Author: "DANIEL A. SEGAL"
Date: Sun, 23 Oct 1994 14:06:36 PCT
ANNOUNCEMENT OF PUBLICATION
NATIONAL STANDARDS FOR WORLD HISTORY
The National Center for History in the Schools (NCHS) has announced the release of the National Standards in History. Published in three volumes, these standards identify for teachers, parents, students, curriculum leaders, and policy makers the important understandings and thinking skills that students should acquire concerning the history of the United States (grades 5-12), the history of the world (grades 5-12), and, for grades K-4, the history of people, ordinary and extraordinary, who have contributed to the development of their communities, state, nation, and the world.
Each volume includes a wealth of lively examples of teaching approaches, resources, and student achievement of each of the standards. Developed by veteran teachers from throughout the United States, these examples will help teachers capture students' interests, bring history alive in their classrooms, and engage students in active learning of history.
These volumes have been developed over the past two-and-one- half years through a broad-based national consensus building process which has involved the active participation of over thirty major national organizations with an interest or stake in history education in the schools. The elected presidents or representatives of these organizations served on the policy- setting National Council for History Standards or on the National Forum for History Standards, and their membership was represented in the Organizational Focus Groups formed to provide continuing review and advisory services to the Council. The drafting of the standards themselves has been a highly collaborative work of more than fifty veteran classroom teachers at every level, from primary schools to baccalaureate institutions, and recognized scholars in many fields of world and United States history. The teachers and historians have been drawn from every region of the country.
NATIONAL STANDARDS FOR WORLD HISTORY: EXPLORING PATHS TO THE PRESENT calls upon schools to teach a history in which all students may share. That means history that encompasses humanity. The standards have been designed to meet the needs of students of diverse origins who will pursue their careers and vocations in the global marketplace and will live together in an intricately, interconnected world.
The standards introduce students to the history of major civilizations and cultural traditions around the globe. They also encourage students to investigate the lives of historical personalities and the important ideas, events, and turning points that give drama and humane substance to the study of the past. At another level the standards invite students to view history as if from a position in outer space, exploring those large-scale developments that affected peoples across political or cultural boundaries and that had enduring significance from one generation to another.
The standards follow a chronological plan, presenting world history in eight distinct eras:
Era 1: The Beginnings of Human Society
Era 2: Early Civilizations and the Emergence of Pastoral
Peoples, 4000-1000 BCE
Era 3: Classical Traditions, Major Religions, and Giant
Empires, 1000 BCE-300 CE
Era 4: Expanding Zones of Exchange and Encounter, 300-
1000 CE
Era 5: Intensified Hemispheric Interactions, 1000-1500 CE
Era 6: The Emergence of the First Global Age, 1450-1770
Era 7: An Age of Revolutions, 1770-1914
Era 8: The 20th Century
Each of these eras address the world, not just one part of it. This
design encourages students to ask broad and searching questions about the
human past, to compare societies with one another in specific time
periods, and to situate particular developments within a regional or
global context. It also leads students away from what one scholar has
called a "billiard ball" approach to world history, presenting
civilizations as closed systems whose histories only occasionally bang
together.
In studying the history of particular groups over time, students are encouraged to consider both the important cultural continuities that link generations and the encounters and exchanges across cultural frontiers that provoke change. In presenting European history the standards argue implicitly that students will gain a clearer understanding of the character and achievements of Western civilization by situating its development within a global context. The standards also urge students to reflect upon the political ideas and cultural values of both past civilizations and modern societies, giving careful attention to the interplay of ideas and human affairs.
EXPLORING PATHS TO THE PRESENT provides a rich and flexible resource for teachers and curriculum leaders seeking to improve the teaching and learning of history in their schools. The standards are designed for use under a wide variety of curriculum approaches. They assume no single curriculum plan, but rather encourage flexibility in the designing of state frameworks, course curricula, textbooks, and classroom strategies.
These standards have been conceived as scaffoldings for the study of history, providing a critical advance but not the final destination in what must be an ongoing, dynamic process of improvement and revisions over the years to come in history education. History is an extraordinarily dynamic field today, and the standards drafted for the schools must be open to continuing development to keep pace with new refinements and revisions in this field.
The World History, United States History, and K-4 standards books can be ordered from the National Center for History in the Schools, UCLA, Suite 761, 10880 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90024-4108. Order forms and prices will be sent on request.
Posting submitted by Ross Dunn, San Diego State University. Please direct questions about national world history standards to
Ross Dunn
rdunn@sciences.sdsu.edu.
Author: Chris Garton-Zavesky
Date: Wed, 30 Nov 1994 15:05:26 -0500
I remember reading an article recently by Thomas Sowell (I think) which claimed much the same thing this NY Times article did about standards. Sowell's point, briefly, was that public education isn't failing at all, given its objectives. It strives to make people feel good, whether they learn anything of use or not. It strives to do away with terms like "excellence" and the like because these assume hierarchical evaluation. Rather than create students capable of critical thinking skills, it creates students who are completely unable to discern good from bad and right from wrong, or even, heaven forbid, better from worse.
The question becomes, to my mind, is this a laudable goal for public education? Fundamentally and emphatically, my answer is no. Students who have the capacity to see world forces but can not understand their overdue balance notice are no good to anyone. Students who have their heads filled with gibberish about the virtues of knowing all cultures can not see the value of their own. They are devoid of all reference points.
An absence of standards, which is what the NY Times article observes, is exactly the problem. Replacing one set of standards with another is a natural process of evolution -- assuming we are all willing to accept that this sort of thing just happens --- but replacing one set of standards with rules that preclude the existence of standards leads our students into an area where neither they nor we are equipped to operate.
I've said this before, and it remains relevant to the discussion, so I'll say it again. Students do need to look beyond mere data to see a larger picture and to challenge whatever assumptions they have formed. They are only able to do this when they have data beyond which to look and discernable assumptions to challenge.
I'm quite sure I will be accused of reactionary politics and an inability to see beyond the narrow, politically motivated approach to which I am prone because of my euro-centric background, but forward I must plow in any event. An absence of standards, and in this case an active campaign to study "world forces" without a framework to understand them, is destructive to the well-being of the children and thus to the future of society. Anarchy is not a form of government. No amount of papering over the issue with charges of left-wing or right-wing politics and "greatwhitemale" bias or whatever can change the fundamental point. Are we going to have standards for our students to meet or are we going to declare that there is no longer a need for standards?
Author: Sandi Cooper
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 1994 09:34:28 PCT
Prof. Gordon Thomasson's discussion of Christianity as an organizing principle of western civilization was a delight to read in light of the current uproar ov er what constitutes historical truth.
For those among us who doubt his conclusion -- that the attack on world history and US history "standards" is politically motivated -- I suggest an immersion in Gramsci's analysis of the role of intellectuals in modern society, those who find their justification in echoing their masters and those with heads that are screwed on independently. Given the current political climate in the US, added to the general ignorance of history, the fear of not obtaining tenure amo ng young scholars, etc., etc., there is little reason to be optimistic.
Author: "DANIEL A. SEGAL"
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 1994 09:30:00 PCT
NY Times, 11-19-94, op-ed page. final paragraph.
"Historical Blindness" by John Patrick Diggins (professor of
history at CUNY Graduate Center)
Students are asked to exercise "independent judgment," yet
it has already been decided that they should not spend an
excessive amount of time studying "great civilizations."
They are told to "detect bias," yet any detection--for
example, questioning a text for emphasizing the achievements
of one culture over another--runs the risk of being dubbed
racist. They are to "weigh evidence and to evaluate
arguments," yet they dare not pronounce the Federalist
Papers superior in political wisdom lest they commit the
elitist mistakes of the past. They are advised to "sniff out
spurious appeals to history," yet they should beware of
studying the "great men," the very thinkers who were in the
vanguard of inquiry. Some standards.
Author: peter c holloran
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 1994 09:23:34 PCT
I have always wondered how non-Catholic historians (or anyone without an understanding of the Catholic Church) could make any sense of history from Rome to the present. The lack of any religious training in many college students today presents many obstacles in teaching many historical eras, no? Much remediation is necessary to teach the Middle Ages, the Reformation and the Age of Exploration, etc., etc.
Author: BROWNH@CCSUA.CTSTATEU.EDU
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 1994 09:22:12 PCT
Haines Brown
The discussion on historical standards and its various sub-threads which is currently running in parallel on World-L and H-World, seem both interesting and useful. For that reason I have begun to archive selected portions of the discussion on world wide web. The URL for this is:
http://neal.ctstateu.edu/history/world_history/archives/archives.html
There are two gaps that I hope readers of this list might be willing to fill. First, I started saving messages and culling them somewhat after the thread began, and I am lacking a developed presentation of what seems to be the less popular view that the standards are in some way subversive of the values that support national identity and cohesion (or something to that effect). I would very much appreciate it if some- one would volunteer to define and defend that position carefully. In particular, some have expressed the view that a world history that is not Eurocentric is suspect, and it would be helpful il someone were willing to articulate this point as well.
Because there have been a couple bibliographical contributions to the discussion, I've created a category just for bibliography. A full, balanced, and/or coherent bibliography would be much appreciated. If you do offer a bibliography, it would be helpful if you were to indi- cate in a prefatory remark to what extent it is selective or full, or to what extent you intend it to be balanced or a coherent representation of your own position.
Author: "C J GARTON-ZAVESKY"
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 1994 12:36:14 PCT
I confess to having been slightly amused by Gordon Thomasson's response to my observation: "For the last 2000 years the Christian faith -- and more specifically the Catholic Church -- has been a common factor in European history". Assuming his criticism is intended seriously, I shall respond in kind.
