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Were Public Domain History Books "Wrong" In Their Day?


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I actually read in a book recently a suggestion that kids might like to play "cowboys and Native Americans", like it's fine as long as you don't use that I-word...

 

This thread is very interesting for me, with limited knowledge of American history. Here in Australia it's a bit different; the older accounts can fairly be assessed as wrong, because they were written to serve a particular agenda.

 

Dress ups, I feel they come under the Wittgenstein's Ladder heading. History and cultural studies are large and complex areas of knowledge, you have to use something as an 'in' to get kids started, and when they are older they can learn the fine details and nuances of privilege, cultural appropriation and so on. I'm not talking about "dress up as Black" which isn't something that should be still happening in the 21st century! But things like letting kids wear a Viking helmet with horns, even though vikings didn't actually wear those. 

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Ooo, have you read Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World?  That was quite an interesting read!

 

Yes, indeedy!  And the kids are ruefully awaiting me trotting THAT one out for history!  They've heard a bunch of it already, when I was reading the book.  But NOW I'll start trotting through some of the references, too....

 

Bwahahahahaha!

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DD13 hates to have to write book reports, so when she was still in brick & mortar school she opted for other alternatives, when given the chance.  The class together was reading I-forget-which book about the Lewis & Clark expedition, and DD13 really latched onto the family reunion between Sacajawea and her brother.  Instead of writing a book report she chose the diorama option from the list of alternatives the teacher provided.  DD13 made a rather detailed diorama Titled "Family Reunion", but was forced to use some rather stereotypical figurines because we couldn't find any better.  We modified a few according to DD13's specifications, and when she presented her diorama she not only explained the scene she selected and why, but also the historical inaccuracies she knew were present in her diorama.

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:iagree:  Many older books I have read lacked objective sources, so myth and rumor were more commonly found as fact.  With the wider accessibility to information, we are able to find more true accuracy about past events than the biased and somewhat uneducated opinions put forth in the past.  

 

My absolute favourite museum exhibit was in Paris at the National Museum of the Middle Ages. There was an actual "unicorn" horn brought back from North America to show the Europeans that there were unicorns in the New World. It was, of course, a narwhale tooth. Both fact and fantasy around the "horn" was part of the exhibit. This particular exhibit was kind of hidden off to the side, but it just screamed out at me, "History is telling stories for a particular purpose. The purpose can not be assumed to be to provide facts or accurate data." But that is really interesting in itself. Trying to figure out the WHY of the story.

 

It really is fascinating when studying history to uncover what people believed, why myths and mis-information was spread, why some facts were supressed, and how arrogant and ignorant some people were about others.  Sometimes historical information is just simply a mistake in reading a name, then the mistake gets printed and suddenly the mistake takes on the illusion of truth. Maybe I'm weird, but I find history much more interesting now that I've learned to think critically, question the sources, etc. than simply take everything at face value. Perhaps it's a bit like looking for the mistakes in movies, where an actor has a sword in his hand in one scene and it disappears somehow in the next. It just adds another element to enjoying the film.

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I don't believe that the newer books are always more accurate than the newer (or vice versa).  We have just as much slant now in them as we did before, it was just a different slant.  Like a swinging pendulum, history books don't seem to spend much time with out a slant.  

 

Although I do think that with more time than your examples, history could become more accurate as the remotes takes the politics out of it.  I remember in a Thomas F. Madden lecture he said that no one asks if the historian is a (the example was an extremely old opposing political parties.  I think one party was called a Gibble).  But they do want to know Republican or Democrat.  

On the other hand, remoteness can bring on its own loss of accuracy as we don't understand how life was.  

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Yes, indeedy!  And the kids are ruefully awaiting me trotting THAT one out for history!  They've heard a bunch of it already, when I was reading the book.  But NOW I'll start trotting through some of the references, too....

 

Bwahahahahaha!

 

Have you read his follow-up book, Secret History of the Mongol Queens?  I haven't yet, but have been meaning to. 

 

And if you've read it, is it as interesting as the first one??

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Have you read his follow-up book, Secret History of the Mongol Queens? I haven't yet, but have been meaning to.

 

And if you've read it, is it as interesting as the first one??

I haven't yet, but I plan to.

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I think that vintage books betray a stronger sense of racism and cultural superiority and a lack of the "big picture" that places historical events and peoples in context. I think the same is true of modern writings: read a newspaper or watch the 24-hour news cycle and observe how the "facts" change quite rapidly as new information is discovered, processed, synthesized, and delivered. Consider how difficult it is to get accurate information about breaking news even in our news-obsessed, technologically connected, crowd-sourced era. Imagine how much more difficult it would have been to fact-check and cross reference 100 or more years ago.

 

In the past, writing about history was not an academic discipline. We have refined the art/science of analyzing the past. Are we perfect? Of course not. Are we better than those who wrote in the past and did not consider their writing an academic discipline? Yes, I say we are. When I read these old textbooks and storybooks that are all RAH RAH Europeans! RAH RAH colonizers! BOOOOOO savages! I am well aware that many of the authors were writing for a much different purpose than serious scholars of today are. Were there serious scholars attempting to properly analyze history in the past? I don't doubt there were. Were there as many as there are today? I highly doubt it.

