Given my career teaching history, I feel compelled to say a few words concerning the current brouhaha about the teaching of history. As a subject, history is usually not given much attention until some politician or political partisan stumbles on to something they can use to push their cause.<\/p>\n
Right now, history is important in the \u201cculture war\u201d being waged by Republicans in support of all things Trump. Critical race theory, the 1619 Project, destruction of Confederate monuments and the teaching about America\u2019s shortcomings have stirred up those who jingoistically wrap themselves in the American flag to win votes. This is all part of their campaign against the so-called \u201celitists\u201d on the left, those in universities, Hollywood, business, government bureaucracies, and others whom they claim dominate American intellectual life for the worst.<\/p>\n
The whole thing would be kind of funny if it wasn\u2019t. As I wrote recently, one of the first things authoritarian governments do is to rewrite history. Doing so rationalizes their agenda. Presently, Republicans are trying to define what should and should not be taught in American history. They want to tell us what is \u201cpolitically correct\u201d to teach and write as to our history and so they are attacking school curricula, school boards and individual teachers. Given the freedom, they would rewrite our history much as the Sandinistas did in Nicaragua in the 1980s.<\/p>\n
Education is the responsibility of all of us, as parents, members of the local PTAs, school boards and classroom teachers. Teaching any subject well requires knowing the \u201cstuff\u201d and taking the responsibility to be truthful and honest. Teaching is serious business. While we need to honor community opinion, we should listen to those who know the subject, not those who are clearly pushing a partisan political agenda.<\/p>\n
Think about how we all go about hiring someone to do something we can\u2019t do. We don\u2019t casually pick someone off the street, but look for someone with appropriate experience and expertise. We don\u2019t hire politicians for electrical work or philosophers to fix our plumbing, do we?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Given my career teaching history, I feel compelled to say a few words concerning the current brouhaha about the teaching of history. As a subject, history is usually not given much attention until some politician or political partisan stumbles on to something they can use to push their cause. Right now, history is important in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-robert-fischer"],"yoast_head":"\n