For the record, I don't recall ever having stated that I am Catholic. In the case of all the other people you mentioned -- or at least all that I can figure out -- their view of religion "... the Church of England" etc., is predicated on the fact that they are trying to support their own position. If I am not Catholic, your ad hominem attack falls flat on its face. Read Cheney however you will, but don't lump me together with her just because we appear to agree with each other.
But, I am Catholic. A convert, and proud of it. I am not dense enough to believe that the Catholic Church can do no wrong, nor am I blind as to the important evolutionary stages of the Church. I cringe when people say things like "Gallileo and other Good Catholics" (once said by a Catholic priest!!). I marvel at the Spanish Inquisition. Still, I am Catholic. That does not make my opinion on the subject irrelevant or irrevocably colored.
None of which alters my point. From the years St Paul journeyed along the Greek coast and died in Rome, Catholic Faith has been an important common factor in European history. Ireland was not converted until St Patrick's visit. England (whose anglican archbishop once described the Pope as a wayward italian missionary) was converted through the work of tireless believers. Every country which has either accepted or rejected the Catholic message has in some important way been affected by it. To carry the thought a bit further, some of the first European explorers beleived they had a divine mission. American life (largely as a result of these explorers and subsequent immigration) is littered with examples of the importance of the Church. Render the Catholic influence nugatory and, just as a brief example, rename all of the following cities:
Expunge the Catholic influence from american society, and you must recolonize all the areas once under French or Spanish control (Jesuits, most of them).
I am not suggesting that all Catholic influence has been good. NOR am I suggesting that Catholic is the only yard-stick that might be used. Rather, I am suggesting that the growth of the Catholic Church can usefully form a framework around which to reconstruct European (and yes, European-meets-World) history.
The syncretism argument you advance is neither new nor accurate. I see no point in arguing further on this point. I can let the magisterium speak for herself.
I do not know your ideological leanings, nor even if you have them at all. I do not know if you see Catholicism as at all relevant to society past and present (although to deny that Catholicism and adherents to the Faith is something akin to that "uninformed or else studiously ignorant" approach you mention. Perhaps I should apply to the flat-earth society for both of us?
I wish to make one final comment. Teaching history to students IS about getting students to think about the material, but it is NOT ONLY about this. It is about shaping the mind of the student so that he is able to grasp new data and assimilate it within the available framework. A parent's job in this regard is a good analogy. A parent should bring up a child so that he has some frame of reference from which to evaluate any experience. We must first give the student a framework within which to work, if only to give him the opportunity to replace it with another. As a case in point, I was fed the belief from my teachers and professors that the French Revolution was a positive development toward modernity. It was an important event, worthy of extensive study. {Marx was still the rage at the time}. I have since done that research, and concluded that the picture my teachers painted was as inaccurate as it was general. The French Revolution was not a mass uprising of popular hatred for the King as has been commonly supposed. Rather, it is a mistake, albeit one with terrifying consequences, for which the French have spent the last 200+ years trying to find a justification.
At issue here is not merely replacing one set of standards with another, although that is certainly an issue. Rather, the problem is that, to quote the Christian Science Monitor from a few days ago, we are now setting out to study "world forces", in which everything is intrinsically morally and politically equal. Events and people are replaced by "forces" which I assume means societal forces as deemed important from our current sociological perspective. This must be stopped.
P.S. "mindless ultra conservative", I have already been described as the caboose man for Ghengis Khan. Reagan, Cheney, Limbaugh et al are not true conservatives. Let's deal with intelligent discussion rather than hurl mud at each other, albeit in the form of political labels that truly do not mean very much
Author: THOMASSON_G@sunybroome.edu
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 1994 10:49:24 PCT
Gordon C. Thomasson
World History Faculty
THOMASSON_G@SUNYBROOME.EDU
Since this aspect of Garton-Zavesky's argument lies, like an undigested potato or a blot of mustard, I'll respond.
"For the last 2000 years, the Christian faith--and more specifically the Catholic Church--has been a common factor in European history."
It is this kind of either uninformed or else studiously ignorant generalization that undergirds the entire Kristol/Buckley American Enterprize Institute/D'Souza/Cheney et al. assault on everything they label PC in the name of their own neo-McCarthyite Political Correctness. Cheney continues the task she began as Reagan's minion. Americans are generally so historically ignorant that one can wrap herself in the flag and spout any sort of nonsense and half the population will salute.
The last time I did any historical study of early Christianity, what is now called the Catholic Church was simply one of many theological interpretations and applications of religious ideas and experiences having ANYTHING BUT European origins. Perhaps after Constantine we can say that Christianity was a common factor in Roman (Empire) history, but for EUROPE Christianity was as far as 700+ years away, depending on which area we discuss. Christianity does not have a 2,000 year pedigree in Europe, and Catholicism does not have a 2,000 year lock on Christianity. Quite a few of the so-called (by Irenaeus and others) Gnostics (if we can judge by their texts and not their opponents' polemics) were closer to Judean Christianity than their Greco-Roman successors' syncretisms of Mystery Religion and state cult could ever claim to be. G-Z's assertion is special pleading, for whatever motive, just as is Cheney's Reagan-Right Wing attack on the history standards.
Let's just consider one of countless sources on the Catholicism question:
"As a universalistic religion, Christianity was obliged to homologize and find a common denominator for all the religious and cultural "provincialisms" of the known world. This grandiose unification could be accomplished only by translating into Christian terms all the forms, figures and values that were to be homologized ... For our purpose it is important to note that together with Neo-Platonic Philosophy, the first values to be accepted by Christianity were the initiatory themes and the imagery of the mysteries
[Christianity] came in the end to borrow from the liturgies and the vocabulary of the Hellenistic mysteries." M. Eliade Rites and Symbols of Initiation 1965:121.
Whether one looks at the classicist Werner Jeager, the Lutheran historian Adolf Harnack, or the Rumanian Catholic comparatiovist Eliade, the same picture emerges of later Christiasnity as a syncretism.
My read on Cheney's view of history is easily reflected in Parson Thwackam's view of Christianity.
"When I mention religion;
I mean the Christian religion;
and not only the Christian religion,
but the Protestant religion;
and not only the Protestant religion,
but the Church of England." (from Tom Jones)
In an as yet to find a publisher cross-cultural/comparative historical study of controversies over canon (which applies equally to history as it does to literature, and in fact Cheney's polemic about the history standards is just a continuation of the literature controversy), I show that in every case controversy over canon/standards has been political at root. What is going on currently is nothing but political, and we do ourselves a disservice if we operate on the assumption that the Cheneys of this world are or intend to be operating on an intellectual level. Pointing out inaccuracies, misquotations or misrepresentations on her part is beside the point. What is occurring is a struggle for power, not truth. Lose sight of that fact and she/they win.
Author: "J B Owens"
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 1994 09:16:37 PCT
Organization: Idaho State University
On Saturday, 19 November 1994, Ross Dunn wrote:
History teaching professionals in Europe are taking interest in developments here. Ministry of Education officials from Denmark and the Netherlands have been touring in this country recently. Three social studies teachers or officials from Minsk will be visiting the National Center for History in December and will come to San Diego to observe a county-wide teleconference on history standards.
Ross: Would you or someone else on the list who knows them please post the details of this teleconference? I would like to alert the Idaho State University media center. Thanks in advance for this information. I apologize for this request if the information has already been posted and I missed it.
Author: Sandi Cooper
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 1994 09:15:54 PCT
Re Stephen Morillo's apt analysis of Lynne Cheney's vision of scholarship: this is no surprise if you review what the NEH did during the 1980's. I wonder what ideas U S historians can put forth to address the vision of our immediate past embedded in the promises of our forthcoming speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, holder of a doctorate degree in History. If there was ever a "politically correct" -- i.e., simplistic -- grasp of the 1960's designed to appeal to phobics and the poorly educated, he wins.
Author: rdunn@sciences.SDSU.Edu (Ross E. Dunn) Date: Mon, 21 Nov 1994 09:17:35 PCT
I would like to recommend two excellent articles that focus on the process of writing national history standards.
Carol Gluck, "Let the Debate Continue," NEW YORK TIMES (Op-Ed), Nov. 19, 1994.
Keith Henderson, "The Making of History Standards," THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, Nov. 18, 1994.
The Nov. 19 NEW YORK TIMES also carries a piece by John Patrick Diggins defending study of the "great men."
Author: beriss@bcf.usc.edu (David Beriss) Date: Sat, 19 Nov 1994 11:39:57 PCT
This is in response to the query about similar curriculum/standards debates in other countries.
Increasing perceptions of diversity in the population have not led to similar debates about curricula in France. This despite at least a century of debates about public education and debates about both the meaning of and ways to do history among historians. I suppose that the most obvious reason why the French do not anguish over the potential for someone imposing a national set of standards for teaching is that they have had one all along. People would be greatly distressed if someone tried to abolish them, since the national education system is seen as having "made" France into a culturally-unified nation.
Both the way to "do" history and the meaning of particular parts of history have and continue to be debated in France. Everyone on this list is certainly acquainted with the French revolution debates. Other moments, such as the Commune, Dreyfus and Vichy (especially Vichy) remain objects of fierce debate and not just among intellectuals. At some point there will be a more open discussion of the Algerian war and of colonialism in general, one presumes. Whoever is the dominant voice in those debates will probably form the "agreges", who will go forth and teach the students of France, following the national curricula, defined at the Ministry, in Paris. And this is, I believe, the crux - while any particularly dominant school of thought can put its spin on history in France, they must teach to prepare students for the baccalaureat, which is a national exam. This makes it hard to deviate too far from the national standards.
The last dust-up around history curricula I can recall was during the Klaus Barbie trial (1987), when the government required that all history teachers in secondary schools include lessons on the France's role in the holocaust. Jean-Marie Le Pen commented at the time that the holocaust was a minor "detail" of history and that students should spend more time learning about Jeanne d'Arc. As I recall, the rhetorical attacks against Le Pen following this idiocy were many and came from both the right and left - nobody came to his defense.