 

I think you have made this issue very personal, and I think your personal feelings are leading you to sweeping generalizations that many others don't see/haven't experienced.

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I think you have made this issue very personal, and I think your personal feelings are leading you to sweeping generalizations that many others don't see/haven't experienced.

 

Somewhere along the way, C.S. Lewis and many others who are quoting and expanding on his writing about chronological snobbery have come to the same conclusions before I did. I am not alone. 

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Yes, I am aware of the idea of chronological snobbery. I understand and agree with it to some degree. However, I feel that you have resorted to hyperbole to make your point, and in that way you have taken the case too far. For example, I see no evidence of a "mass boycott" of old books. 

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Somewhere along the way, C.S. Lewis and many others who are quoting and expanding on his writing about chronological snobbery have come to the same conclusions before I did. I am not alone. 

 

but surely that's a combination of argumentum ad populum and argumentum ab auctoritate....

 

I'll answer your question (not sure if it was rhetorical) from way back in this thread: Yes, I actually do think our grandparents were wrong on many, many things & yeah, I think we're better.

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Yes, he was considered horrid by some of his contemporaries and equals   At least the ones with a conscience -though of course others happily did much of the same things, especially those who could gain fortune this way. But it's not just us looking back that find the things he did horrific.

 

Bartolome de las Casas wrote an entire book condemning the Spanish treatment of the natives in the harshest terms, and tried (in vain) to change things. He was a contemporary of Columbus. You can read a bit here.  Here's a very brief excerpt: And Spaniards have behaved in no other way during tla! past forty years, down to the present time, for they are still acting like ravening beasts, killing, terrorizing, afflicting, torturing, and destroying the native peoples, doing all this with the strangest and most varied new methods of cruelty, never seen or heard of before, and to such a degree that this Island of Hispaniola once so populous (having a population that I estimated to be more than three million), has now a population of barely two hundred persons.

 

 

 

But here is a perfect example of only knowing part of the story. Bartolome de las Casas did warn the Spanish that their cruelty to the Indians would eventually obliterate their societies. Instead of suggesting that the Spanish not use slave labor, he pointed to the superior strength and stamina of Africans and suggested that they be imported by the Spanish for slave labor. We all know the rest of the story! For what its worth, de las Casas was reported to be genuinely grieved for making this suggestion after seeing what happened to African people brought to the Americas as slaves.

 

I do think the truth of history is somewhere in the middle. We know and understand certain things today that were not known many years ago; however, as years remove us from the people and events, we cannot trust that we understand things as they were then.

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I have been thinking about this thread, but not really contributing because I'm not sure exactly how to articulate my thoughts. I'm still not sure if I can. I agree with the premise of chronological snobbery and the idea that our postmodern thinkers think they are so much more intellectually enlightened than anyone else in the past.

 

I don't know. All this stuff irks me to no end. I feel foolish that I never knew the horrors of Columbus until, what, 6 months ago? I remember in school being taught what a great adventurer he was and how brave he was.

But, the thing is.... he was brave. And he was a great adventurer. No coward could possibly do what he did. Just because he did to the Natives what everyone else did to the natives (I am absolutely not condoning this, but he's not the only one) doesn't negate his good qualities. There are other men in history who we applaud and yet did some pretty horrible things. People are complex, and I find that modern critics of history can be pretty extreme in their condemnation. I read a bio of Alexander the Great by Jacob Abbot and I love his final thoughts, I thought they were pretty balanced, and they give some insight....

"Alexander well earned the name and reputation of the Great. He was truly great in all those powers and capacities that can elevate one man above his fellows. We can not help applauding the extraordinary energy of his genius, though we condemn the selfish and the cruel ends to which his life was devoted. He was simply a robber, but a robber on so vast a scale, that mankind, in contemplating his career, have generally lost sight of the wickedness of his crimes in their admiration of the enormous magnitude of the scale in which they were perpetrated."

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No they did not live in igloos all year round. That is a fact. People with "boots on the ground" at the time and were living it never claimed that. They have artifacts of what dwellings they lived in. They also do not go by Eskimo each tribe has its own name from the area they come from.

 

I know there were groups that did not spend the winter in igloos and only used them for temporary shelter like warmer nations used tents. I'm starting to question all new generalizations as much as the old generalizations. Do we know that NO families of ANY group EVER spent the winter in igloos. I'm not so sure of that anymore.

 

I have the feeling that a family spending a winter in an igloo might be FAR more common that we are now being led to believe. Just like we are being told that tents didn't exist in deciduous forests at any time for any reason.

 

I wonder what people in 100 years will say about our books. The prevailing idea is that the future people will be even more righteous and view us in the same way as we view the recent centuries. Maybe not. Maybe they will focus on our extreme arrogance to our immediate forefathers and limited exposure to mostly modern written books as our greatest sin. And maybe our over-generalizations of over-generalizations.

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I wonder what people in 100 years will say about our books. The prevailing idea is that the future people will be even more righteous and view us in the same way as we view the recent centuries. Maybe not. Maybe they will focus on our extreme arrogance to our immediate forefathers and limited exposure to mostly modern written books as our greatest sin. And maybe our over-generalizations of over-generalizations.

