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SporkUK

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  1. I think discerning the perception and agenda is an important skill - and all education and historical books have a perception and agenda (as does all media). Many public domain history books in English give a White settler's perspective, they had an agenda that they were messengers of God and that what they did to American Indigenous people was a good thing/part of God's plan. Many of them have angry people pushing an angry agenda that these poor people their trying to save are fighting so hard against salvation and more than a few discussing how they are better of dead. There are still history books written today with this agenda - there are places in the US where most of indigenous history is banned as detrimental even after its inclusion saw history and general results rise and people fighting for such inclusion in education to be reopened. There is movement in the UK to ban/exclude many parts of UK history because they want to focus on "these traditional histories" and just as many fighting for greater opening up of what we see as part of UK history. All education has an agenda, learning to see and teach about it is a great skill for anyone. I find that certain people are angry and have an agenda and that others are being objective ignores that those 'objective' people also have an agenda - it's just the mainstream one wrapped up as objective. And as American Indigenous people are not history but present, right here, right now, toys representing them should be just as accurate as one would want toys representing oneself. There are over 500 American Indigenous nations and yet we have playsets and books blending them all together and that causes a warped perception that causes harm. The representation through media and toys affects our perception of ourselves and our perception of others. . My kids can have fun without learning and perpetuating stereotypes, creative play can happen while still understanding that other people's cultures are not costumes or toys. To paraphrase, we see ourselves through the representations all around us, and monsters are so often shown without reflections, what self image do we hope for those kids to have if that is the majority of what we give when we give it all. It's complicated but these things do matter even if they just look like fun, people absorb play and fiction more easily than they take in fact.
  2. There are many Wampanoag who will have differing opinions and even they are but one of over 500 American Indigenous nations. No one of them could educate on them all and one of the major problems on books old and young is that many treat all of those nations as homogeneous. This is true for many books on Africa, Asia, the Australian Aboriginals where hundreds of groups are shoved into one box. The Plains nations used tipis, it would be wrong to portray any of the others using them (there are many other types of tents and housing structures) just as it would be wrong to have every person from a European nation in similar houses. That word should make people uncomfortable as should any slur not because of the original meaning in the languages it can be sourced from but what it was used for and represented throughout much of genocides against American Indigenous nations and the current treatment towards American Indigenous women. The N word can be traced from the word for black, but 600 years of history used to enslave and kill that still continues to present day gives words far different meanings than etymology. This is true of non-slurs as well, awful no longer means full of awe. I have a very different experience from the chronological snobbery discussed maybe because I tend to be around academics a lot, but I far more often come across those who think the older the book the better and more enriching it is and disparage anything modern, especially with history. I've had long round and round discussions about similar readings recently - it was on the reading of an ancient Hindu text and whose interpretation of two very different ones to listen to, Oxford elites from early colonial India who had age and tradition on their side and modern Hindu people who I thought made an excellent point that the Oxford elites were trying to make the text palatable and in line with colonial era beliefs under the guise of objectivity whereas the modern Hindu academics were open about that they wanted to challenge the 'hero' because he gets where he does through the active harm of those of lower castes and how holding him up as a hero caused harm and showing that as their hero to the world would only continue said harm. As I don't think history, or education at all, can be without agenda, I was more than happy that they were upfront about it but others felt that age, tradition and acting objective even when things obviously aren't was better. It's a debate that will continue with many texts, especially as many try to bring in more books onto reading lists. I don't know anyone boycotting books due to age, it seems to me people are more eager than ever to read ancient books in as close to original form as possible. But I do see people using said texts to call out things like Columbus, like the American founding fathers, like the many other people who held up as heroes that many books are still written on in rose coloured glasses and say look, we have his journals, we have this contemporary source, and they are not the kind of people all the stories say they are and they are not the kind of people who should be considered heroes. I think we're still feeling our way into who was just horrid and who was complex and modern writing on that will affect that just as the writings through time affect how we see Ancient Greeks and Romans (like how most modern visual media portray them as really White when writings of that time described themselves as bronze and disliked pale skin due to their wars with the Visigoths and Celts) or the Medieval peoples (we literally have paintings that were painted over centuries after they were originally made because they found the original person too ugly and in some cases because the painted subjects weren't White, we're only recently through technology able to see through that). Media affects our perceptions, reading more perceptions can give us a wider world - though with public domain books it can be tricky to get a wider perspective in languages we can read without quite a bit of digging (and would our gaze of texts so far out of our own culture really be true?). There are plenty of cheap and free books available otherwise that come from wider range of perspectives outside of the public domain. Personally, I like modern books because I want to hear about how that history affects those people today. As much as I love primary sources and old books and the nuts and bolts of history, I think the goal of teaching history isn't just about understanding the world then, it's about understanding about how that made the world now and the best source for that asking those people today and through the wonders we have now, we can have lots of those questions answered as people around the world become able to openly discuss it. I think that's brilliant. I don't need to be smarter or better than my grandparents but I do have a need for my children to know the world now even as we read other's views from the past.
