Correcting distorted history taught in schools

[Freeloader]

In most Middle and High schools in this country, there is a consistent view on what is taught in regards to some of the most major events/people from the Revolutionary War to present. Some of these things are

- Thomas Jefferson as one of the best presidents ever, while almost nothing of his owning slaves, his help he received on the Declaration of Independence.

- Lincoln as the president who ended slavery, when in fact, he was more concerned with keeping the union together. His view on blacks seems very controversial, and stated multiple times he had no desire to make blacks equal to whites.

- the War in Iraq (current) is about oil and WMD's thought to be in Iraq. no mention of "Oil for Food scandal"

- Columbus as far as his "not so peaceful" time spent in the Americas

There's a lot. What I wonder, is if some of these myths should even be corrected. I am a big fan of finding out the truth for anything I read. I would think everyone would want the truth. The easy (and partially correct) answer is that some of the teachers simply remain as uninformed now as they were years ago. However, the other reason I ponder is - do people simply not want this history taught. For example - many Republican presidents refer to Lincoln as the "best ever" of not only their party, but of all presidents. Yet whenever he is mentioned, he is referred to as "the one who saved all the slaves" and not as "the one who kept the Union together" as most recently seen by President Obama's speeches revolving around him.
Would it at this point, be counterproductive to correct some of these myths? Is it better to just keep championing these people? Is it better to just let Bush take the fall for Iraq, and teach nothing of the real reason(s) why he went into Iraq?

What say all of you? Something to be accepted or something to be corrected?

[Roycerson]

There's nothing you can do so long as education is controlled by a central authority. Abolish the DoE and the standardized tests that come along with them. US was #1 in education before they were created, we've gone nowhere but down since, it's not working, fire them. Then let schools compete for students and students choose schools, the schools that do the best job win.

[Guest]

- Thomas Jefferson as one of the best presidents ever, while almost nothing of his owning slaves, his help he received on the Declaration of Independence.

- Lincoln as the president who ended slavery, when in fact, he was more concerned with keeping the union together. His view on blacks seems very controversial, and stated multiple times he had no desire to make blacks equal to whites.

I am no history expert in that time period, and what I know comes from HBO John Adams series, but, I can presume Thomas Jefferson was over-rated because his presidency followed the seemingly weak and divided presidency of John Adams, and that he bought Lousiana from Bonapart.

About Lincoln, again I know very little, but I would imagine whatever he tried or seemingly tried to do on the issue of slavery was one step better than his predecessors. Relativity counts! Let's compare Lincoln with Nixon, who was a president in modern time, and who IIRC was not so fond of black people.

So if Lincoln was +1 relative to his predecessors, Nixon who was president in the 20th Cent was definintly a -10 on racial views. That is a bonus point for Lincoln. And I dont blame Lincoln - or anybodyelse in that time period - for making such comments as "not wanting to make blacks equal to whites". Those were different times. People had different mentality. What Lincoln did was a step in the right direction and improvement over previous policy, regardless of his hidden political agenda. Misa thinks, anyways ...

[Roycerson]

You totally miss the point. While I occasionally have a good deal to say about both Jefferson and Lincoln, this thread is about public schools teaching false things or omitting important perspectives etc. which they do, often. Blatantly enough that I realized in school I couldn't believe anything my teachers told me. Sometimes they themselves didn't believe the things they taught but admitted to me that they teach the curriculum whether it's the truth or not.

If there's any doubt that is the case I'll give a couple of examples.

Magellan didn't die of dysentery, he was killed in the Philippines. Every Philipino school kid learns that after his father was killed by Magellan Chief Tutu grew up and killed Magellan right back. What was Magellan doing in the Philippines long enough for a kid to grow up? The crew mutinied and kicked him off the boat there, they couldn't tell the truth when they got home though or they'd have been hung for it. There exists a diary of a sailor that tells the story in a museum in London.

Columbus wasn't alone in thinking the earth was round, a round earth was well established by 1492. His detractors were right in claiming that the distance to Asia across the Atlantic was too far, that's why his journey was not expected to succeed. But in school they still teach that Columbus was revolutionary in that he thought the earth was round, the inaccuracy of that is not even debatable so why do they teach lies? I dunno, but they do.

[johnee]

history always has been from a modern perspective. it is better to teach the kids that their ancestors shared their value system than otherwise. especially, in regard to lincoln and his 'racial' views. it is better to teach that lincoln was a 'savior' than to say he was like everyone else. that can motivate others to be like him. that helps the society.

the purpose of education is not simply to state facts but to use them so that they benefit the world and its ppl.

anyway, not all truths are to be told.;)

[Shek]

Fact of the matter is that Lincoln ended slavery and was the first President to entertain blacks at the White House (and while he stated that whites couldn't see blacks as equals, he certainty treated them as such). He wasn't prepared to be a martyr over abolition (as the issue required a coalition, not a martyr), and yet, he was prepared to push the pragmatic envelope over the issue. I think that the presentation of Lincoln is fine and proper, provided that it's caveated with the fact that Lincoln was prepared to allow slavery exist (and to die on the vine through the prevention of its expansion westward) to avoid the Civil War.

[Johnny W]

In most Middle and High schools in this country, there is a consistent view on what is taught in regards to some of the most major events/people from the Revolutionary War to present. Some of these things are

- Thomas Jefferson as one of the best presidents ever, while almost nothing of his owning slaves, his help he received on the Declaration of Independence.

