African-Americans and Ancient Egypt

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**A Town Called Malus**

The thing is, horrific events which are now looked back on with shame are often the events which directly lead to change for the better, due to their nature serving as a rallying cry for that change.

India's push for independence may have taken a lot longer if not for the Amritsar massacre providing a stark example of British colonial oppression, for example.

**Wakshaani**

You also have to take into account that, in the US, history is generally dribbled out and soft-pedaled as well. You get a US history and a World history course for elementary school that mostly focuses on nice stuff, a whitewashed history where the bad is downplayed and the good played up, to build pride in one's nation. When you get to high school, you get a more nuanced approach but one that still focuses much more on the positive. Very few bother going into higher history classes where you find out the nitty gritty details and you get to go, "Wait, what do you *mean* we had concentration camps?! But but but ... we're AMERICAN!"

This also avoids the "End of the book" problem ... in one year, history teachers surveyed had 0 classes where they hit the end of the book. Not one. One had made it to Vietnam, three to World War II, but most never hit the 20th century. Everything taught is, well, History, with no one alive who was there for any of it. This means that there's a level of detatchment and it avoids the more complicated topcs of today. Civil Rights? the Summer of Love? The Oil Emargo and Hostage Crisis? Reaganomics? The Shuttle Disaster(s)? Heck, anything related to the Internet! Not a word about any of that.

And, of course, we can't forget about the Texas Veto on textbooks. That one's rather huge.

**Prestor Jon**

d-usa wrote:
Prestor Jon wrote:
History classes in the US are really just a relatively arbitrarily chosen list of people and events from the recent and distant past that students need to memorize in order to pass a test.

History isn't some separate entity unto itself, everything has a history. History is the origin story of whatever subject (person/place/event/thing) that you choose to examine.

"History" education should focus much less on knowing who person X was or when event Y happened and much more on learning the skills you need to find out the sequence of events that led to the existence of the subject of your interest. Learning history is learning the "why" of something and that's very important knowledge for a whole host of reasons.

I disagree to the extend that I think there should be both approaches.

There should be courses in World History, US History, and State History that give a basic foundation of the events, good AND bad, that are the foundation of why things are the way they are today.
And there should also be courses on how to conduct basic research to gain further knowledge than the basic history that is provided to you.

Edit:

While I disagree with the whole "education force-feeds Children liberal worldviews and alternative facts" mindset that is frequently seen when it comes to things like history curriculum selection (like: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/an-unflattering-history-lesson/2015/02/19/3be9cb0c-b878-11e4-a200-c008a01a6692_story.html?utm_term=.79314494a0f7 ), I do think that it helps to move past a "these are the only facts that matter" mindset we get with our education system and standardized testing.

This is the point I was trying to make:

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/teaching-history-outside-the-box-dan-carlin

How do you improve history instruction for young people? My advice might seem hopelessly out of touch with the realities that history educators face in classrooms every day. But as a complete heretic on the subject of history instruction, maybe I can add some outside-the-box ideas to the discussion.

The Wrong Reasons

I produce and host a downloadable audio production that focuses on history. The feedback we hear most often is from people who have discovered that they love history, but never before realized it. "Where are all the boring names and dates?" they often ask. When my two girls, ages twelve and nine, bring history-related coursework home, it seems almost designed to bore them.

Then the chance to write this post arrived and forced me to consider two things:
Why do we need kids to learn this stuff?
What should they know to meet that identified need?

The hard reality we need to accept is that the overwhelming majority of students do not absorb or retain what history they are taught. This historical amnesia is on display everywhere. I watched something on television the other night where random passers-by were asked basic history questions by a producer holding a microphone. Of course the idea is funny to the audience because the answers of the interviewees are so unbelievably wrong. We all ask, "How could they not know that?" Despite having been taught history when they were in school, those interviewees either never learned the content or forgot it. This makes a mockery of any conceivable rationale for employing the same methods of teaching history that were used in the past.
Herein lies the problem. History is not taught to foster knowledge and the love of history. Instead, it serves subsidiary purposes, such as civic responsibility, patriotism, and pride in one's heritage. But that isn't what history is for -- we warp it when we try bending it to achieve such goals. (Do we do this with math or reading?) We mandate that kids must learn about this or that "important event" and then bore them to death with something that 90 percent of students will forget once the test is over. In the era where continuing education is an important lifetime endeavor, we should instead develop a love for studying the past by allowing students themselves to decide what they love about it.

