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Ch. 1 - Handicapped by History: The Process of Hero-making

#164: Feb. - April 2019 (Non-Fiction)
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Re: Ch. 1 - Handicapped by History: The Process of Hero-making

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Yes, you break the larger group into small groups so that they can interact. The basic insight behind it is that the learning is much greater per period of time from the student using their "mental muscles" than from passive exposure to facts and narratives.

If you don't believe me, try the following: think back to some time when you did a research report on a topic. Now think back to a really interesting non-fiction film, lecture or other presentation, say a TED talk or a biopic or Ken Burns' "Civil War". Which do you have an easier time retrieving content from? If you are like me, and apparently most people, you can remember things you wrote or researched more than things that were well-presented. One's own intellectual activity links much more solidly than just "interesting" does.

The big concern is that the "smart" kids will dominate and keep the "slow" kids from doing intellectual activity. That is a major issue, but research shows that both do better, because the slow kids get their questions cleared up by asking the smart kids, and the smart kids get the benefit of explaining stuff.

So what really matters is not that the larger class have the "right" issues discussed, but that as much intellectual activity as possible by students takes place. Obviously that doesn't work if the syllabus is ignored, and it does take skill to design learning tasks that benefit from small group discussion, but in general it is worth it.
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Re: Ch. 1 - Handicapped by History: The Process of Hero-making

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I've read as well that smaller class size, a very expensive option for schools, does not by itself make kids better learners. The teacher needs to use more individualized, intensive methods in order to take advantage of the smaller class size. Granted, teachers deserve to have manageable work loads, less crowd control, fewer papers to grade.
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Re: Ch. 1 - Handicapped by History: The Process of Hero-making

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Agreed, I didn't mean to make that out as some kind of panacea.

Getting back to the book, I find more disturbing the propaganda being taught about America. Even if teachers were aware of the real history -- and I suspect a lot of them aren't, relying mainly on the same textbooks -- they may not have the incentive or the inclination to teach it.
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Re: Ch. 1 - Handicapped by History: The Process of Hero-making

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capricorn152244 wrote:
Introduction
The introduction to the book gives us a look into the motivations the author had hen wrote this book. He makes a number of claims, a number of which I think warrants some examination or discussion:

1. History is unique amongst high school subjects as its generally disliked and uninformative (and as a result students must unlearn in college what they learned in high school.)
First, thanks for organizing these questions. I can't weigh in on what high school students like/dislike about their history classes, or whether history is bogeyman no. 1. I didn't check to see whether Loewen has research to back up his claim, or if instead it is based on anecdote.
2. The way history is taught is inferior: disconnected from the present, overly optimistic, moral signalling on patriotism, taught as memorisation.

3. History textbooks are terrible.
I don't see disconnection from the present as being a terrible flaw. The other three, yes, those would turn students away or make them just dutiful regurgitators. Adolescents have good detection systems for adults BSing them. On the other hand, I think that many would not appreciate a "wartful" approach if they sensed a teacher agenda behind it. I tend to think that little emphasis should be placed on "grand sweeps," whether from conservative or liberal sides. Expose students to historical materials; de-stress interpretation at this stage.