Its interesting that here in the U.S. it is the "legitimate" right, in the person of Lynn Cheney, rather than the extreme right that takes these positions.
There has been a gradual shift in curricula in French schools since the 1960s away from the explicit teaching of Republican values (of course, I mean the values of the Republic, explicitly opposed to those of the Church) and toward social history. In recent years both the left and right have announced various reforms that would turn the schools back to teaching values. Nobody objects to this, although there seems to be general accord among political leaders as to what those values will be.
This has been especially clear in the various debates around the wearing of "Muslim" scarves by girls. Those who argue for permitting them and those who are against them tend to see them as barriers to intergrating the girls as French citizens - in both cases, the schools are seen as an assimilationist remedy. All (non-Muslims, and some Mulsims as well) seem to be against the scarves, the debates is only about whether to simply let the school takes its (inevitable) course and "free" the girls, or to insist that they take off the scarves ahead of time.
Debates around regionalism and regionalist languages seem to have been settled when the Socialists gave permission for the establishment of classes where languages such as Breton would be taught. One presumes other things, such as history, are taught in such classes as well (this is the case for Creole classes in Martinique), but that the history curricula remains the same.
Author: "DANIEL A. SEGAL"
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 1994 11:23:15 PCT
Moderator's Note (MLK): Below is a letter from Joyce Appleby on the National History Standards and excerpts by Gary Nash from the standards. this should add additional substance to our already fascinating discussions.
Mark Kornbluh Mark Kornbluh
Co-Moderator H-Teach Department of History
H-Teach List address: H-Teach@uicvm.uic.edu 301 Morrill Hall
Personal address: Hteach@hs1.hst.msu.edu Michigan State
University
East Lansing, MI 48824
(517) 355-7500
Author: rdunn@sciences.sdsu.edu (Ross Dunn) Date: Sat, 19 Nov 1994 11:37:30 PCT
I have tried to follow the debate regarding the History curriculum in Britain. I do not think that a genuine globe-encircling program has ever even been under consideration. I do remember an article regarding a heated debate in the British press over the inclusion or exclusion of Guy Fawkes in the curriculum.
If anyone does have information on the most recent developments in British education, I would like to have it as well.
History teaching professionals in Europe are taking interest in developments here. Ministry of Education officials from Denmark and the Netherlands have been touring in this country recently. Three social studies teachers or officials from Minsk will be visiting the National Center for History in December and will come to San Diego to observe a county-wide teleconference on history standards.
Author: "James E. Everett"
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 14:36:33 PCT
In the debate about History Standards designed for use in US high schools I was wondering if anyone else has been going through the same anguish and if it produced similar results?
I seem to remember that Margaret Thatcher and her heirs have been trying to write a national curriculum for the UK. The last I heard the government has just released a final version which the teachers might accept. What does this national curriculum have to say about history for British schools? My guess is that the curriculum has to deal with similar problems of inclusion and "multi-culturalism" as those in the US (and of course they have so much more national history!).
Does anyone on the net have access to the UK national curriculum or could tell us where to get it for comparison with the National Standards?
Also, have similar discussions taken place in France, Germany, the Netherlands etc? Most European countries have a national education system and it would be enlightening to see how they handled the issues raised in the National Curriculum.
Author: THOMASSON_G@sunybroome.edu
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 12:38:21 PCT
The false etymology of history as story is tenacious.
Hecateus of Miletus was the first to use with reference to human affairs through time. Up to that point had been a Greek medical term referring to: the progress of the symptoms of a disease! [A specific disease has more or less predictable stages from onset to crisis to recovery or death through which a patient pases.] Hence we can replace the problematic idea of history as story with the recognition that history is a social disease. Doesn't that answer a lot of problems!
Gordon C. Thomasson
World History Faculty
Broome Community College, Binghamton, NY, USA
Author: Robert Entenmann
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 12:36:38 PCT
I have been avidly reading Chris Garton-Zavesky's e-mail postings. It's refreshing to read the opinions of someone with whom I disagree so much. But rather dispute many of Garton-Zavesky's points, I'd like to address only one:
"For the last 2000 years, the Christian faith - and more specifically the Catholic Church - has beena common factor in European history. The Church's pastoral, theological, and philosophical teaching can sensibly form a scaffold around which to organize the teaching of world history."
The second sentence does not follow from the first. I do not dispute the first - Catholicism has been an important factor in European and even non-European history. (My own research focuses on Chinese Catholics in the eighteenth century.)
But it does not follow that Catholic teaching should be the intellectual framework for studying history.
Equally compelling might be teaching history as the unfolding of the Buddhist dharma. Sometimes I suspect that we are in what medieval Japanese Buddhists called "mappo," the latter days of the law when the world is going to hell in a handbasket. But I don't think that this is an analytically rigorous way of teaching or thinking about history. Nor, I think, is the Church's pastoral, theological, and philosophical teaching.
Author: "Mel Page"
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 10:34:01 PCT
East Tennessee State University
Regarding the nature of what should be taught in history courses, Chris Garton-Zavesky asserts boldly that "history is a story," but then wonders why this might be seen as elitist and, if it is in fact elitist, what's so wrong about that.
While I would agree that narrative is important to historical explanation (and teaching), I cannot accept the idea that "history is a story," that is, history is a single coherent story with a unifying thread leading from the past to an unknown (and hence) uncertain future. Yet that implication is clearly the trust of Chris's comments.
In point of fact, history is MANY stories, each one (like all stories) composed out of selected portions of the reality which that story purports to represent. And therein are the problems. How do historians select what is included in the story? How are the stories formed so as to have meaning? And how may at least some of the various stories be linked together?
The answers, of course, are that predispositions of the historians must be at work. One kind of predispostion is to tell the stories as broadly as possible, to see individuals as parts of groups, not to exclude their individuality, but to include them in some more comprehensive way within the story. Another predisposition would be to tell only individual stories, and thus focus on those about whom more is known and complete stories can be constructed (great men, and much less frequently, women). Of course, there are many other possible predipositions.
What should be clear is that such narrative constructs cannot simply be the facts speaking (or more truthfully, spewing forth). No fact speaks! Only the historians (and other story tellers) give voice to the facts. And the predispositons--what are really the theoretical assumptions--of the historians shape the story (and stories) about the past which emerges from their narratives.
As Ken Wolf says: end of vent!
Author: ivar.sonne-moerch@dkb.dk (IVAR SONNE-MOERCH) Date: Thu, 17 Nov 1994 14:12:43 PCT
The continuing debate on US-American History Standards is quite interesting. Some items are, however, a bit longish :-( But I would like to pose a question about the foundations of this American History
Building:
WHY does the US have History Standards at all? Are they demanded by some funny law which was originally passed because some Congressman wanted something in return for voting for something else umpteen years ago?
Indeed, when I hear the expression History Standard, I think of some socialist system in Orwellian terms.
Author: "C J GARTON-ZAVESKY"
Date: Thu, 17 Nov 1994 11:33:19 PCT
I have been misunderstood. In reference to GTORDJMAN's post concerning democratic history, I feel the need to respond quickly.
My critique is against the notion that history can be organized along democratic principles - whether that means "progress toward democracy" or "the rise of rights and a free society" or any such similar understanding of history. History is a story --- what a teacher of mine in high school calls "a species of fiction". The more details reliably presented, the more believable the story. The difference is this: most good stories have beginnings, middles and ends, but history is a story in progress. We do not know what the end is. Therefore we do not know what events are important to relate in order to advance the story. A story which had no cast of characters would be a poor story indeed. "The People" is a member of the cast only in the minds of Michelet, Marx and the utopian socialists of the 19th century. Even the thinkers of the enlightenment (so called) were not speaking of "the People" in the modern sense, and most would have been horrified at the prospect of a "people" running around, acting at will.
Since we do not know the end of the story, but we do, by and large, know the beginning, we should begin there, follow the paths which we discover, and maintain as much coherence as possible.
For the last 2000 years, the Christian faith- and more specifically the Catholic Church has been a common factor in European history. The Church's pastoral, theological and philosophical teaching can sensibly form a scaffold around which to organize the teaching of world history.
The "people" simply does not exist as a factor in european or world history much before the middle of the last century.
History is about individuals. History is the human family tree. There are many more branches than we can safely explore, and if literacy had spread further and faster than it did, we would be able to trace more of them.
I am puzzled by the question "Are we to return to elitist notions and abandon the attempt to educated the 'masses' for democracy?"
What is wrong with "elitist notions?" Each person can, individually, aspire to become part of an elite. No one in his right mind will strive to be part of a herd. I am not suggesting abandoning the attempt to educate "the masses". Rather, I am suggesting that we should avoid wasting our collective time teaching ABOUT the great unwashed. As to educating "for democracy" -- why would I support educating to enhance a system I consider inherently despotic?
I guess what this comes down to is this: Annalistes vs. New Social History. The annalistes gathered data to write about individuals, eventually having force of evidence permit generalizations. The New Social Historians are intent on making history a subset of sociology, which it manifestly is not.
Monarchs provide convenient markers with which to segregate history. Popes do the same. Social trends are amorphous creatures lacking both beginning and ending. Even presidents mark intelligent points of departure. Migration records (at Ellis Island, for example) provide unique insight into the composition of this country. Social trends are the extrapolations, not the starting points.
Two final comments.
Making reference to no individuals or specific events, describe in detail the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Contrast and compare the various stages of the movement, again making no reference to specific individuals or events.