 

I hope that they will view us a critically as we view those in the past and expose our prejudices and ignorances for what they are. Just because I think we do a better job of getting it right than did those writing 100, 200, or more years ago did doesn't mean I think we have perfected our knowledge.

 

Just as I wouldn't use an old book that stated that illnesses come from miasmas to teach my kids biology, I wouldn't use an old book that perpetuated false and negative information about historical peoples to teach my kids history. This does not make me arrogant.

 

And honestly, it doesn't matter whether one family ever spent the winter in an igloo. We can't account for the personal behavior and history of every human who ever lived. When we study culture, we are looking for the major truths. If someone wrote an ethnograph about American fashion of the 2000s and wrote about the preponderance of blue jeans, it doesn't really matter that some people are nudists. Most people wear jeans at least some of the time. We are not a culture of nudists.

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I wonder what people in 100 years will say about our books. The prevailing idea is that the future people will be even more righteous and view us in the same way as we view the recent centuries. Maybe not.

 

Well, that's a very whiggish view of history right there, one which ignores downturns both in the past and in the present. That's the point of view which goes "slavery was bad, and then Jim Crow was not quite as bad, and then we had the civil rights movement and now we have a black president" and ignores the fact that the 1920s were particularly awful in terms of race relations, worse than the decades immediately preceding. (You can substitute other examples, that was just the one that sprung to mind.) It's already not accurate, is what I mean.

 

 

Maybe they will focus on our extreme arrogance to our immediate forefathers and limited exposure to mostly modern written books as our greatest sin. And maybe our over-generalizations of over-generalizations.

 

 

 

You think they're going to pick that as our greatest sin over, say, the situation at Guantanamo? I mean, I dislike a lot of what got written down in children's history books* in the past, but I'd hardly call that *their* greatest sin, not when there are so many others to choose from.

 

* That's part of the problem. Most people, their knowledge of history begins and ends in middle school. For some things, such as Thanksgiving, it's even worse. Oh, they learn a few more details in high school, but not much, and they don't bother to retain most of it, particularly not anything that contradicts what they learned when they were younger, which wouldn't be so bad except even today there are plenty of people who think the job of history is to instill patriotism, not to learn the truth. The younger the child, the more those voices prevail.

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I have been thinking about this thread, but not really contributing because I'm not sure exactly how to articulate my thoughts. I'm still not sure if I can. I agree with the premise of chronological snobbery and the idea that our postmodern thinkers think they are so much more intellectually enlightened than anyone else in the past.

 

But, the thing is.... he was brave. And he was a great adventurer. No coward could possibly do what he did. Just because he did to the Natives what everyone else did to the natives (I am absolutely not condoning this, but he's not the only one) doesn't negate his good qualities. There are other men in history who we applaud and yet did some pretty horrible things. People are complex, and I find that modern critics of history can be pretty extreme in their condemnation. I read a bio of Alexander the Great by Jacob Abbot and I love his final thoughts, I thought they were pretty balanced, and they give some insight....

"Alexander well earned the name and reputation of the Great. He was truly great in all those powers and capacities that can elevate one man above his fellows. We can not help applauding the extraordinary energy of his genius, though we condemn the selfish and the cruel ends to which his life was devoted. He was simply a robber, but a robber on so vast a scale, that mankind, in contemplating his career, have generally lost sight of the wickedness of his crimes in their admiration of the enormous magnitude of the scale in which they were perpetrated."

 

Good point. Many people do not outgrow the lamentable tendency to group others into categories almost as simplistic as 'goodies' vs 'baddies', either putting historical figures on a pedestal as if they could do no wrong (whatever was good enough for the founding fathers...) or unjustifiably discrediting everything about them (Thoreau's writing is worthless because his mother did his laundry!).

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I know there were groups that did not spend the winter in igloos and only used them for temporary shelter like warmer nations used tents. I'm starting to question all new generalizations as much as the old generalizations. Do we know that NO families of ANY group EVER spent the winter in igloos. I'm not so sure of that anymore.

 

I have the feeling that a family spending a winter in an igloo might be FAR more common that we are now being led to believe. Just like we are being told that tents didn't exist in deciduous forests at any time for any reason.

 

I wonder what people in 100 years will say about our books. The prevailing idea is that the future people will be even more righteous and view us in the same way as we view the recent centuries. Maybe not. Maybe they will focus on our extreme arrogance to our immediate forefathers and limited exposure to mostly modern written books as our greatest sin. And maybe our over-generalizations of over-generalizations.

 

 

I think that looking at the book for itself and the evidence and coming up with your own sense of what was so, or not so makes the most sense.

 

I personally think that it easier to find better history books amongst newer books than older ones.  Including one that we are currently using that essentially starts out with what historians do and about the necessity for looking at and evaluating evidence, which maybe I'll come back and quote if I get a chance.  SOTW also started with a part that looked at how might someone know about the past. That aspect itself seems to me to be better in newer books as compared to older ones that tended to just tell it as if it was all known and factual. Newer books seem more often to say outright just what you are saying in a sense, that in 100 years we may look at things differently and have different information.

 

But I also think the emphasis on "vintage" versus "modern" is in some ways a false choice issue.