There is something depressing about these student history tomes. It's partly their size ,futile attempts to be comprehensive, and generality. But I suppose I understand that logistically, there needs to be a single volume rather than many small ones. Although with everyone having classroom access to the internet (I guess), the 10-pounder could get the boot, who knows.
3. What was your relationship with history (as a course subject) when you started reading this book? Did you like history in school? Do you study it on your own for fun?
I enjoy history much more in the form of biography, when I can see how an individual reacted to his times, than as superficial narrative of events with names thrown in. But I also have enjoyed the Big History approaches of Jared Diamond and Noah Yuval Harari. Sad to say, I retain no memory of high school history classes. I don't think I liked them much. I did come out of h.s. with a basic U.S. history timeline in my head, so I know someone taught me something.
2. Loewen discusses the reasons history is narrowed in history textbooks and courses, and he judges the motivations to be all around bad. As a society and culture, what do we stand to lose from treating history this way? Now, a little juicier: as a society and culture, what do we stand to gain from treating history this way?
You asked earlier whether in 2019 history texts are still "this bad," and I wonder, too. But assuming that Loewen is correct that by and large they mislead by omission and sometimes by misstatement, the worst effect is wasted opportunity for students to develop critical thinking. I think history offers perhaps the best opportunity for growing that skill, better than science does, in fact. The gain, if any, would have to relate to national heritage. The textbooks aim to give students a sense of our heritage, and there seems to be little sense if the heritage is not presented as positive. So I don't necessarily believe the motives for the rose-colored glasses are bad. However, "warts and all" can be a practical approach that gives students a rounded, real-world view, if done with an even hand.
3. Woodrow Wilson is clearly portrayed as a spheres-of-influence type diplomat in this chapter. Do you agree? Do you find it hard to reconcile all the good things you heard about him before reading Chapter 1 with all the bad things you read about him in that chapter (I mean here having to treat a historical figure as a human being rather than an ideal or a simple "good" or "bad").
I'm not well informed on Wilson. My social archetype of him is based mostly on his idealistic attempt to bring the nations of the world together. Such an aspiration seems to conflict with lack of idealism on race and foreign relations. I'd like to see textbooks draw no general conclusions about any figure, not attempting to reconcile contradictions, because usually they can't be reconciled.
4. Loewen ascribes a lot of the racial climate both culturally and politically to Woodrow Wilson's position on non-Whites, citing a number of bills passed and policies enacted. Do you feel that claim is warranted? Does the president signal moral cues that allow people to act out their racism both then and now? The president of the US can be thought of as the head of both state and government. In countries where the head of state isn't the head of government (e.g. the UK where the queen is the head of state, and the PM, Teresa May, is the head of government). Do you feel distilling the two roles into a single office makes the transition from cultural sentiment to law more efficient? And if more or less efficient, is this desirable?
Addressing just the first question, Loewen is justified in his conclusion based on the evidence he gives, though this still doesn't nail down that he is right. His saying this is one thing in this book, but if he is saying that textbooks should state such a conclusion, I disagree.
5. The Espionage and Sedition Acts were both passed into law during the First Red Scare in the US (1917-1921), and Loewen cites Wilson's use of his new Postmaster General to suppress mail for its ideological content. The suppression itself sound outrageous, but we also live in a time where email in the US can be easily accessed by the government for "surveillance". Does privacy trump security here? Do you feel like the suppression of mail on the internet is a major problem (if it were to happen)?]
John Adams took a similar course as I recall. I can see that it would be rewarding for students to explore the forces and pressures that existed to make Wilson think a suspension of basic constitutional rights was needed. Emphasis being as much on these forces as on Wilson himself as leaning toward tyranny.
6. I have often heard of something called "the Disney version" meaning it has been whitewashed or sanitised for general consumption. However, a lot of classic Disney stories have come recurrent, (and not altogether ideal) situations: parents being dead/killed/absent, someone/thing evil trying to kill the main character, etc.). Do you feel saying "the Disney version" is warranted?
When I think of Disney version, I picture the end to Disney's "Cinderella" and compare it to the Grimm's version in which the stepsisters have to dance in red-hot iron shoes. I think Disney version is well understood as the good-always-triumphs, positive version. Calling the textbooks Disneyfied makes some sense.
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Re: Ch. 1 - Handicapped by History: The Process of Hero-making