Chris Garton-Zavesky
(MA candidate, not Professor, although I am flattered)
Author: GTORDJMAN@runt.dawsoncollege.qc.ca Date: Thu, 17 Nov 1994 05:47:41 PCT
C.J. Garton-Zavesky tells us he is above the Nash vs. Cheney fray but his critique is solely against Nash's "democratic" history and displays a disdain of democracy or "mobocracy" as he calls and the myth of the "people". What you are saying about democracy and, therefore, history education for democracy is not wrong and it is easy to see how history does justify you view. But what is the alternative Prof. Garton-Zavesky? Are we to return to elitist notions & abandon the attempt to educate the "masses" for democracy? Has it really even been tried, I mean seriously tried, since Jefferson spoke about it? My own view is that a democratic history or pluralist or multi-cultural or what- ever you wish to call it approach is not only the one that most accurately reflects the major shaping forces in U.S., Canadian and World history, but it is also one possible way to overcome the divisiveness that is a product of both the economy and traditional "great men" history.
Author: Elizabeth Davis Barlow
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 1994 13:54:31 PCT
Yes, there are many panels addressing various topics related to the proposed standards. These panels are printed in color on the program, so they stand out. Registration is possible on site.
MODERATOR'S (das) NOTE: My understanding is that this post is a response to a query about the annual meeting this weekend in Phoenix of the National Council of Social Studies.
Author: BOB BAIN
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 1994 11:06:10 PCT
Beachwood High School
John Carroll University
Cleveland, Ohio
BBAIN@JCVAXA.JCU.EDU
Does anyone know if there plans to formally continue the discussion about the World History standards at the National Council of Social Studies annual convention this weekend in Phoenix?
Author: "C J GARTON-ZAVESKY"
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 1994 11:05:24 PCT
Rather than spend my time expounding a preference for Cheney or Nash, I should like to open a deeper question, since it is the quicksand on which both their positions rest.
Question: What is so morally and politically superior about "democratic" standards that make them a good organizational principle for history of any kind.
Rationale:
The fundamental operating principle of democracy as a system of thought is that sovereignty rests with the people. The people decide, whether right or wrong. The people set standards of behaviour, elect representatives .... and so on. This basis is so patently false as to require little proof. One of the off-shoots of the principle of democracy is that the people are never wrong, because whatever the people decide is correct. By its very nature, democratic government is despotic: it involves the coersion of 50% - 1 by 50%+1. Despotism is bad, which is so obviously true as not to require proof. Democracy is never born of peaceful means. Democracy is not the natural result of anything and is such a newcomer on the historical scene as to be a silly organizing principle for historical recounting. "The People" is not some discrete, measurable phenomenon. It is a code word to permit mobocracy (if the word doesn't exist, it should) and encourage dissent and (so-called) diversity.
Author: "C J GARTON-ZAVESKY"
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 1994 11:04:52 PCT
To pick up on just one comment recently:"There must be room in world history for all peoples" -- or words to that effect, there certainly is in world history. The problem is that world history at high-school level tends to be a one year course -- which is a silly and short amount of time to include any more than is currently included. Teachers barely get through what they are supposed to with the current curriculum.
Idea: expand world history to a two year course. The second year could be team-taught with a course on US history, since it would be the more modern course.
Author: "DANIEL A. SEGAL"
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 1994 11:02:15 PCT
[[H-Net Fair Use reproduction of newspaper articles for scholarly criticism only; please do not resell these articles for profit. H-Net]
Historians Propose Curriculum Tilted Away From West
Critics Worry Contributions Of Europeans, Americans
Will Not Get Proper Due
WALL STREET JOURNAL (J) 11/11/94
By Gary Putka,Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
A federally funded panel of educators recommended a major shift toward nonWestern cultures in the teaching of world history, raising the ire of critics who fear that the European antecedents of the U.S. would get short shrift in the classroom.
In a 314-page document, a panel led by historians at the University of California at Los Angeles urged that students between fifth and 12th grade gain an enhanced understanding of Asian, African and South American history, and especially their influence on Western civilization.
The document, intended to serve as the first set of national standards for history curriculum, has been widely circulated in draft form and is already a blueprint for textbooks in the making. Under the Goals 2000 education act, a panel to be appointed by President Clinton will consider the history standards for national certification.
But the heavy influence in the document on non-European influences, especially in the period between Christ's birth and the 20th century, prompted a rash of criticism, including some from people who sat on the National Council for History Standards, which advised the authors.
"It's a travesty, a caricature of what these things should be -- sort of a cheapshot, leftist point-of-view of history," said Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers. "Everything that is European or American, or that has to do with white people is evil and oppressive, while Genghis Khan is a nice sweet guy just bringing his culture to other places."
Gilbert Sewall, a historian who was a member of the advisory council, said that the standards were "imbalanced by diminishing the place of Western civilization in human history," and by stressing what he termed the "arcana" of the past. To make room for expanded studies of cultures such as those of ancient Africa and Persia, he said, people "once considered the dominating figures of their age -- Julius Caesar, Martin Luther, Darwin, Freud -- are marginalized or passed over lightly."
Other historians praised the new standards, which also urged that students be forced to read and write more analytically about history, and not merely regurgitate facts. Brian Copenhaver, a Renaissance Europe scholar at UCLA, said that students "will be able to construct a rich context of historical perspective" from the proposed curriculum.
But Mr. Sewall, director of a nonprofit organization that reviews textbooks, said the 29-member standards advisory council had heated disagreements about the recommendations, but guided by UCLA, settled on a compromise document without taking a final vote.
Ross Dunn, editor of the standards and a history professor at San Diego State University, denied that Western civilization was shortchanged. But he acknowledged that "some choices had been made to emphasize other cultures."
Mr. Dunn said he would rather have students graduate from high school knowing less detail about European history, than for them to graduate "not knowing anything about the history of China, the industrial revolution in Japan or the Middle East, where we just fought a war."
--30--
World History Teaching Standards Draw Critics
As With American Guidelines Last Month, Dissenters Say Western Contributions Shortchanged
WASHINGTON POST: A SECTION, 11/11/94
By Guy Gugliotta, Washington Post Staff Writer
The same study group that ignited a debate last month over "political correctness" in the teaching of American history yesterday released a new set of standards for world history, garnering fresh criticism for ignoring tradition in favor of an eclectic approach of questionable relevance to American students.
Critics say the world standards shortchange the influence of Western civilization, focus on its sins and fill public school history curricula with material drawn from a mammoth grab-bag of world cultures past and present.
"It's a welter of detail, an outpouring of information," said Lynne V. Cheney, who chaired the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) during the Bush administration and approved initial funding for the standards.
"By deciding not to give any emphasis to Western civilization, they lost any organizing principle," Cheney said. "If you look over history for the last 500 to 600 years, the rise of the West is the organizing principle, and the key to the rise of democratic standards."
The 314-page "National Standards for World History: Exploring Paths to the Present" was developed at UCLA with participation by 35 national education organizations, among them the American Historical Association and the National Council for History Education.
Cheney initiated attacks on the panel last month, charging that national standards for American history published at that time ignored "great men" and events, paid too much attention to the nation's failures and overemphasized the role of women and minorities.
The world history guidelines promised to deepen the debate. Intended as a curriculum guide for children in grades five through 12, the standards divide world history into eight "eras," from "The Beginnings of Human Society" through "The Twentieth Century."
UCLA history Prof. Gary B. Nash, who co-directed the 2 1/2-year project, dismissed Cheney's most recent objections as the opinions of someone who "has a very frail background in history."
"The rise of the West is one of the most important themes, once the West begins to rise," Nash said. "In certain periods, what was more important was the reach of Islam and the reach of China."
Although the guidelines invoke President Clinton's "Goals 2000" educational reforms for public schools, the project began in 1992 with funding from the Education Department and Cheney's NEH.
The standards are nonbinding for individual school systems, but if they are approved by a 19-member bipartisan council convened by the Education Department, they will have national stature.
The new guidelines treat Western civilization "in a very rich way," Nash contends, in that most of the traditional benchmarks of world history are given ample treatment, among them Egyptian civilization, the ancient Greeks and Romans, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, European imperialism, the two World Wars and the Cold War.
But many Americans will find a plethora of unfamiliar themes. The early part of the guidelines draws heavily on archaeological information documenting the development of mankind itself and the rise of ancient cultures.
"Explain the development of tropical agriculture in Southeast Asia," reads one standard for grades five and six. "What role did bamboo play as a major tool in this area?"
Nash explained that the emphasis on heretofore little-known areas of the world "is an amplification" of recent history teaching trends made possible by "stunning archaeological digs that have revealed the history of the ancient past."
But Cheney said "there is too much that is too old," and questioned its relevance to American students. "There's nothing wrong of course with studying the rest of the world, but not through this massive amount of detail."
Also new, Nash said, is the amount of attention given to Asian, African and pre-Columbian history in America. The standards track civilization in China from its beginnings to the present and discuss in detail such cultures as the Olmec, in what is now tropical Mexico, the Nok, in sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia's Srivijaya kingdom.
"There's gender relations in Gupta India, and students are supposed to read John of Plano Carpini on the Mongol threat," Cheney said of the new curriculum. "There's no sense of priorities, no sense of what's important to know."
And when the standards do focus on Western civilization, Cheney added, they often emphasize the negative. She cited the guidelines' suggestion that students study Michelangelo to learn about "oppression and conflict in Europe" during the Renaissance. "What about beauty?" she asked.
"Well, she apparently doesn't believe there is anything about oppression and conflict in the Renaissance," responded Nash. "That's interesting, because it was happening everywhere else."
Nash also denied that the standards lacked structure, noting that the guidelines illustrate each "era" with a large pie chart that describes major trends in world history for the period.
The Era 7 chart, "An Age of Revolutions, 1750-1914" is dominated by the West, with a bow to the rise of Japan and brief mentions of how Western imperialism affected peoples in the rest of the world.
But in Era 4, "Expanding Zones of Exchange and Encounter 300-1000, " Islamic civilization commands one-third of the pie and the expansion of Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity another third.
