV.

I took world, US, European, and really enjoyed myself. For each class we had several texts, we were regularly assigned a few hundred pages a night. We covered SO MUCH material, but you can understand why I recommended to read another text, because that was our teachers' solutions.

[MTS]

A few hundred pages a night? I could understand per week, but that's 2 or 3 texts' worth of material a week. I'm not even assigned that much reading and I'm doing 2nd year history at university. Besides, if you had that much material available to you, I would gather that you went to a school fairly high up on the socio-economic ladder, so it's hardly indicative of high school history as a whole.

This post has been edited by MTS: 14 May 2010 - 05:16 AM

[worry]

I wouldn't consider my experience terrible so much as typical or even better than average, for Southern California. Nobody went without textbooks, but we did only get the textbook for history courses. Any outside reading would be for a project, personally chosen from the school library, and I wouldn't say this happened more than once per semester (and like I said above, two years of high school history total...sophomore and junior year).

This may not be of interest to anybody else, but I've been reading my high school's 2009 Accountability Report Card.
54% of students are socioeconomically disadvantaged.

Subject proficiency is currently as follows (Students Proficient and Above on California Standards Tests):
English-Language Arts 40%
Mathematics 11%
Science 37%
History-Social Science 28%

Yet the graduation is relatively high, at 87% (and was probably higher when I attended, though with the one school there were nearly double the amount of current seniors). And perhaps one would argue, if the students don't know the material then they shouldn't be graduating. I don't hate that idea, except for the fact that in non-elective classes there are typically 30-40 students (AP courses and normal courses alike), despite the law limiting high school class size to 32. There are three middle schools in this town, and two of them are on the verge of closing down, so we're pushing everyone into a single school. I was a sub for a while, focusing mostly on middle school and class sizes were already worse than high school on average. It's pretty overwhelming. I guess I'm musing a little too much, but to bring it back on point what I'm saying is that a workload like the one you had would be impossible to handle even for the best teachers here, in classes with the highest achievers.

This post has been edited by worrywort: 14 May 2010 - 06:13 AM

[Cause]

worrywort, on 14 May 2010 - 06:11 AM, said:

I wouldn't consider my experience terrible so much as typical or even better than average, for Southern California. Nobody went without textbooks, but we did only get the textbook for history courses. Any outside reading would be for a project, personally chosen from the school library, and I wouldn't say this happened more than once per semester (and like I said above, two years of high school history total...sophomore and junior year).

This may not be of interest to anybody else, but I've been reading my high school's 2009 Accountability Report Card.
54% of students are socioeconomically disadvantaged.

Subject proficiency is currently as follows (Students Proficient and Above on California Standards Tests):
English-Language Arts 40%
Mathematics 11%
Science 37%
History-Social Science 28%

Yet the graduation is relatively high, at 87% (and was probably higher when I attended, though with the one school there were nearly double the amount of current seniors). And perhaps one would argue, if the students don't know the material then they shouldn't be graduating. I don't hate that idea, except for the fact that in non-elective classes there are typically 30-40 students (AP courses and normal courses alike), despite the law limiting high school class size to 32. There are three middle schools in this town, and two of them are on the verge of closing down, so we're pushing everyone into a single school. I was a sub for a while, focusing mostly on middle school and class sizes were already worse than high school on average. It's pretty overwhelming. I guess I'm musing a little too much, but to bring it back on point what I'm saying is that a workload like the one you had would be impossible to handle even for the best teachers here, in classes with the highest achievers.

32 children to a class or not if only one out of ten are proficient in mathematics and yet somehow 4 in ten are proficient in science their is something profoundly wrong at that school that goes deeper than the teacher student ratio.

[worry]

Math is on average the worst subject for most students, so the relative difference between those subjects isn't surprising regardless of class size. But yeah, there are multiple problems that contribute to such low percentages, and class size is only one (though a major one). This place is a nexus of rural and urban problems, but it certainly isn't the only location with dire numbers. In fact, the year I graduated my school ranked 17 out of the 42 high schools in this county. But from school to school there's just an indefensible amount of discrepancy in opportunity, and as far as I know that is a nationwide condition. It's not a simple problem, and there's not a simple solution (and certain policies have made it worse rather than better).

[Cause]

Sorry, my point was that you need math to understand science so the discrepancy in the numbers troubles me. I was also pointing out that both figures are simply unacceptable.

[worry]

Ahh, I getcha. In terms of state standardized tests the science portion is usually biology, simple chemistry, and earth science...advanced chemistry and physics aren't considered necessary to graduate. Also, just for the record, exit exam averages for English and Math were higher than the general proficiency level, but still unsatisfactory (hover around 50% and 40%, respectively).

[worry]

This may seem apropos of nothing here (though I personally don't think so), but I didn't want to start a new thread. Some quick interviews of kids on their perceptions of skin color. The second and third are raw footage of some testing.

http://www.cnn.com/v....part1.cnn.html (5 min.)
http://www.cnn.com/v....part2.cnn.html (1 min.)
http://www.cnn.com/v....part3.cnn.html (1 min.)

[Shinrei]

Interesting videos. Nice to see that the older the children get, the more enlightened they apparently are.

[Harvester]

Well, I think the little African-American kids stated very interesting ideas.

This post has been edited by Harvester: 15 May 2010 - 05:42 PM

[Adjutant Stormy~]

MTS, on 14 May 2010 - 05:15 AM, said:

A few hundred pages a night? I could understand per week, but that's 2 or 3 texts' worth of material a week. I'm not even assigned that much reading and I'm doing 2nd year history at university. Besides, if you had that much material available to you, I would gather that you went to a school fairly high up on the socio-economic ladder, so it's hardly indicative of high school history as a whole.

I'm talking 200 pages ish

[hmqb]

Hmm somehow that doesn't seem true, but i think some do.