 

You can look at and evaluate a lot of books, and whether they are "good" or "bad" (or mixed) is not necessarily related to the age of the book. 

 

It seems like you are having a sort of personal issue of "abuse" with books, and see-sawing as between "vintage" and "modern."  But this may be like having had an abusive husband who was "old" and thus deciding that "old" is bad, and then moving to another husband who is "young" but also turns out to be abusive, and so deciding to go back to "old" and then after that deciding to go to "middle aged" not young or old, but still finding an abusive man--rather than stopping and saying, hey, wait a second, the issue should be "kind" versus "abusive" and  need to start looking for a kind, good man, rather than focussing on their age.  So too, I'd say, look for "good" books and that is not necessarily related to their age.

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My absolute favourite museum exhibit was in Paris at the National Museum of the Middle Ages. There was an actual "unicorn" horn brought back from North America to show the Europeans that there were unicorns in the New World. It was, of course, a narwhale tooth. Both fact and fantasy around the "horn" was part of the exhibit. This particular exhibit was kind of hidden off to the side, but it just screamed out at me, "History is telling stories for a particular purpose. The purpose can not be assumed to be to provide facts or accurate data." But that is really interesting in itself. Trying to figure out the WHY of the story.

 

It really is fascinating when studying history to uncover what people believed, why myths and mis-information was spread, why some facts were supressed, and how arrogant and ignorant some people were about others. Sometimes historical information is just simply a mistake in reading a name, then the mistake gets printed and suddenly the mistake takes on the illusion of truth. Maybe I'm weird, but I find history much more interesting now that I've learned to think critically, question the sources, etc. than simply take everything at face value. Perhaps it's a bit like looking for the mistakes in movies, where an actor has a sword in his hand in one scene and it disappears somehow in the next. It just adds another element to enjoying the film.

And, see, that spoils the movie for me!

 

These are some of the reasons I find history unappealing. I much prefer the process of trying to discern "truth" in science...

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"All or nothing thinking."

 

That's the phrase that keeps coming to my mind.  If the historical figure has done horrible things, then the current view is that we shouldn't be eager to discuss any of the good things.  And we have the burden of teaching kids all the bad in such a way as to taint anything that could be good.  

 

If I applied the current view of history to explaining the history and life of Grandma to the kids this is how it would go:

 

Original history of Grandma as explained to the developmentally concrete thinkers under age 11 in my house:

"Your Grandma loves you.  We believe that she loves the Lord and saw that as she served at tiny churches across the midwest, taking care of people on the margins of society.  She came to live with us because of her health and she needed help to provide for herself.  Her thinking is not so clear these days.  I know it looks like she doesn't care, but that is how her disease works.  Let me tell you some of the good things from Grandma's life that we remember. She experienced many challenges in her life, some of them very, very hard, but she still managed to find love in her heart to help other people. "

 

Updated history view:  Your Grandmother has feasted on bitterness, loved to talk about people behind their backs,  and has made very poor decisions for decades that have left her broke.  Due to her health issues and poor finances, she came to live with us, becoming a financial drain and time suck on our lives.  She was foolish and did not prepare for her final days.  Now, despite everything that we have done for her, she is ungrateful and angry and despite the fact that she has dementia, she has enough faculties left to announce that we are horrible people and she is moving to get away from us.  Her last days will be filled with unkindness, mental confusion and bitterness.  This is your Grandma.  And by the way, she helped out a few people in tiny, dying churches across the midwest.  We think she cares about you, but you will never see it anymore.  Here's to hoping you don't end up with Alzheimer's and a bitter heart like your grandma.  

 

 

The purpose of the second history view is to express the facts, with an emphasis calculated to inculcate shame.  And that seems to me that's what the current history view intends to do.  White people did really bad things in founding this country, the country is therefore not anything to be proud of, and furthermore, all white people today should take on that shame.  And furthermore, white kids need to feel that shame as soon as possible in their education.  And any history text from the past that would shed light on a different view is...shamefully inaccurate.  And anyone who wants a concrete thinker to experience history via costume should be ashamed of themselves.  

 

You have to admit--the shame thing it is an incredibly effective tactic.  I'm supposed to be ashamed of my entire 1980s rural midwest education--Columbus day coloring pages, Founding Fathers, AND an entire unit of study in second grade on Native Americans that culminated (for decades! this was a community celebrated event!) in 7 and 8 year olds holding a Pow Wow school assembly with every child in Indian costume.  

 

The irony is that my supposedly inadequate education didn't leave me powerless to become a critical thinker, unable to evaluate history or read historical sources with understanding.  

 

Someday, our kids will grow up, and they will figure out what was really going on with Grandma.  They will know we never lied to them.  But they will also know that we didn't try to burden them and their not yet fully developed brains with more than they could really get a handle on.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

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"All or nothing thinking."

 

That's the phrase that keeps coming to my mind. If the historical figure has done horrible things, then the current view is that we shouldn't be eager to discuss any of the good things. And we have the burden of teaching kids all the bad in such a way as to taint anything that could be good.

Your first example is an all or nothing example. Only the good stuff, none of the bad. IMO, it's not all or nothing, it's "Thou shalt never talk about any of the bad stuff or you're not patriotic enough to live in this country. And also, we don't need to talk about anything those brown people did for the same reason."