"Western Christendom" gets a single mention in the last third, entitled "New Patterns of Society." In paying such slight attention to the West, however, the new standards in this case appeared to march in lock step with traditional Western scholars, who used to call this period the Dark Ages.
Author: elizabeth ruth dale
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 1994 14:25:55 PCT
I am inclined to agree with Stephen Morillo's recent posting on the history standards, I might even go farther and say that I am a more than a little troubled by the way people who want more heroes in their histories cite Robert E Lee's absence from the proposed standards in their next breath. He may have been a principled man, but his principles were ultimately morally bankrupt as far as I am concerned, and I hardly consider him a suitable hero or a suitable symbol of American Culture.
So I too am neither impressed by Lynn Cheney's scholarship or her sense of the values that history should advance. But I am also troubled by some of the techniques that the proposed standards seem to rely on.
Specifically, I am worried about their tendency to rely on debates and trials as ways of getting at historical problems. Although I am generally a skeptic about collaborative learning, my objection here is a little different.
One problem with trials in general (and it is also a problem with debates) is that they tend to flatten issues -- there are two sides to a trial in the real world, and there are rarely a lot more in a trial in a class. (This is true even if witnesses, or observers, or other sorts of characters are put into the trial to provide perspective, the fact remains that the trial is a trial about a limited issue and that issue is going to be presented from two perspectives only).
I worry that this sort of teaching technique makes history seem to be less complicated, and tends toward the same sort of good guys bad guys history that Lynn Cheney seems to favor as well. Perhaps I am missing the point of the standards, but they seem to replace unnuanced history with another sort of unnuanced history.
Author: Ken Wolf
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 1994 14:13:16 PCT
Appropos the Tarver-Page debate: Why must we be so polemical? Why must we see being "multicultural" as a zero-sum game? Page is correct in seeing interaction among societies/civilizations as a key to understanding the past. It is rank political pandering to insist that the traditional aspects (i.e. white males of European descent) of American History must be completely eliminated in order to include others. An honest history of the United States (or of the world for that matter) should recognize--to the extent pedagogically possible--the diversity which makes up our study. So, if Page sees this as true multiculturalism, I'm on his side. By the way, neither Page or myself are Lynn Cheney fans. But we both do, I hope, perfer rational discourse to using history for limited and immediate ends. I'm sorry if this is deemed intemperate, but there seems to be an unfortunate amount of posturing on both sides of the "standards" debate. Human life is a mixture of the "positive" and the "negative;" so too therefore, must human history grant due space to both.
Author: "C J GARTON-ZAVESKY"
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 1994 13:25:13 PCT
In response to Ms Brown:
"Whose story is missing? We cannot get students to think about these questions too early."
Until the student has some grasp of the information itself, there is little point in asking "whose story is missing?". I will say this until the day I'm arrested by the thought police, but students can not intuit structure. I had a student recently do an exercise in French, the purpose of which was to use prepositions correctly in locating cities in countries. Without knowing what gender a country is, the student can not do the exercise. Furthermore, the student identified Berlin as being in Russia -- pointing to it on a map! He stood no chance of successfully completing the exercise because he lacked the correct information. Similarly, it is pointless to ask "who is missing" until we know who the cast of characters is!!!!!!
"The sooner we get teachers and students to engage in the intellectual give-and-take of determining fact, the better"
Pardon my french, but this is balderdash. Some things are simply true. Others are simply false. A third category is open to sensible debate.
True: Adolf Hitler was Chancellor of Germany from 1932-1945.
False: WWI took place in 1984.
Opinion: Slavery and States Rights contributed equally to the Civil War.
The student must be in command of truths before he has a chance of assessing the third question.
"I think Lynne Cheney is content to have history be a chronicle of wars and diplomatic maneuvers. Some of us see history in a different light".
I don't know Lynne Cheney, and will not presume to read her mind. As a student of intellectual history, though, I agree with your basic point: history is more than just who died and when. My recollection of Mrs. Cheney's position from GMA is that Who, What, Where and When must come before Why. So far, so good.
If I understand your position correctly (which I may not, and I welcome correction), understanding history is about who is telling the story as much as who is involved in the story. THis sounds like a breed of what is called "the New Social History", whose purpose is to read beyond the documents. All well and good, but for history to be credible, you must start with the documents. The further from the documents, the further toward conjecture and fiction. Social Trends are not history. Excretory habits of cows in rural Poland are not history. Illiterate peasants do not leave written history for us to trace. [Take note that I did not say that their thoughts etc would not be interesting].
Author: Robert Entenmann
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 1994 13:17:26 PCT
Ross Dunn makes the point that Lynne Cheney (and by extension the National Association of Scholars etc.) has political aims. She opposes the new national standards of history precisely because they do not meet her standards of "political correctness" - a term that is at least as applicable, if not more so, to the orthodoxy of the right than any alleged leftist orthodoxy.
Author: "Mike Tarver (803) 250-8577"
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 1994 13:12:40 PCT
TO: Mel Page (and others)
RE: Comments concerning multiculturalists
If this is your position, and I have no reason to doubt you, then I apologize for "lumping" you with others. I share your view of enhancement through diversity.
Author: "DANIEL A. SEGAL"
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 1994 09:52:40 PCT
FROM: Leslie Witz, History Dept,
University of the Western Cape, South Africa.
lstride@law1.uwc.ac.za
It is fascinating to eavesdrop on the debate about national history curriculum from the South African periphery. As South Africa is undergoing massive changes so is what is constituting history changing. This is most visibly evident in the debates over the future of the statues of apartheid symbols. But it is also evident in the discussion over a new history syallabus for South African schools. Up until now school children have been fed with apartheid history. This has meant that blacks have been virtually excluded from school history and when they have been included they have been represented in a distorted way to fit into an apartheid past. Moreover, and this is very crucial for us teaching at a university which has students from disadvantaged communities, all the school pupils are taught to do is to recite the text book off by heart and never question the authority of the teacher. In the political terminology of the days of the anti-apartheid this was termed gutter education. A new history syllabus has recently been proposed, but because of the lack of sufficient texts hardly anything has changed. All that has happened is that the same basic `white' apartheid history has been kept and the role of blacks has been inserted in parenthesis. Also sections that have been considered contentious, such as national symbols and monuments, have been left out in order to achieve a common history. Though there is a recommendation that critical skills be encouraged, there is still a heavy reliance on a single text as the authoritative voice. Considering that many of these are still riddled with apartheid history it seems, quite unfortunately, we will be left with the same school history for the next few years - perhaps it would be more correctly termed a transitional history.
This is really bad news for us because one of the central things that we try to achieve in history 1 at the University of the Western Cape is to show that history is argument and debate. What we do is, like Danile Segal suggests, to have debates between lecturers in the history 1 class. So we have debates on the nature of precapitalist African societies, the role of African rulers in the Atlantic slave trade, the role of human sacrifice in the Aztec Empire and the causes of the destruction of the Aztec empire. We find that not only does this generate a considerable interest in history as a subject but it also manages to move students away from their rote learning approach.
It thus seems to me, from the discussions that are going on, is that what we require in South Africa is something along the lines of what is being proposed in terms of a national standards curriculum in the US.
I hope that this intervention from the southern tip of Africa will help further some of the debate that is going on.
Author: "Pier M. Larson"
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 1994 09:46:24 PCT
Micheal Tarver in a recent posting writes that "Regardless of what many believe, there is such a thing as 'American Culture'..." As an American citizen who has spent 13 years in the United States and an 20 outside of it, I would like to know what "American Culture" is. I can identify commonalities I have seen across USA, but I suspect they might not be what Tarver is suggesting. Some commonalities which seem to be quite widely spread:
(i) a highly developed sense of individual rights
(ii) tremendous faith in the constitution of the United States, despite our history
(iii) reliance on video screen for news & entertainment (less wide spread than first two but still very important)
Beyond that, where is the center? These commonalities might make a political identity, but do they forge a "culture"?
Please share your ideas with us.
Author: Stephen Morillo
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 1994 09:43:52 PCT
Michael Tarver writes:
He [Robert E. Lee] was an honorable man who fought for his country.
Excuse me, but last I looked, Robert E. Lee was born and raised in the United States of America, the country he fought AGAINST in the Civil War. There is, I think, a reason that the southern forces are called "rebels", no? (And U.S. Grant was by far the better general.)
In a larger vein, I think Lynn Cheney and her defenders distort the debate by framing it as a battle of "facts" against "trivia" and by gratuitous name calling ("politically correct history", in the context of the transcript, is a totally empty phrase used purely for emotive value -- especially since Cheney's agenda is the one that upholds a traditional notion of what is "correct", politically and historically). I have not read the standards, but I can easily conceive of a history text that does not mention Robert E. Lee and still does ample justice to American history. It seems to me that the approach to history embedded in Nash's position is one that sees a different (though overlapping) set of facts as important to understanding American history: the facts of social and economic history which are conveyed best not by the atypical stories of great men (yes, I do think that Cheney's position is a Great Man approach) but by the typical stories of men and women insignificant in themselves but significant as symbols of groups (whether construed by race, class, gender or ethnicity) who have played a role in shaping this country's history. Conveying the complexity of long term social and economic development is perhaps harder but (I would argue) more significant than tracing the ephemeral political ups and downs of particular presidents and generals, and in the end makes political changes more comprehensible and open to democratic analysis. If one teaches the long drawn-out battle between the forces of small- farmer/shopkeeper free enterprise and Jacksonian democracy against the emergent forces of big capital and oligarchy by looking at how individual lives were affected, one will have less time to "admire" Robert E. Lee's southern gentlemanliness, whatever that means (having grown up in the south, I am a sceptic that such codes are anything more than a cover for racist, classist attitudes). So be it
Author: rdunn@sciences.SDSU.Edu (Ross E. Dunn) Date: Tue, 15 Nov 1994 09:37:17 PCT
San Diego State University
Lynne Cheney and a few conservative allies have launched a massive campaign of disinformation regarding WORLD HISTORY: EXPLORING PATHS TO THE PRESENT, the national standards developed by the National Center for History in the Schools at UCLA. Indeed, these critics are attacking the entire enterprise of world history and its teaching practitioners.