- Lincoln as the president who ended slavery, when in fact, he was more concerned with keeping the union together. His view on blacks seems very controversial, and stated multiple times he had no desire to make blacks equal to whites.

- the War in Iraq (current) is about oil and WMD's thought to be in Iraq. no mention of "Oil for Food scandal"

- Columbus as far as his "not so peaceful" time spent in the Americas

There's a lot. What I wonder, is if some of these myths should even be corrected. I am a big fan of finding out the truth for anything I read. I would think everyone would want the truth. The easy (and partially correct) answer is that some of the teachers simply remain as uninformed now as they were years ago. However, the other reason I ponder is - do people simply not want this history taught. For example - many Republican presidents refer to Lincoln as the "best ever" of not only their party, but of all presidents. Yet whenever he is mentioned, he is referred to as "the one who saved all the slaves" and not as "the one who kept the Union together" as most recently seen by President Obama's speeches revolving around him.
Would it at this point, be counterproductive to correct some of these myths? Is it better to just keep championing these people? Is it better to just let Bush take the fall for Iraq, and teach nothing of the real reason(s) why he went into Iraq?

What say all of you? Something to be accepted or something to be corrected?

I agree with Shek irt Lincoln. Lincoln certainly wanted to end slavery, but he wanted to preserve the Union above anything else. He planned to contain slavery and let it wither away.

I don't hold Jefferson in the same regard as others do, but his owning slaves was irrelevant irt his performance as president. It might be relevant in discussing his greatness as a man, but not his leadership qualities.

The war in Iraq is about oil. No we didn't go into Iraq to get their oil, but oil is the main reason we concern ourselves with the region to begin with. If there was no oil in the region, it would barely be a blip on our foreign policy radar.

[Triple C]

Very competent replies on Lincoln. The following is my thought on this topic, even though I am not by any means a scholar of American history.

I might not neccessarily find Jefferson to be a great statesman, he certainly ranked high among the founding fathers for original political thought and you would find him a greatly admired theorist of democratic politics.

He did own slaves, but he also confessed on many occassions that he was horrified by the thought of a future with slavery and the inability of his compatriots (perhaps including himself) to resolve the issue in his life time. He believes the issue of slavery will come back in a furious way and led to massive bloodshed. Which it did.

[ANGLICOone]

No success here, correcting Vietnam history, they aren't interested

Those of you who were there in 1968 know we won an astounding victory, militarily. But then Cronkite announced that we had just lost, and U.S. politicians decided it was better to go with that, Johnson halted the bombing and denied requests for increases in numbers, and the rest is history.

Local papers refuse to acknowledge our victory or honor the heros. I think that they didn't want us to survive and come home, and now our presence is a sore point to them. They wanted us dead then, they supported the communists, and they can't wait till we're gone now.

Just my jaded opinion, until I see evidence to the contrary. The truth about Vietnam and the 1968 Tet is still not politically correct in many areas.

[Gallowglass]

As a reneactor of early American history, we often find at events, history teachers taking notes, and asking questions. There is an incredable amount of American history that is not known by the general public, nor taught in the class room.

For us re enactors, It would be easy for us to write tests in which 99 per cent of High School history teachers would fail.

[Blue]

So it seems many here agree that our children are being led down the PC path and that America is guilty of more than it has achieved, according to the public education at least, so what do we do about it?

[gunnut]

Lincoln's first and foremost priority was to hold the union together. If it took freeing the slaves to do it, he did it. If it took keeping them enslaved to do it, he probably would have done it.

[Roycerson]

Lincoln's first and foremost priority was to hold the union together. If it took freeing the slaves to do it, he did it. If it took keeping them enslaved to do it, he probably would have done it.

and the Emancipation Proclamation was worded in such a way to only free the southern slaves and then to re-allow slavery if a state would rejoin the union. At the time of the passing of the 13th amendment slavery was still legal in Deleware, Kentucky and Missouri because they weren't affected by the Emancipation Proclamation.

[Chogy]

Interesting thread. It is not just American schools that are guilty... the Japanese do not teach their astoundingly horrific behavior in China, pre WW2, and lately have been portraying their country as the victim, not the instigator, of WW2.

Revolutionary war myths - "The Kentucky Rifle won the war. The rugged U.S. colonial with his rifle was more than a match for the British with his smoothbore Brown Bess." Truth - most colonials had the same style of smoothbore musket as the British, and their discipline EARLY in the war was terrible. There were colonials with rifles, and most of these were formed into a sort of "Sharpshooter" corps, but the bulk of the fighting was smoothbore.

[Oscar]

There's nothing you can do so long as education is controlled by a central authority. Abolish the DoE and the standardized tests that come along with them. US was #1 in education before they were created, we've gone nowhere but down since, it's not working, fire them. Then let schools compete for students and students choose schools, the schools that do the best job win.

I fail to see how decentralizing education programs would solve that. In fact it would worsen it since each community or political party would teach a different history than the one given by the other community, religion, party,etc...That would only create more misunderstandings. Each group would push its agenda.

Then teaching history is more about giving the pupils the basics of a common past. If they want to further their understanding of a certain era, or correct a bia or a prejudice learnt at school (which as usually more to do with the need of simplifying things) this is still a free country.