 

History isn't an all or nothing proposition. It is uncomfortable to admit one's privilege and one's failings and that's true both from a community and personal perspective.

 

As for the rest of your post about what "white kids" need. Ugh.

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You have to admit--the shame thing it is an incredibly effective tactic.  I'm supposed to be ashamed of my entire 1980s rural midwest education--Columbus day coloring pages, Founding Fathers, AND an entire unit of study in second grade on Native Americans that culminated (for decades! this was a community celebrated event!) in 7 and 8 year olds holding a Pow Wow school assembly with every child in Indian costume.

 

I see no evidence that you're supposed to feel ashamed. You are, however, supposed to be honest. The colonists did some good things, and some bad things. Here are some of the reasons. The founding fathers did some good things, and some bad things. Here are some of the reasons. The settlers... well, you get the point.

 

It doesn't benefit children to be lied to, because they never forget the lies. And then the lies take up the space in their brains that ought to be filled with the truth. If you're not going to teach the truth because you feel your kids are "too young", better to not teach history at all.

 

 

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"All or nothing thinking."

 

That's the phrase that keeps coming to my mind.  If the historical figure has done horrible things, then the current view is that we shouldn't be eager to discuss any of the good things.  

 

Recognizing the negative things and realizing that they, too, are history and should also be taught is not at all the same thing as refusing to ever discuss any good things. What we are witnessing now is an attempt to balance all the "RAH! RAH! RAH!" of the past way of teaching with a realistic account of history. Some see that as threatening, while plenty of others see it as simply teaching with honesty. The teaching of history has shifted from an emphasis on inculcating blind patriotism to an emphasis on understanding the whole truth.

 

I'm not ashamed of the historical inaccuracies I participated in during grade school. How could I have known? Now I know better, so I do better.

 

I'm not really sure how your Grandma story is supposed to relate to the topic at hand, but here's my summation of the teaching of history:

 

Before: Columbus was a stand-up guy! (opinion) He was so brave (opinion), and he discovered this whole new world (dubious fact), and it was great (opinion), because we colonized it (fact), civilized the heathens (opinion), and formed the best country ever (opinion)!

 

Now: Columbus was not the first person to discover America (fact). There were natives here for tens of thousands of years before he arrived (fact), and he wasn't even the first European to visit America (fact). Although Columbus' voyage opened the way for Europeans to settle the Americas (fact), the effect on the native peoples was devastating (fact). It definitely took courage to set out across uncharted waters (opinion), and the result is America (fact), but the issue is multi-faceted (fact), and here is the view from some of those who were conquered to balance the view of the conquerors.

 

Really, who wouldn't want to know the whole truth?

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I would like to point out, incidentally, that not all the devastating things that happened to the Native Americans were really the "fault" of white people, if fault is a word that implies intent.

 

Encomienda system? Definitely. Plagues? Not so much. Europeans had no clear concept of disease transmission, and would have been just as happy themselves to not have smallpox et al. Dispensing smallpox-laden blankets (much later on)? WOW THAT IS EVIL. Missionary efforts? In many cases, sincerely intended, even if you disagree with the goals and/or results. Trail of Tears? Bad... but many non-natives at the time recognized it, including the Supreme Court. So... were non-natives in this list good or bad? Or kinda mixed?

 

I think a lot of people are uncomfortable with a mixed or nuanced portrayal of history. That's one reason we see recurring love for names, dates, and battles. Those are easy. Complexity is hard. The trouble is, truth doesn't go in neat boxes like that.

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I think a lot of people are uncomfortable with a mixed or nuanced portrayal of history. That's one reason we see recurring love for names, dates, and battles. Those are easy. Complexity is hard. The trouble is, truth doesn't go in neat boxes like that.

And really, isn't this what people need? A slightly more complex, more nuanced, more messy, more realistic view of history and "heroes?" Don't we need people to look up to that are real enough to relate to? How exactly can we expect civilization to move forward (and become more civilized for a greater percentage of the world's population) if we never admit the mistakes of the past?

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Just so ya know, I use SOTW to teach my four younger kids history, KHE and UILE for encyclopedias.  My two older kids and I are reading SWB's History of the Medieval World this year.    :)  Seems pretty well rounded to me.  But do I spend extra time emphasizing all the negative horrible things with the 6, 7, 9, and 11 year olds?  No.  

 

Anybody remember this thread from last fall?  Spy Car and SWB having a dialogue about Constantine and how she presented him in SOTW?  It's a good thread about history and teaching it.  http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/487863-how-jewish-friendly-is-sotw/?hl=+susan%20+wise%20+bauer%20+constantine

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Stellalarella, You are too funny! :lol:

 

That was just an awesome portrayal of what some modern books are doing. Thank you for giving me a good laugh.

 

Maybe I shouldn't be laughing, because it really is not funny, but laughter is the way I deal with things.

 

SOTW does a wonderful job of trying to be balanced and truthful, but unfortunately not all modern books are seeking that same type of balance.

 

Back in the 90's my 5th grader came home telling me how evil George Washington was, and he didn't know a single positive thing Washington did, and when his younger homeschooled brother tried to tell him some, the boys almost ended out trading blows. "George Washington was EVIL and there is NOTHING good enough to make up for what he did! NOTHING counts! I don't want to hear it!" my older said, just about in tears.