We might all welcome a reasoned national debate on world history teaching. This attack aims, however, to discredit the standards as the work of "politically correct" operatives who "hijacked" the project after President Clinton was elected and Cheney's term as chair of the NEH came to an end. Since these critics have not been able to find much in EXPLORING PATHS TO THE PRESENT to substantiate their claims that the standards represent radical revisionist history, they have resorted to flagrant misrepresentation of the contents of the book. They would like teachers and education officials to accept their erroneous accusations and never read the standards for themselves.
These attacks are being made by Cheney, various conservative columnists or talk show hosts (including Rush Limbaugh), one or two conservative members of the National Council on History Standards (individuals who largely remained silent when the council had its final major discussion on the drafting of the standards), and a scattering of conservative academics. Virtually none of these critics is a classroom teacher.
I would like to address a number of specific charges.
Expressed this way, she is reiterating the well-known, essentialist notion that Western civilization, particularly the history of certain political institutions, is the Big Story to which all developments in other parts of the world may be linked or subordinated. She is urging American schools to return to the days when the rise of Western civilization and world history were regarded as largely the same thing. Such an intellectual position is no longer tenable among the vast majority of either K-12 or college educators and could never be the basis for development of national history standards.
The standards are designed to serve as flexible guidelines for developing or improving courses, not as a prescribed curriculum for all schools to adopt. They do not present any single idea as the organizing principle other than a commitment to genuine globe-encircling history. They do offer a number of primary organizing ideas for eight chronological eras of world history. The standards presented under each of these eras emphasize study of large-scale developments in history (including those that cut across national or cultural boundaries) rather than study of "civilizations" as autonomous, self-perpetuating units.
2) Cheney has characterized EXPLORING as "incoherent . . . just a welter of details without priorities." She charges that "everything is the same as everything else--gender relations under India's Gupta Empire, political and cultural achievements under Shah Abbas in Persia, and oh yes, the Magna Carta." (USA Today, Nov. 11).
In fact the standards follow a lucid organizational plan, they are easy to read, and they include graphic presentations that can help teachers and curriculum specialists set subject matter priorities. Moreover, everything is not the same as everything else. The standards clearly guide teachers in periodizing world history, in identifying unifying themes, and in making distinctions between large-scale developments and those of regional or national significance. Cheney would have to explain how she would rank order the study of classical India, Islamic Persia, the Magna Carta, and other developments of altogether different character that occurred in completely different parts of the world at entirely different periods of time.
3) In their effort to discredit EXPLORING PATHS TO THE PRESENT Cheney and Co. have made the bizarre charge that they fail "to give any emphasis to Western civilization" (Washington Post, Nov. 11). Gilbert Sewall (head of a small, conservatively funded textbook reviewing organization) has asserted that the standards are "imbalanced by diminishing the place of Western civilization in human history" (Wall Street Journal, Nov. 11).
The teacher task forces that drafted the standards were asked to identify what they thought were the most important events, trends, and developments that occurred within each of eight designated eras of world history. The focus was on identifying the most consequential patterns of change, not on allotting so much space to "civilization A" and so much to "civilization B." The standards are not primarily organized around the study of "cultures" as such, whether Western or otherwise. Rather they encourage critical inquiry into the question of how the world came to be the way it is. As the first chapter of EXPLORING makes clear, this world-scale approach aims "to encourage students to ask large and searching questions about the human past, to compare patterns of continuity and change in different parts of the world, and to examine the histories and achievements of particular peoples or civilizations with an eye to wider social, cultural, or economic contexts" (p. 4).
Building on these premises, EXPLORING gives a great deal of attention to European history but places it in world context. Therefore ancient Greece and its achievements are presented in the context of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern history. Medieval Europe figures prominently in the standards but in relationship to contemporaneous developments in the Islamic world, China, and other regions. The standards are emphatic about the global importance of developments in Europe in the modern centuries. For the unit focusing on 1450-1750 AD more than half the specific standard statements are concerned either with Europe or Europeans abroad. The 1750-1914 era suggests three major guiding themes: Political Revolutions and New Ideologies, the Industrial Revolution, and the Age of European Dominance. These themes are all explored in global terms, but European history figures large. How could it not?
One can only conclude that when Cheney, Sewall, and others claim that the standards diminish "the importance of the West" (Newsweek, Nov. 14), they mean that world history is not defined largely as the history of the United States and western and central Europe. On the contrary, EXPLORING is arguing that students are likely to gain a far better understanding of the importance of European ideas and action in history if the framework for their studies is the human community as a whole. If, for example, the ideals of popular sovereignty, constitutionalism, and inalienable rights that were given expression in Europe and North America in the 18th century had such power that they attracted intense public debate and experimentation among peoples of Latin America, Asia, and Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries, shouldn't students know this?
4) Cheney states that "there's nothing wrong with studying the rest of the world, but not through this massive amount of detail" (Washington Post, Nov. 11). Sewall complains that the standards stress the "arcana" of the past (Wall Street Journal, Nov. 11).
EXPLORING PATHS TO THE PRESENT is a treasury of recommendations, ideas, and classroom strategies for world history. (The content standards take up 249 pages of a 341 page document. There are 18 pages of critical thinking standards.) The teacher-scholar task forces that developed the book spent a great deal of time deciding what to exclude from it, recognizing that there is a great deal of world history that should not be part of the K-12 curriculum. Their work involved much sifting and boiling down. Their aim, however, was not to produce a list of 100 or 200 things that every child "needs to know." Could one even imagine history teachers reaching national consensus on such an enterprise? Rather, in producing this book educators are saying: "Here's what we mean by guidelines for a rich, solid, world-class education in history." It is now the prerogatives of states, school districts, schools, and publishers to draw on them and select from them to develop courses, curricula, and textbooks-- preferably within the framework of three years of world history studies between 5th and 12th grades.
When Cheney speaks of "massive detail" and Sewall of "arcana," they are likely referring to events and ideas that were not part of their own traditional education. One or two other media critics have implied that any subject matter dealing with Africa south of the Sahara before the 20th century should be automatically classified as "arcane." However, teachers and scholars of today who are conversant with the history of Africa, Asia, and Latin America are likely to find very little in these standards that they would characterize as recondite. Some of the suggested exemplary activities for students are challenging (which is to be expected in "world-class" standards), and many of them offer students opportunities to be introduced to new historical figures, new places on the map, and new concepts. But how could anyone suppose that the experienced, pragmatic teachers who developed this document would be interested in cramming it with historical obscurities?
Cheney and a few others have combed through the standards to find passages that they think the public is likely to find "arcane." Then they have declared that American kids are going to have to learn "all this stuff" as the new "official history." This charge is outrageously deceptive since both the Bush and Clinton Departments of Education have made it perfectly clear that standards documents in all disciplines are to be regarded as voluntary. Moreover, the hundreds of student projects and activities included in EXPLORING PATHS TO THE PRESENT are presented as "examples of student achievement," not mandated elements in a rigid course of study.
5) Gilbert Sewall asserts that "significant issues are pushed aside to please interest groups" (Newsweek, Nov. 14).
Who are these presumably "politically correct" groups? What are their interests? Do they include organizations that participated in the standards process such as the Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod), the National Catholic Education Association, the American Association of School Librarians, or the NEA? Mr. Sewall should be asked to identify the "groups" he has in mind.
6) Cheney has repeated over and over in the media that the U.S. history standards fail to "mention" such important figures as Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein. She is alleging of course that radical revisionists are trying deliberately to strike Edison and Einstein from American history education.
Read Examples of Student Achievement on page 262 of EXPLORING PATHS TO THE PRESENT: "Investigate the life of a scientist or inventor such as Thomas Alva Edison, Marie Sklodowska Curie, Albert Einstein, or Guglielmo Marconi. How did the work of the person you selected change society?" Why would the authors "suppress" Edison and Einstein in the U.S. history standards but include them in the world history book?
7) Sewall alleges that in the standards "the Industrial Revolution is given short shrift."
The Industrial Revolution (in both European and world context) is one of three major guiding themes for study of the 1750-1914 era. One of six primary standards recommends student understanding of "The causes and consequences of the agricultural and industrial revolutions." Several other standards in this era recommend study of industrialization and its economic, social, and cultural consequences in Europe and around the world. These themes are also treated prominently in the 20th century era. The first of six standards calls for student understanding of "Global and economic trends in the high period of Western dominance."
8) In her effort to present evidence of radical revisionism in EXPLORING, Cheney has completely misrepresented at least one passage to make it support her charges. According to the Washington Post (Nov. 11), "she cited the guidelines' suggestion that students study Michelangelo to learn about "oppression and conflict in Europe" during the Renaissance. 'What about beauty,' she asked?"
The passage (p. 177) actually reads: "Use books such as Irving Stone's The Agony and the Ecstacy, Claudia Van Canon's The Inheritance, and Barbara Willard's A Cold Wind Blowing to discuss social oppression and conflict in Europe during the Renaissance. How did such conditions conflict with prevailing humanist principles?"
Moreover, a student exemplar on page 43 of the U.S. standards reads: "Analyze examples of Renaissance art, such as Michelangelo's painting of the Sistine Chapel or the sculpture of David for what it says about the relationship between man and God and the position and power of the individual."
Cheney's method of making blatant, condemnatory generalizations from bits of language and scattered omissions suggests that the true p.c. fanatics (if they are out there somewhere) might use the same tactics to denounce the standards as monstrously Eurocentric!