  3. But if those multiple sources come from the same perspective, then the 'truth' they all agree on may come from that prism/bias. Most public domain books about American Indigenous Nations were written by White Anglo settlers with particularly type of education surrounded by the same constant messages about themselves and the peoples they were writing about. Just the concept that there are one nation of 'Eskimos' which is a common belief in many of those books is very false and a damaging belief that causes problems between the communication between those nations and the US and Canada even today. If the history books all come from the same type of source, they may all have the same misunderstandings, just as if we read the multiple Chinese sources on the Roman Empire we get a very different picture than when we read multiple sources from a group of Romans or a group of people conquered by the Romans. When it comes to facts as to whether a group did X or Y, the best source is obviously from the group themselves. There are many sources from the people of those nations in your example freely available now. If you want the 'facts' of group in a more over arching or philosophical way, it's probably best to get multiple perspectives from multiple sources that actively interacted with them (rather than just anthropologists/sociologists, even as a former one of the latter there are many of both who have the very wrong end of the stick because of personal bias, especially many of the older public domain books).
  4. I echo the sentiments of checking tongue tie, latch, thyroid issues, rule out the more common stuff off. I've found age-related issues can be a factor - my fourth, the youngest, was by far the most painful and difficult child to nurse for quite some time - and I had nursed during two pregnancies before him. He was always more difficult to nurse and had to be parent-led weaned because it started becoming really really close to unbearably painful shortly after he turned two and I constantly felt empty/dry. The reason which I only figured out after I started weaning him was that I was starting menopause! I had completely overlooked many of the other symptoms until I started getting hot flashes and all the other stuff I hadn't paid attention and hand waved away as the result of breastfeeding or my disabilities (I was practically a full check list for it by that point) even though I knew early menopause ran in my family. It's highly unlikely but it is possible and can be checked alongside thyroid levels.
  5. For additional languages, we start (and are still only actively studying) British Sign Language for several reasons. It's a language in our community which is my top priority as it will allow them to connect and be able to help to more people with the community, BSL goes well alongside other lessons discussing barriers many have to deal with that we don't think about and how we can help, and it's a language that it is difficult for technology to smooth the barriers on (a friend had entire conversations while abroad using Google Translate, this is not yet possible with sign languages and it's causes barriers even within our area where it is an official language alongside other British languages). And generally, I find it to be a beautiful and enjoyable language with a rich history and syntax that my kids can connect to while young. A side bonus is that the kids can start taking their BSL level certificates for it from 11 if they so wish (though I'm still hoping the BSL GCSE will be out in time). We've also done study units in Spanish because they were interested and likely do so for other languages in the future.
  6. It is really teacher intensive if you try to do the whole lesson plan. I tried that at first and I know many who swear that that is only way to do it, but they didn't work for us after Y1 and as my kids get older, the more they want to try on their own. So, what we do is my older children (currently doing Y4 and Y3, the older is hoping to be at Y6 next year) have their morning work they try to do themselves which is copywork, spelling practice, and their MEP maths page while I do maths and such with their younger siblings (one is starting Y1 this year, the other is a toddler). We do a check together, discuss and review as we go through, and anything they can't do I will use lesson plan activities to teach (or sometimes Khan academy or games or other activities). When we did multiplication tables, I would have a chart to hand and if they don't remember it for something, I will pull it out and they will read through the related tables and then we'll do lesson plan activities that day that involve them. So we review as we need, but otherwise the book is review enough for us. This method allowed my older two to catch up after a bad year after my toddler was born that put everything behind (I was so poorly in that pregnancy and for a while afterwards) as once we got back into it we were able to do more than one page a day within a comfortable time. They really enjoy maths and are really getting it, even my arty butterfly child will gush at her love of maths and aced her end of year test. She has caught up and will be starting on one page after her well earned break, my eldest is about a year behind and we both agreed as he entered Y4 books to one page a day, but 6 pages in a week, as he really wants to get up to his year and really enjoys the maths, but would rather wait a few more months and spend more time doing other things so we have an extra day for catch up stuff (thankfully just writing and maths now).
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