 

This was the same class that did coed s3x-ed and handed out napkins to the girls in front of the boys, that the boys referred to as "diapers" as the girls cried.

 

At the very least, some of what is done in the name of "truth" is unnecessary, at least in grades K-6.

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Original history of Grandma as explained to the developmentally concrete thinkers under age 11 in my house:

"Your Grandma loves you.  We believe that she loves the Lord and saw that as she served at tiny churches across the midwest, taking care of people on the margins of society.  She came to live with us because of her health and she needed help to provide for herself.  Her thinking is not so clear these days.  I know it looks like she doesn't care, but that is how her disease works.  Let me tell you some of the good things from Grandma's life that we remember. She experienced many challenges in her life, some of them very, very hard, but she still managed to find love in her heart to help other people. "

 

Updated history view:  Your Grandmother has feasted on bitterness, loved to talk about people behind their backs,  and has made very poor decisions for decades that have left her broke.  Due to her health issues and poor finances, she came to live with us, becoming a financial drain and time suck on our lives.  She was foolish and did not prepare for her final days.  Now, despite everything that we have done for her, she is ungrateful and angry and despite the fact that she has dementia, she has enough faculties left to announce that we are horrible people and she is moving to get away from us.  Her last days will be filled with unkindness, mental confusion and bitterness.  This is your Grandma.  And by the way, she helped out a few people in tiny, dying churches across the midwest.  We think she cares about you, but you will never see it anymore.  Here's to hoping you don't end up with Alzheimer's and a bitter heart like your grandma.  

 

 

 

 

 

Neither of the above fits my idea of "history" unless it were to be some day a part of history because you wrote it down here and someone at some later time used it as just 2 contemporaneous pieces of evidence to try to get a fuller picture of Grandma and her time coming to stay with your family. Other research would also have to be done, including determining if this Grandma were made up or real. Consideration of the use of each of these stories and the audience you meant them for, and perhaps your angers and frustrations with Grandma (or just that you made up the second to act as an analogy for what you think of modern history books) would also need to be considered as a historian used the pieces to try to form a sense of what actually happened with Grandma and her time with you.

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I would like to point out, incidentally, that not all the devastating things that happened to the Native Americans were really the "fault" of white people, if fault is a word that implies intent.

 

Encomienda system? Definitely. Plagues? Not so much. Europeans had no clear concept of disease transmission, and would have been just as happy themselves to not have smallpox et al. Dispensing smallpox-laden blankets (much later on)? WOW THAT IS EVIL. Missionary efforts? In many cases, sincerely intended, even if you disagree with the goals and/or results. Trail of Tears? Bad... but many non-natives at the time recognized it, including the Supreme Court. So... were non-natives in this list good or bad? Or kinda mixed?

 

I think a lot of people are uncomfortable with a mixed or nuanced portrayal of history. That's one reason we see recurring love for names, dates, and battles. Those are easy. Complexity is hard. The trouble is, truth doesn't go in neat boxes like that.

One reason I liked 1491 so much is that it spent so much time discussing pre Columbian cultures. Not just building and agriculture and manipulation of the environment but also how one group dominated and subjugated others, then the wheel turned and a new group rose up, sometime to be put down and sometimes to be the new master people.

 

I thought it was a wholer representation of people as thinking, creating human beings.

 

Warfare, conquest and assimilation are long term trends in human experience. I don't see a lot of concern over the fact that the Angols or Picts were over run by Saxons. Or that the Anglo Saxon king was slain by a Norman marauder whose people took over the country and imposed new cultures and language for centuries.

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Hunter, thank you for understanding the Grandma anecdote.  

 

I value hearing forum folks' opinions about history and how to teach it.  It makes me think.  The spectrum of opinions has been a fabulous catalyst for personal study.  

 

Since I'm using what I consider to be well-rounded, secular history and science materials, since I take the approach of exposing kids to the facts (some good, some unpleasant), since I value an education that holds up the appreciation of various people groups, since I am educating a household of kids born out of different cultures, it might seem odd to some that I do take the view that it can be just fine to use older public domain books.  But for me, I value greatly the idea that the teacher-parent of the kiddo gets to direct the teaching.   I ordered Hillyer's history book for children, read it, appreciated some of it, found something else to use that I believed to be better, BUT feel no compunction to keep other people from using it.  

 

Whatever facts a kid learns (as if a kid even remembers everything correctly, for Pete's sake) if she learned them a first time, she ought to have the capability to keep learning in the future, right?  That's why we could all learn in our grade school years that Pluto was one of the planets and now as our gray hairs start coming in we can learn that Pluto has been demoted.  We humans can learn and keep learning.....unless someone teaches us that it is evil and shameful to learn, or that understanding a different viewpoint is evil and shameful, or that we are too stupid to learn, or through threat of harm, the joy of curiosity is stamped out of us.  

 

When we teach history, we are always doing so with a means in mind.  I teach the little kiddos the history of Grandma, but I'm doing it in such a way as to engender a sense of respect and duty of love (in the best sense of the word duty) toward Grandma.  They can learn more about her when they are older, right? If I wanted to destroy their love and respect of Grandma, I could also certainly do that by how I presented the facts.  