9) Many teachers have been grieved to see Al Shanker, president of the AFT, weighing in on the side of the ultra conservative critics with an utterly unsupportable attack on the standards. He is quoted in the Wall Street Journal (Nov. 11): "[EXPLORING PATHS TO THE PRESENT] is a travesty, a caricature of what these things should be--sort of a cheapshot, leftist point-of-view of history. . . . Everything that is European or American, or that has to do with white people is evil and oppressive, while Genghis Khan is a nice sweet guy just bringing his culture to other places."
This statement is an offense to the dedicated and distinguished teacher-scholars who wrote the standards, and it is completely without foundation. To be specific, what does EXPLORING actually say about Genghis Khan [Chinggis Khan] and the Mongol empire?
". . . the Mongol warlords intruded in one way or another on the lives of almost all peoples of Eurasia. The conquests were terrifying, but the stabilizing of Mongol rule led to a century of fertile commercial and cultural interchange across the continent" (p. 128).
"Describe the destructive Mongol conquests of 1206-1279. . . ." (p. 146).
"Write a short story as told by someone your age about the siege of their home city in Persia by a Mongol army" (p. 146).
"Use the reported remarks of Chinggis Khan--'Man's highest joy is in victory: to conquer one's enemies, to pursue them, to deprive them of their possessions, to make their beloved weep . . .'--to examine the record of Mongol conquests."
"Construct a historical argument explaining the relationship between military success and Mongol army organization, weapons, tactics, and policies of terror."
Gary Nash has challenged Shanker to retract his statement in the Wall Street Journal.
Under Lynne Cheney's chairmanship at NEH the National Council on History Standards charged the National Center for History to develop standards in world, not European history. They took the charge seriously, affirming along with the dozens of teachers and scholars who contributed to this project that high school graduates who are going to live their lives in an intricately interconnected world and pursue careers and vocations in the global marketplace require a fundamental understanding of the forces that have over the long span of time shaped our contemporary world. That means a solid world history education-- not a tour of every culture and society but critical inquiry into the movements, trends, conflicts, transformations, and cultural flowerings of greatest import and most enduring significance.
A closing anecdote: The other day I spoke to my brother-in-law, a southern Wisconsin dairy farmer with children in 8th and 10th grades. "Of course we need world history in the curriculum," he told me. "On a dairy farm you have to deal with the global economy every day. It isn't the Wisconsin market or the national market that sets the price of the commodities I produce. It's the global market. To understand the global market, you have to know a lot about the world." Amen.
I would like to urge all of you who feel as I do about the injustice of these fierce attacks and on the importance of world history in the schools to take active steps:
Order the standards from the National Center for History in
the Schools and read them for yourselves. (National Center
for History, UCLA, 10880 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 761, Los
Angeles, CA 90024-4108).
Forward this message to colleagues and other lists.
Write letters to the press and op-ed pieces.
Organize departmental, school, or community discussions of
the National History Standards.
I will be happy to hear from any of you.
Author: rdunn@sciences.SDSU.Edu (Ross E. Dunn) Date: Tue, 15 Nov 1994 09:35:35 PCT
What does it take to make the point that Robert E. Lee was not "left out" of the United States history standards?
Read page 124 of the standards: "Students should be able to demonstrate understanding of how the resources of the Union and Confederacy affected the course of the war by: Evaluating how political, military, and diplomatic leadership affected the outcome of the war."
What does it take to make the point that EXPLORING THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE is not a textbook or an exhaustive list of names?
What does it take to make the point that the "traditional core of history" is at the core of this book?
What does it take to make the point that Lynne Cheney's aims are entirely political?
Author: "Mel Page"
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 1994 09:34:59 PCT
East Tennessee State University
I'm sorry, but Mike Tarver misses my point. I'm sure he knows there are multiculturalists who do not want to "destory AMERICAN CULTURE." I would like to think I am one of them.
The issue, however, is this: are those who promote other cultures as separate entities really mutliculturalists? I believe they are not. And as one who sees himself as a true multiculturalist, who celebrates the diverse origins of our resilient American culture, I take umbrage at being lumped together with these who manifestily do not share such inclusive views.
Author: "Mike Tarver (803) 250-8577"
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 1994 14:19:58 PCT
RE: Comments by Mel Page
My comment should not infer that ALL multiculturalists are attempting to destroy AMERICAN CULTURE -- I stated that SOME are doing so. I firmly believe that diversity is a good thing and that we should attempt to enhance our culture through diversity.
Author: "DANIEL A. SEGAL"
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 1994 13:21:31 PCT
FROM: Melvin E. (Mel) Page
pagem@etsuserv.east-tenn-st.edu
Micheal Tarver writes regarding this topic:
Regardless of what many believe, there is such a thing as "American culture", and some multiculturalists have been attempting to destroy that cultural identity instead of expanding it with diversity.
In doing so, I fear he makes a mistake that many, including Ms. Cheney, fall victim to, that of confusing cultural "-centrists" with genuine multiculturalists. No true multiculturalist wants to destory American culture with all its splendid diversity. Those who would lift up one or another culture (or sub-culture) to extoll it, often to the exclusion of the whole, are NOT multiculturalists, despite the best efforts of Ms. Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, and the like to paint them as such. Those of us who are multiciultural in our approach should not be confused with Afro-centrists and others who often (although not always) do disparage the multifaceted culture of the whole.
Author: "DANIEL A. SEGAL"
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 1994 12:47:08 PCT
FROM: Chris Garton-Zavesky
(I didn't realize exactly what can of worms I had opened)
This is composed in haste, and I can not reply to all comers at once. First, let me reply to Robert Wolff.
Concerning Nash's intent to develop critical thinking skills: it is categorically silly of Nash to suggest that critical thinking can take place before there is information critically to consider. True, the students have had some exposure both to structure and content at some level prior to high-school (i.e., your comments about parents and such), but at the high-school level (as some sociologist can attest to, I'm sure) students begin to operate at a more discrete level -- more bits and order than concepts. My experience teaching both French and Music has demonstrated that students want the structure within which to understand the information -- but the information helps to create the structure. Besides, adolescents are rebellious by nature - so there is little doubt that they will be critical in at least one sense.
Re "first exposure", please read "first FORMAL exposure". That should clear that up.
More anon.
Author: Micheal Tarver (TARVERHMT@A1.GVLTEC.EDU) Date: Mon, 14 Nov 1994 09:27:22 PCT
While I have not had the opportunity to read the forthcoming history standards, I think the comments by S. Brown are reflective of the blacklash of groups who feel as though their story has not been told. While I agree that our history textbooks and curriculum should be expanded to incorporate the groups which have traditionally been "slighted", I do not believe that it should be at the expense of prominent persons or events.
Example, Robert E. Lee. While S. Brown probably agrees that the General should be left out (as he simply reflects the desire to retell wars), he is reflective of the southern qualities which many people still find worthy. He was an honorable man who fought for his country.
To attack Lynne Cheney as wanted only to keep the old history of wars and diplomacy is to completely miss her arguments. She, as best I can determine, simply does not want the traditional core of history destroyed by trivial events which offer little to shaping the cultural identity of American youths. Regardless of what many believe, there is such a thing as "American culture", and some multiculturalists have been attempting to destroy that cultural identity instead of expanding it with diversity.
Author: Shirley Brown
Date: Sun, 13 Nov 1994 21:10:44 -0500
Subj: US standards: politically correct history
I agree that an inquiry stance is what we want to develop in students k-12, college, and graduate levels. I have been working in a Women in world History Project for the past three years, and it is clear to me that we want students to ask, "Whose point of view? Whose story is missing? what's being valued here?" We cannot get students to think about these questions too early.
Somewhere all the line there has developed an idea that an accumulation of "fact" is antithetical to critical inquiry. I would submit that that is not so. The sooner we get teachers and students to engage in the intellectual give-and-take of determining fact, the better.
I think Lynne Cheney is content to have history be a chronicle of wars and diplomatic maneuvers. Some of us see history in a different light.
Author: "DANIEL A. SEGAL"
Date: Sat, 12 Nov 1994 12:17:20 PCT
As the debate goes on, H-WORLD subscribers may want to look at the actual document prepared by the National Center for History in the Schools. *NATIONAL STANDARDS FOR WORLD HISTORY: Exploring Paths to the Present* is available for $18.95 for individuals, and $24.95 for institutions. Shipping is $5.00 for one copy, and California residents need to add sales tax (8.25% in LA County & 7.75% in the rest of the state). Checks should be made to Regents, University of California. The mailing address is:
National Center for History in the Schools
University of California, Los Angeles
10880 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 761
Los Angeles, CA 90024-4108
Daniel Segal
dsegal@bernard.pitzer.edu
Author: "DANIEL A. SEGAL"
Date: Sat, 12 Nov 1994 11:46:04 PCT
"[we] insist that students not take the word out of the textbook and accept it as the gospel, as the literal truth." [Gary Nash]
If the student, particularly at first exposure, is not to trust the textbook from which exams and the like will be taken, what is the point of having one? If the information from the teacher is not to be taken as factual and important, then what is the point of studying it at all? Furthermore, does Professor Nash want to apply his questioning attitude to the new books as well as the old? [Chris Garton-Zavesky]
I disagree with the notion that learning must begin by ceding authority entirely to a text and/or a teacher. One of things I believe we should teach students is that they can use reason and curiosity to question accounts and explanations presented even by persons more learned than they. In teaching our modern world history survey, I begin by telling students that every narrative of the past inevitably, if often implicitly, has allegorical dimensions--one can't just tell the past without representing, framing, and selecting it. And the representational aspects of historical narratives cannot be free of notions about such things as human nature, the legitimacy or lack thereof of one's own social order, etc. So I encourage students to think about the allegorical dimensions of all stories they hear or read about the past--even and especially the ones I tell. (An aside: Weber was particularly and admirably concerned with the dangers of the excesses of professorial authority, suggesting at one point that our classrooms ought to have two professors representing distinct perspectives, so that one of the profs could always challenge the other.) I want students to think critically about my representations of world history, not take them on my authority.
