If you could add one required course for all students what would it be?

[MrWhereItsAt]

Originally posted by Wraith

My question, however, is why any history class should have a race-based focus of any kind? It should teach history. Don't teach "black history" unless you're talking about pre-colonization Africa or something. It doesn't make sense, you can't seperate out any one racial group from historical influences in recent history.

Wraith

Huh? Then how come, in the equivalent of 10th grade History class, in of all places NEW ZEALAND, we are taught a whole section on Black Civil Rights History in the States from the '50s and '60s. The only white ppl involved are the authorities or the comparatively small amount of white support within some of the protest marches etc. This isn't exclusively Black history, but it's pretty racially specific to me. If we can get one race-centered history classes like this on recent events, in a place as central as New Zealand then surely there are many other such parts to our recent history.

[Big Dave]

Handgun saftey and Marksmanship

[Wraith]

--"Then how come, in the equivalent of 10th grade History class"

Well, see, that's the thing. I wouldn't call that a history class. I'd call that a Black Civil Rights in the US in the 60s (without worrying about any of those obnoxious whites) class. There is simply no way you could properly teach US history of this era by focusing on this narrow a segment.
It should not have been called history. This sort of specialization needs to be saved until after the basics are in place, so you already have some sort of historical context to place the more detailed and more narrow-scoped information into. Unless, for whatever reason, your 9th grade class was on general post Civil War US history this "class" was totally pointless except as propaganda. You'd never be able to get, for instance, how the Vietnam War affected the US civil rights movement without that broader scope first.

Edit:
I should add that it is exactly this sort of disjointedness that is killing public education (apparently in other countries as well). The curriculum needs to be an integrated whole to make it easier to see how the bits fit together. This kind of randomness (I could understand New Zealanders getting some sort of basic US history perhaps, but a whole year of the US civil rights movement?) and narrow focus is worse than pointless. The way US curriculums are right now, it's like they're trying to obscure the connections as much as possible (to prevent that whole critical thinking thing from happening...).

Wraith
"In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate."
-- Isaac Asimov

[loinburger]

Ah, PC History.

I remember my AP US History course--the textbook had an entire chapter called something like "Women of the Old West." My professor, who was responsible for picking the textbook, introduced the chapter by saying "Well, I really like this textbook because it generally doesn't include useless information for the purposes of seeming more politically correct, but obviously this chapter is an anomaly. Let me sum it up for you: 'There were women in the Old West.' That is all I will expect you to know from this chapter for the next test. Now, on to the next chapter."

[Imran Siddiqui]

But that separation has occured for over a century before the 1960's, by teaching everything in the eyes of white, European-descent men

And who makes up a majority of Americans... yep, that's right .

What else would you have them teach? There is already a whole lot of time spent on it, to the detriment of other issues (ie, most of my high school history classes hardly had enough time to talk decently about World War I!!).

[MrFun]

There is nothing wrong with integrating the history of minority groups in the main history courses.

African-Americans were a very important minority group in the history of the United States --- you cannot deny that.

Being one of the majority does not mean that you should ignore other groups in a country's history.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Who says you are ignoring them? But only teaching the history of one group in a class or a chapter just isn't productive.

[MrFun]

A chapter for certain groups is reasonable sometimes.

BTW -- I am taking an African-American history course at the university now.

It has been a great course since I have learned about things and people regarding this race that I would have never learned in a usual history course.

You guys just do not have enough of an open mind and instead, you spout the words "politically correct" in a derisive manner to degrade the importance of minority groups.

[Seeker]

I really get what Imran is on about.

Canadians may have heard of prof. Jack Granatstein's book on the death of Canadian history...

We spend more time discussing the internment of Japanese-Canadians and the role played by women on the homefront then we do on the whole darn war in the World War II HS unit!

Despite the fact that we should acknowledge minority history, the vast majority of people who built our great imperial Dominion were 'plain-jane' caucasians, NOT escaped slaves, inuit women, or early feminists.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Seeker
Despite the fact that we should acknowledge minority history, the vast majority of people who built our great imperial Dominion were 'plain-jane' caucasians, NOT escaped slaves, inuit women, or early feminists.

Exactly. You know what women did in the Old West? Not a whole heck of a lot, that's what. That's why my prof skipped the chapter--who wants to learn about butter churning?

[MrFun]

How about how women influenced some of the Western states to grant woman the suffrage in the late 19th century??

But of course, your professor would not have thought that to be important -- what a shame.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by MrFun
How about how women influenced some of the Western states to grant woman the suffrage in the late 19th century??

That wasn't covered in the chapter.

But of course, you're professor would not have thought that to be important -- what a shame.

How presumptuous of you. She was damn good at deciding what was and what wasn't important--my high school produced more 4's and 5's on the AP History test than most in the state, and it was mostly due to her IMO.

[Tingkai]

Re: Ah, PC History.

Originally posted by loinburger
I remember my AP US History course--the textbook had an entire chapter called something like "Women of the Old West." My professor, who was responsible for picking the textbook, introduced the chapter by saying "Well, I really like this textbook because it generally doesn't include useless information for the purposes of seeming more politically correct, but obviously this chapter is an anomaly. Let me sum it up for you: 'There were women in the Old West.' That is all I will expect you to know from this chapter for the next test. Now, on to the next chapter."

What a complete twit. The prof's message is: you're better off being ignorant.

Forget all of this stuff about what facts should be studied. That leads to a never ending debate.

What should be taught is: What is history? How do we gather information and analyze historical events? What are the different approaches to studying history? What are the pros and cons of the different approaches?

Teach people how they can learn and think about history rather then trying to cover all of the historical facts that they might draw upon in their life. In other words, teach them to fish rather then giving them a few fish.

[loinburger]

Re: Re: Ah, PC History.

Originally posted by Tingkai
What a complete twit. The prof's message is: you're better off being ignorant.

What was the content of the chapter, Tingkai, that I missed out on as a result of my professor cramming ignorance down my throat? Oh, that's right, you don't even know the name of the book, do you. Your audacity is appalling.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by loinburger

How presumptuous of you. She was damn good at deciding what was and what wasn't important--my high school produced more 4's and 5's on the AP History test than most in the state, and it was mostly due to her IMO.

How presumptuous of you to think that courses on minority groups is bad.

I have enjoyed the African-American history course that I will be completing in a couple of weeks. A lot on this group that was not covered in the usual history courses.