 

I am wary of goals in teaching history that slam historically contemporary accounts, history pedagogy that pushes agendas like unwavering patriotism or history pedagogy whose main goal is to illuminate white privilege, for two examples.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Hunter, thank you for understanding the Grandma anecdote.  

 

 

 

Whatever facts a kid learns (as if a kid even remembers everything correctly, for Pete's sake) if she learned them a first time, she ought to have the capability to keep learning in the future, right?  That's why we could all learn in our grade school years that Pluto was one of the planets and now as our gray hairs start coming in we can learn that Pluto has been demoted.  We humans can learn and keep learning.....unless someone teaches us that it is evil and shameful to learn, or that understanding a different viewpoint is evil and shameful, or that we are too stupid to learn, or through threat of harm, the joy of curiosity is stamped out of us.  

 

 

 

There was no way I could have misunderstood the Grandma anecdote. It was crystal clear and masterfully written. Thank you for putting yourself out there and making yourself vulnerable for the benefit of bringing a variety of input and voices into this discussion.

 

I feel the same way about science. I think learning vocabulary that is capable of describing our world and what is happening in it, is more important than getting all the "facts" "right". Students that learn how to read books, know a bit of math, and have some basic research skills are better off than a student that was spoon-fed more correct "facts". "Facts" are always changing. Trying to get them all "right" is like trying to grasp the wind.

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Whenever my little 6 yo comments on an anachronism in an older book, i try to remind him that his great-grandchildren will be judging him just as he judges his great-grandparents and that we are undoubtedly making our own mistakes.

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I am wary of goals in teaching history that slam historically contemporary accounts, history pedagogy that pushes agendas like unwavering patriotism or history pedagogy whose main goal is to illuminate white privilege, for two examples.  

 

Why would you be wary of illuminating white privilege? The history of our country is steeped in and predicated upon white privilege. If you don't learn this, if you don't understand it, then you don't understand the history of this country.

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Vintage books are good for demonstrating societal attitudes during a particular historical period. Better for cultural studies than history, imo. I don't believe that vintage history books, especially but not only those written for children, are more accurate. I think modern historians do a better job of presenting a balanced perspective.

 

Do I know better than my Grandmother ? About history, I venture to say almost definitely. In terms of national history, absolutely yes. That's good. She'd be pleased. I'll be pleased if my grandchildren's generation understands our history with greater clarity and complexity.

 

 

I think it can be hard to grasp things as "history" at the time one is living through it. I have a better understanding, in many ways, of what was happening at earlier points in my life with the perspective of being able to look back than I did at the time. Our family's Grandma has said that for events from earlier in her own lifetime also. I would expect that my ds will be able to understand the present time more fully when he is able to have perspective on it.

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Here is a quote from toward the end of the first chapter of one (and I think it is important to note that we do not rely on a single source for studying history) of my son's current history books. It comes after explaining fields such as paleontology and geography etc. and how they come together in understanding history, thus the quote refers to "scientists" not "historians" but this is a history book and in reference to history:

 

     "Each scientist draws from facts, evidence, beliefs, opinions, and personal experience to form his or her own perspective (understanding) of what happened. Because scientists don't always agree on the facts or they have different beliefs, opinions, and experiences, they may disagree with each other on what happened in the past. Which perspective you believe should be decided after your own analysis.

      "World History Detective® challenges you to work like a historian. You must search for and evaluate evidence to form your perspective of what happened in the past."

 

It has a 2012 copyright and that is a philosophy of history that I agree with.

 

Other books we are using include The Penguin History of the World, 6th edition, a 2013 update of a book originally published in the 1970s, and SWBs history for adults first volume (ancients), plus looking things up from other sources--computer (which may include finding contemporaneous sources), documentaries, etc. as interested in certain areas to do further research in them.

 

It is working well, and taking the group together, along with the attitude as in the quote above, fits my idea of what history is and how to teach it.

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     "Each scientist draws from facts, evidence, beliefs, opinions, and personal experience to form his or her own perspective (understanding) of what happened. Because scientists don't always agree on the facts or they have different beliefs, opinions, and experiences, they may disagree with each other on what happened in the past. Which perspective you believe should be decided after your own analysis.

      "World History Detective® challenges you to work like a historian. You must search for and evaluate evidence to form your perspective of what happened in the past."

 

 

 

adding: While this spells out this view in so many words, this is the view that I am seeing in the contemporary history books we get. I have not seen anything that says something like you are bad to believe ____ type views. 

 

Maybe the issue is not vintage versus current history books, but vintage compared to some specific current ones that I have never seen the like of, or compared to something from a decade or two back where a very negative and blaming view was being taken. ????

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Believe it or not, white privilege isn't so much fact as value judgment and worldview

 

No, it's not. Discussions of privilege have nothing to do with individual morality. If I say that white people are less likely to be convicted of the same crimes as black people, that's white privilege - but I'm not saying that those white people who benefit from it are bad people. (Well, unless they really are criminals, but let's not go off on wild tangents.) If I say that men are more likely to be CEOs than women, that's male privilege - but I'm not saying that all male CEOs should beat themselves up with guilt about it. If I say that people born into wealthy families are more likely to grow up to be wealthy than those born into poor families, that's class privilege, but I'm not blaming the people caught up in the system.