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LanDroid wrote: As to Helen Keller, I wasn't aware of her political stances, but Loewen does not mention another area that prevented history text authors from honoring her whole story: religion. "She was an ardent follower of the Universalism of Emanuel Swedenborg, a mystic born in 1688." I don't know much about what he taught, but it's far enough out there that Keller's beliefs could not be detailed in mainstream history textbooks. So by excluding important aspects of her life such as political activism and religion, we're left with the superficial outline of Keller's life that Loewen complains about.
I feel like I should be ashamed of how little I actually know about her life, especially as much as she was talked about in my house when growing up. Although to be fair, I got the mythos version of her (thanks, Granpda). A lot of the other subjects or people Loewen discusses as we move forward, I knew much more about than the textbook he's critiquing let on, but I imagine my supposed level of knowledge of American history is about to take a bruising :slap:
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Re: Ch. 1 - Handicapped by History: The Process of Hero-making

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Harry Marks wrote:
capricorn152244 wrote:3. History textbooks are terrible.
Discussion Questions for the Introduction:
1. Do you agree with any of Loewen's claims in the introduction? Did you have experiences in high school (or college) that run counter to his claims?
No, not really. I was trying to think (in part because it is possible I will be a history teacher next year) how to do better. I think a grand narrative about democracy and rights would open lots of interesting discussions. Why people in the minority need to be protected from the majority, and what that might imply for protecting the rich from redistribution of income as well as for protecting races and religions from bigotry.

I think there is too little understanding of economic forces, but they were raised for us in connection with the Civil War and why the North won.

Loewen's big point (IMO) about repressing feelings of those whose groups have been victimized was spot on. This business of avoiding discussion of awkward facts is an ancestor of our post-truth approach to politics today.
Yes, I have to agree, my understanding of economic forces from high school, and even college history classes was woefully lacking owing to absence of information. Now I feel like I'm playing catchup going through learning economics on my own and seeing the very large, very powerful lines economics draws through history. I really, really wish someone had told me all of this when I was in high school; it makes understanding history and its succession of events quite a bit easier for me.

I agree too with the repression of victimised groups' feelings, and moreover how our current state of post-truth politics and even culture can be traced to failing to recognise or care about the people around us.

Currently I struggle with how we can get back to a place where the truth actually matters, although the past few years in the US have been so bad I begin to question if it ever was that way or if that was just another delusion of mine about the kind of country the US is. To my mind, people simply caring about the truth rather than what feeds their confirmation bias would be a good start, but I don't know if that's just wishful thinking on my part.

Do any of you see a good way to working toward a post-post-truth society (if you will forgive the awkwardness of such a phrase)?
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Re: Ch. 1 - Handicapped by History: The Process of Hero-making

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DWill wrote:I tend to think that little emphasis should be placed on "grand sweeps," whether from conservative or liberal sides. Expose students to historical materials; de-stress interpretation at this stage.
DWill, you ignorant slut. Interpretation is "meaning" and "relevance." However, I think a strong case could be made for letting students construct opposing interpretations. "Wilson was enlightened and ahead of his time on collective security, even if he was socially reactionary." vs. "Wilson was arrogant and obsessed with his own righteousness rather than working with the forces acting in history," or some such contrast. Neither should be endorsed by the teacher, and that way they begin to learn that there are many ways to interpret a set of facts.
DWill wrote:I also have enjoyed the Big History approaches of Jared Diamond and Noah Yuval Harari.
Ha! See, interpretation is wonderful. Actually, I am thinking I also enjoy finding flaws in those "big history" sweeping narratives. Though often that amounts to finding the exceptions that prove (i.e. "probe") the rule.
DWill wrote: The gain, if any, would have to relate to national heritage. The textbooks aim to give students a sense of our heritage, and there seems to be little sense if the heritage is not presented as positive.
Yes, I suppose, some positive heritage is a valuable resource, for each of us as well as for the mutual commitments that hold us together. I appreciate the Howard Zinn-ish critiques of the heritage narratives, but I don't think the critique is very valuable if you don't understand the basis for the claims of the patriotic view.
DWill wrote:I'd like to see textbooks draw no general conclusions about any figure, not attempting to reconcile contradictions, because usually they can't be reconciled.
I see. This is perhaps the basis of your view that I objected to above. I agree with you up to a point. Because there are many things going on at once, no single fact or incident represents confirmation or disconfirmation of a general tendency.