As for the implied ad hominem attack on Gary Nash ("does Professor Nash want to apply his questioning attitude to the new books as well as the old"): I do not know Professor Nash personally, but I have been on a panel with him once, and he and I ended up disagreeing quite strongly. He was open to, and encouraging of, debate. I find it disappointing that there would be a suggestion of a "double-standard" on Nash's part in the absence of any evidence whatsoever. I think we should take him at his word that he is interested in encouraging critical thinking on the part of his students in relation to all versions of history. That sort of opennness is certainly not a part of Lynne Chaney's position.
"We want this to be a democratic history, where it is a history for the people, of the people and by the people." [Gary Nash]
Charming mush. Most of the history of the world is NOT democratic in any sense of the world. [Chris Garton-Zavesky]
This criticism of Nash seems to depend upon a well-known ambiguity of the word "history"--between an account of the past and the past itself. Nash certainly knows that history, qua the past, has often been undemocratic. Indeed, this is something Nash's scholarship has been all about. Yet it is quite possible to produce democratic analyses and narratives of undemocratic events. I know that U.S. slavery was undemocratic, but I want to study it democratically-- which means I want to be attentive to the voices of the oppressed, and not privilege the voices of the oppressors. And to anticipate a likely response: I do not think we should expurgate the voices of those who enslaved others, but they should indeed be identified as such. Of course, this is just the sort of thing Lynne Chaney wants to deemphasize--let's not, she is telling us, remind our students too often that Jefferson owned slaves. We should, then, recognize Chaney's position for what it is: the sort of insidious censorship of history feared and depicted by Orwell.
Daniel Segal
dsegal@bernard.pitzer.edu
Author: MANNING@neu.edu
Date: Sat, 12 Nov 1994 10:52:07 -0500
I suspect that there will be no shortage of responses to Chris Garton-Zavesky's posting, so I have chosen to focus on one aspect of the debate -- the pedagogy of teaching history.
To use engaging materials is hardly radical, as Garton-Zavesky notes (see excerpts from his posting below), but Nash's intent is not merely that historical material be interesting, but that the use of different materials should encourage students to develop critical thinking skills.
Here I want to take the opportunity to disagree with Garton-Zavesky on several points. He argues that students, "particularly at first exposure," need to trust textbooks and instructors. There is no such thing as "first exposure"; children and young adults learn their framework of history from parents, religious institutions, as much as from schooling. We all agree that historical inquiry must be grounded in facts; the real difference here is that Garton-Zavesky suggests that students below the undergraduate level are merely passive recipients of knowledge, and not active participants in the creation of knowledge (which is what Nash implies).
It is not necessarily the case that the method of teaching advocated by Nash will undermine the instructor/teacher. Nash does not intend to undermine the integrity of facts per se, but rather to start the student on a road to critical inquiry that will prepare him/her to be something other than a mindless automaton at the collegiate level (as well as providing a concrete skill well within the tradition of the liberal arts).
I think that students are better served by encouraging them to question the assumptions of their teachers, and that a skillful teacher can permit such criticism without losing the respect of his/her students. The important part of their quest for historical knowledge is not the knowledge, but the quest. If we insist that they take all knowledge at face value in high school, then we guarantee that they will expect to do the same thing in college.
Robert S. Wolff
University of Minnesota
wolf0010@gold.tc.umn.edu
On Fri, 11 Nov 1994 Chris Garton-Zavesky wrote:
"...one way of changing [history teaching] is to infuse classrooms with lots of exciting, engaging materials." [Gary Nash}
This observation is not about content, but presentation. No one has ever suggested that history should be boring.
"[we] insist that students not take the word out of the textbook and accept it as the gospel, as the literal truth."
If the student, particularly at first exposure, is not to trust the textbook from which exams and the like will be taken, what is the point of having one? If the information from the teacher is not to be taken as factual and important, then what is the point of studying it at all? Furthermore, does Professor Nash want to apply his questioning attitude to the new books as well as the old?
Author: MANNING@neu.edu
Date: Fri, 11 Nov 1994 11:48:39 -0500
RE the posting by Chris Garton-Zavesky:
Your comments are so accurate and compelling, that they have no chance of ever finding either wide usage or acceptance. Only when the traditional history curriculum and methodology is totally discarded and new reputations and careers have been made and profits gained by book publishers and education/history departments, will traditional ideas about history teaching return (called something entirely new) so that new profts and careers and reputations can be made. This is free market capitalism at work in education. Profit before all else.
Paul Kuritz
Bates College
pkuritz@abacus.bates.edu
Author: MANNING@neu.edu
Date: Fri, 11 Nov 1994 10:32:04 -0500
What an interesting can of worms "Good Morning America" has sought to explore. To get this discussion started, I would like to make some observations, with quotations taken directly from the posted transcript.
"...one way of changing [history teaching] is to infuse classrooms with lots of exciting, engaging materials." [Gary Nash}
This observation is not about content, but presentation. No one has ever suggested that history should be boring.
"[we] insist that students not take the word out of the textbook and accept it as the gospel, as the literal truth."
If the student, particularly at first exposure, is not to trust the textbook from which exams and the like will be taken, what is the point of having one? If the information from the teacher is not to be taken as factual and important, then what is the point of studying it at all? Furthermore, does Professor Nash want to apply his questioning attitude to the new books as well as the old?
"We want students really to interrogate the data."
Anthropomorphism notwithstanding, any scientist knows that you can not test results you do not have. Before the student can question the organization of data, he must first have data and organization. At the high-school level, the first and most important task of history teachers is to communicate information, the raw data which the students will eventually learn to evaluate.
"We want this to be a democratic history, where it is a history for the people, of the people and by the people."
Charming mush. Most of the history of the world is NOT democratic in any sense of the world. I can want history to be about interaction with space aliens, but this only makes sense once there are space aliens with which [whom?] I might interact. For the sake of asking it, especially since Mr Nash seems to want to study "groups", which people is history for, of and by?
Lynne Cheney: "We want to be sure that students understand about the contributions of women and what African-Americans and Asian-Americans and Latinos have contributed to this country. But it's a very great error to quit teaching basic history in the name of political correctness."
America is a country formed by immigrants. Therefore, by definition, contributions of each immigrant group are worth noting. [I understand here that the word immigrant includes those who were willing as well as those who were not]. But, the difficulty arises when we segregate or artificially carve up the picture. As a sub-set of American history, any individual discipline is worthwhile, to a certain point. We must first teach our students to be generalists before we get them to focus on a narrow area. As a case in point, I had to learn about the history of Europe before I decided to concentrate on France; the history of France came before specialization in a particular century and the final specialization into a particular breed of intellectual history during three decades of the sixteenth century. By all means let us add relevant details that contribute to the whole story, but at the high-school level we do our students a dis-service by overspecializing the curriculum.
Charles Gibson: "Is there anything wrong with the idea of studying concepts, like causes of the Civil War or reasons for industrialization?"
Unless you know when the civil war took place and who the warring parties were, asking what caused it is pointless. The question is a good one to ask, but in order to answer it, the student must have a grasp of relevant details! Who, what, where and when must come before WHY.
Lynne Cheney: "[Mr Nash] told Reuters a few days ago that he was against hero-driven history. I think our kids need heroes. I think that they need models of greatness to help them aspire."
I hope no one has proposed teaching the "great-man" theory of history that is so common in France [or was -- I'm a bit out of the loop now]. Still, if history is to be for, of and by the people, it must include people, not merely amorphous groups and social trends. Can you teach about the Civil Rights movement without mentioning the people who defined its goals, those who fought for change and all that sort of stuff? Don't be silly. History of suffrage would include those who first proposed the idea that sovereignty rested with the people, those who expanded the idea to "universal suffrage", those who argued for the "3/5 compromise" and a whole host of characters I can not even begin to mention. Individuals, not groups or social trends, will help history come alive for our students. I'm not proposing hero worship, as Mrs. Cheney apparently is, but without individuals, history is a meaningless, pastel canvas.
Humbly submitted,
Chris Garton-Zavesky
North Carolina State University
gartoncj@hcl.chass.ncsu.edu
Author: MANNING@neu.edu
Date: Mon, 7 Nov 1994 08:32:30 -0500
The public debate on the newly released U.S. national standards in world history is taking on a ferocious tone. According to Ross Dunn of San Diego State University, it will be aired on national public radio on Tuesday, November 8: Joyce Appleby (of the commission that drew up the standards) will go up against Lynne Cheney (former director of the National Endowment for the Humanities and a critic of the standards) on "Talk of the Nation," live between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. (probably 12-1).
In addition, Newsweek may be doing a cover story in the next week or so.
Pat Manning
Northeastern University
manning@neu.edu
Author: MANNING@neu.edu
Date: Fri, 4 Nov 1994 08:20:23 -0500
The controversy over proposals for national standards in teaching of K-12 history has focused on United States history but presumably will involve world history too. I want to quote a passage from an article by Lynne V. Cheney, the former head of the NEH (published in Wall Street Journal, 20 Oct. 1994):
"The standards for world history are also soon to be made public. By all acccounts, the sessions leading to their development were even more contentious than those that produced U.S. standards. The main battle was over the emphasis that would be given to Western Civilization, says a second council member. After the 1992 election, this member reports, the American Historical Association, an academic organization, became particularly aggressive in its opposition to "privileging" the West. The AHA threatened to boycott the proceedings if Western civilization was given any emphasis."
PS: the controversy over new Ohio social studies education standards has a different focus: merger of U.S. and world "history."
David Fahey
Miami University
dfahey@miamiu.acs.muohio.edu>
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