 

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It was my year 8 history teacher who first told me that history is written from the victor's viewpoint. Quite revolutionary in Australia in 1983.

 

And at the risk of sounding narky (and I don't really mean to be), as a scientist, it is my job not to deal in opinion, but to put my opinions and beliefs aside and deal with the facts. But for scientists, that's both a priviledge and a curtain to hide behind. I'm not sure historians are as lucky.

D

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Personally I think knowing that history books are NOT authoritative is far more important than misc. facts.  In the middle of 3rd grade we moved from Minnesota to Texas.  In Minnesota the Civil War was taught at the beginning of 3rd grade and in Texas it was at the end.   So, I should have had all the answers, right?  That is what I thought.  It was NOT the same war.  Unless it was a date or a person's name the answers were opposite.  Neither had a balanced viewpoint.  Individual people were portrayed as either Good or Evil, and there was zero agreement on who was in which category.  I think both teachers Thought they were teaching balanced, accurate information.  But, even third grade me realized that opposites couldn't both be true.  

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Personally I think knowing that history books are NOT authoritative is far more important than misc. facts.  In the middle of 3rd grade we moved from Minnesota to Texas.  In Minnesota the Civil War was taught at the beginning of 3rd grade and in Texas it was at the end.   So, I should have had all the answers, right?  That is what I thought.  It was NOT the same war.  Unless it was a date or a person's name the answers were opposite.  Neither had a balanced viewpoint.  Individual people were portrayed as either Good or Evil, and there was zero agreement on who was in which category.  I think both teachers Thought they were teaching balanced, accurate information.  But, even third grade me realized that opposites couldn't both be true.  

 

What an insightful post!!

 

We use Sonlight for history and a few years ago we read two historical fiction books on the Civil War.

Each book presented viewpoints from both sides. 

Because we are from the deep south, we've always "favored" the rebels...solely b/c that's part of our heritage and history. 

However, after reading each book, we walked away with new insight, compassion, sympathy and respect for both sides (leaders, soldiers, and the families of each).  

Finding a good balance is important.  

Developing critical thinking skills even more so.

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Encomienda system? Definitely. Plagues? Not so much. Europeans had no clear concept of disease transmission, and would have been just as happy themselves to not have smallpox et al. Dispensing smallpox-laden blankets (much later on)? WOW THAT IS EVIL. Missionary efforts? In many cases, sincerely intended, even if you disagree with the goals and/or results. Trail of Tears? Bad... but many non-natives at the time recognized it, including the Supreme Court. So... were non-natives in this list good or bad? Or kinda mixed?

 

I think it's too simplistic to say that the plagues weren't caused by Europeans. My understanding is that as early as the 1600's in the US, the use of disease as warfare and the recognition that Native Americans were particularly susceptible to disease was widely recognized. So the initial wave of disease, no, but the smallpox laden items practice went on for well over a century.

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It's weird to me, by the way, that people see recognizing white privilege as hurting our historic figures or our view of them. To me, one of the things that makes it such as useful way to frame the discussion is because it recognizes both the element of privilege but also the ways in which most people were not aware of that since lack of awareness goes hand in hand with that privilege and is, in fact part of having that privilege. So it's a way of saying, these people benefited from being able to profit off non-white labor/use society connections/afford household help/exploit others/etc. while simultaneously saying they often did not see their own privileges.

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I think it's too simplistic to say that the plagues weren't caused by Europeans. My understanding is that as early as the 1600's in the US, the use of disease as warfare and the recognition that Native Americans were particularly susceptible to disease was widely recognized. So the initial wave of disease, no, but the smallpox laden items practice went on for well over a century.

 

 

I'm making a distinction, which other people might not, between somebody being the cause of something and them being to blame for it. If I step on your foot, I'm obviously the cause of your foot pain. However, unless I deliberately and maliciously stomp on it, I'm probably not to blame for it.

 

And yeah, once they started handing out items they knew (or at least reasonably suspected) to be contagious, well, then they're to blame.

 

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I'm making a distinction, which other people might not, between somebody being the cause of something and them being to blame for it. If I step on your foot, I'm obviously the cause of your foot pain. However, unless I deliberately and maliciously stomp on it, I'm probably not to blame for it.

 

And yeah, once they started handing out items they knew (or at least reasonably suspected) to be contagious, well, then they're to blame.

 

Yes, I would agree with making that distinction. I guess I just think it's important to also note that they were the cause. And that they were to blame, not all the time, but at least sometimes when there was a conflict, beginning as early as the 1600's in the US. I have definitely seen materials that imply that the plagues experienced by Native Americans were "just bad luck" or "a coincidence." Well, that's misleading to say the least. Or that play on the idea that early European settlers were too unsophisticated in their understanding of disease to have ever used it as a weapon. But Europeans had solidified the idea of quarantines, even if they had not yet developed germ theory. They knew that exposure was a way to get sick and they used that when they could.

 

It's really about getting to nuance. I feel like older sources didn't want students to get to that level of nuance where they could talk about fault vs. blame.

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