For us economists, the test of a good theory is ability to predict. If one predicts significantly better than others, or even than a null hypothesis, then you give it a lot of respect. But no prediction is anywhere near certain, at least in economics.
DWill wrote: I can see that it would be rewarding for students to explore the forces and pressures that existed to make Wilson think a suspension of basic constitutional rights was needed. Emphasis being as much on these forces as on Wilson himself as leaning toward tyranny.
Yes, I think this is exactly right. Ability to understand the forces at work, and to put oneself into the mindset of the various players, is a vital skill for critical thinking, about history but also about human interaction going forward.
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Re: Ch. 1 - Handicapped by History: The Process of Hero-making

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capricorn152244 wrote: Yes, I have to agree, my understanding of economic forces from high school, and even college history classes was woefully lacking owing to absence of information. Now I feel like I'm playing catchup going through learning economics on my own and seeing the very large, very powerful lines economics draws through history. I really, really wish someone had told me all of this when I was in high school; it makes understanding history and its succession of events quite a bit easier for me.
Yes, one good example is the Progressive movement in the farm states in the late 19th century. The role of an inelastic currency, and what deflation does to debt, the enormous sloughing of workers to go to cities, yet at the same time the general improvement in the lot of farmers, all play into understanding William Jennings Bryan and, for that matter, the Roosevelt-Taft-Rockefeller saga.

To understand why the explosive growth of railroads in the North mattered so much to the Civil War, it isn't enough to know how much quicker the troops could be moved. Students would have much more perspective if they knew that incomes of Iowa farmers multiplied by four to ten times in the 1840s when they could shift from raising grain, which could last the slow trip to Eastern markets, to raising cattle, which needed quick shipment but sold for much more money. Quadrupling income is a dramatic change.
capricorn152244 wrote:Currently I struggle with how we can get back to a place where the truth actually matters, although the past few years in the US have been so bad I begin to question if it ever was that way or if that was just another delusion of mine about the kind of country the US is. To my mind, people simply caring about the truth rather than what feeds their confirmation bias would be a good start, but I don't know if that's just wishful thinking on my part.

Do any of you see a good way to working toward a post-post-truth society (if you will forgive the awkwardness of such a phrase)?
I think about it a lot, but I fear I don't arrive at much in the way of answers. It helped me to recently read Tara Westover's memoir of growing up in survivalist Idaho, "Educated." The forces opposing realism and honesty are heavily intertwined with gender roles and the poor, pitiful male ego.

I might even say the solution (if one exists) is likely to follow from men learning to accept lower status. "Promise me son, not to do the things I done. Walk away from trouble when you can. It don't mean you're weak if you turn the other cheek. You don't have to fight to be a man."
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Re: Ch. 1 - Handicapped by History: The Process of Hero-making

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With hindsight we know that Wilson’s interventions in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Nicaragua set the stage for the dictators Batista, Trujillo, the Duvaliers, and the Somozas, whose legacies still reverberate.
Wow, that is a lot for our hero to live down! :chatsmilies_com_92: Let's forget that lesson so we can repeat it yet again as soon as possible!

As to Wilson's racism, I expect it comes much more from the culture rather than him setting an example. The KKK made a strong resurgence right around that time including a huge march in Washington DC. Large crowds lined the streets, not to taunt and shout them down, but to watch and cheer! Talk to the average citizen at the time and I expect they'd sound similar to modern neo-nazis.
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Re: Ch. 1 - Handicapped by History: The Process of Hero-making

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Harry Marks wrote:DWill, you ignorant slut. Interpretation is "meaning" and "relevance." However, I think a strong case could be made for letting students construct opposing interpretations. "Wilson was enlightened and ahead of his time on collective security, even if he was socially reactionary." vs. "Wilson was arrogant and obsessed with his own righteousness rather than working with the forces acting in history," or some such contrast. Neither should be endorsed by the teacher, and that way they begin to learn that there are many ways to interpret a set of facts.
Well pardon my sluttishness, Chevy Chase! You're the one who might be wading into history teaching, not me, and I think that's a good thing. I might go nuts with internal debating before I could ever broker this subject with 25 adolescents. Needing to take into account the differences between freshmen and seniors, intellectually, plus the variations of learning styles, literacy, and analytic ability within a grade--I wish you luck and success if you do it. History seems the most difficult of subjects to me. I can understand why teachers want to make it rather cut-and-dried, just the facts, ma'am. I'm not set against that approach entirely, either. How does anyone get into her head the basic outline of what happened, so that she doesn't end up completely clueless telling Jay Leno that Churchill was a great Civil War general?
Harry Marks wrote:
DWill wrote:I also have enjoyed the Big History approaches of Jared Diamond and Noah Yuval Harari.
Ha! See, interpretation is wonderful. Actually, I am thinking I also enjoy finding flaws in those "big history" sweeping narratives. Though often that amounts to finding the exceptions that prove (i.e. "probe") the rule.
Now I have to wriggle out of an inconsistency (gulp). Big History is the biggest sweeper of all. With my fuzzy use of the word 'interpretation' I think I had in mind moral interpretation, which BH seems to avoid pretty well since it hardly mentions individuals at all and floats above moral judgment.
Harry Marks wrote:
DWill wrote: The gain, if any, would have to relate to national heritage. The textbooks aim to give students a sense of our heritage, and there seems to be little sense if the heritage is not presented as positive.
Yes, I suppose, some positive heritage is a valuable resource, for each of us as well as for the mutual commitments that hold us together. I appreciate the Howard Zinn-ish critiques of the heritage narratives, but I don't think the critique is very valuable if you don't understand the basis for the claims of the patriotic view.
Another way of looking at the heritage question would be to, for example, speak of our treatment of native peoples as much a part of our heritage as our great Declaration. That would hurt, but maybe it should. What troubled me most about Zinn was the lack of context, the implication that America's flaws were unusual aberrations in societies and showed America as being worse by comparison. History should be taught comparatively. There, I've got something to stand on (for now).
Harry Marks wrote:
DWill wrote:I'd like to see textbooks draw no general conclusions about any figure, not attempting to reconcile contradictions, because usually they can't be reconciled.
I see. This is perhaps the basis of your view that I objected to above. I agree with you up to a point. Because there are many things going on at once, no single fact or incident represents confirmation or disconfirmation of a general tendency.
How about trying on this as a distinction to guide teaching: is history class to be about historiography or history? I'm thinking that in a basic sense historiography increases with the age and intellectual ability of the students. Earlier on it is mostly about what we think we know of the facts.
Harry Marks wrote:
DWill wrote: I can see that it would be rewarding for students to explore the forces and pressures that existed to make Wilson think a suspension of basic constitutional rights was needed. Emphasis being as much on these forces as on Wilson himself as leaning toward tyranny.
Yes, I think this is exactly right. Ability to understand the forces at work, and to put oneself into the mindset of the various players, is a vital skill for critical thinking, about history but also about human interaction going forward.
Perhaps related to this point, history is going to make students have strong feelings of sympathy or antipathy and of side-taking. Those are signs of engagement, at least. How does a teacher avoid stifling these feelings while encouraging students to go deeper, where they might find reasons to acknowledge feelings others have about the matter? I was thinking about the Southern argument that the CW was about state rights, not slavery. I'm pretty sure that slavery was the key point of conflict, but was state rights just something the South cooked up for cover? I don't think that is true, either. All of us need to be willing to take an empathetic look at the other side.

Edit: In the first line of the post, I should have said, of course., "Dan Aykroyd." So does historical error creep in.
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