History is Inherently Interesting

Everyone is naturally interested in history. How could they not be? Oral historians for thousands of years have held audiences in the palm of their hands with this material. History is full of all the elements that make great entertainment: drama, romance, war, crime, and fascinating characters. Truth really is stranger than fiction. If the only goal were instilling a love of history in students, then teachers would be out of a job if they couldn't accomplish that with the raw material the past supplies -- provided that they (or better yet, the students) got to choose the material.

If my daughters could develop a love of history from their pre-college exposure to the subject, I would consider that immeasurably more valuable than any specific knowledge of "important events" that they learned about. In college, those civic purposes we deem so important for K-12 kids to learn are going to be undercut anyway. University professors don't buy into the "subsidiary purposes" of pre-collegiate level history -- and in fact will actively work to deconstruct the whole idea.
Were I anointed History Czar, I would ditch the curricula entirely. These things are holdovers from another era of history instruction. My goal would be to get kids to love the study of the past by connecting to their affinities. Into music? It's got a history. Motorcycles? Fashion? Entertainment? Sports? Getting them to explore the history of a subject they already love is a great way to teach historical knowledge and how the current reality came to be. In the 21st century, this is the greatest practical value the study of the past provides. Each student is going to have different stories, eras, people, and places that get him or her excited.

I would encourage kids to pursue their interests and forget about what they "should" know. That's what we should teach them.

**nareik**

The personal lives of the ruling classes were incredibly boring and not something I could relate to. It was like reading spoilers on a 500 year old episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

WWI was much more interesting; we learnt about social issues, stories of relatable characters, about how the media can mislead and control the masses. All sorts of lessons relevant to the learner.

The most interesting history I learnt was when I took a Sport Studies A-Level. I was not a jock and ironically this is why I chose the subject; it was something I knew little about so thought it was the subject I could learn the most from and therefore be most engaging. The class was split into several elements; physiology, psychology, sociology and history... or something like that.

I actually went on to study psychology further, but the history section turned my preconceptions of history on it's head. It was so interesting to learn about the social changes (particularly worker welfare) that were happening in the late 19th Century that lead to the popularisation of sport as we know it today. Much more interesting than 'The king is dead, long live the king'.

**BaronIveagh**

A Town Called Malus wrote:
The thing is, horrific events which are now looked back on with shame are often the events which directly lead to change for the better, due to their nature serving as a rallying cry for that change.

Sadly, no act, no matter how horrible, ever seems to make the news if the victim(s) are Native American. Even when they go on now, in the modern era, walking while native is much, much more dangerous than driving while black.

Forget any past shame, the US has none.

**trexmeyer**

BaronIveagh wrote:
A Town Called Malus wrote:
The thing is, horrific events which are now looked back on with shame are often the events which directly lead to change for the better, due to their nature serving as a rallying cry for that change.

Sadly, no act, no matter how horrible, ever seems to make the news if the victim(s) are Native American. Even when they go on now, in the modern era, walking while native is much, much more dangerous than driving while black.

Forget any past shame, the US has none.

Why should a country be ashamed of its past? Acknowledge it, yes. Fix things that are decided to have been problems, but being shameful of something generations before you did is foolish.

The problem I see in America is that as a society we have stuck our collective heads in the sand and ignored the plights of a lot of people. Native Americans suffering the most. I know there's a reservation out there where the life expectancy is around 50 years old.

**Desubot**

Something something about history being written by the victors always.

unless you where there anything you read or hear will be on the bias of the victor as they spin it to their side.

**trexmeyer**

Desubot wrote:
Something something about history being written by the victors always.

unless you where there anything you read or hear will be on the bias of the victor as they spin it to their side.

Not entirely true. Imperial Japan lost, but Americans in general only know about the Holocaust and have no idea what the Japanese were getting up to. Neither do the Japanese anymore since it hasn't been taught.

Spoiler:

**nfe**

Desubot wrote:
Something something about history being written by the victors always.

unless you where there anything you read or hear will be on the bias of the victor as they spin it to their side.

Not true. At all. Best starting point on accessing the stories of the losers and the oppressed in history is probably J. A. Scott's concept of hidden transcripts.

**Desubot**

trexmeyer wrote:
Desubot wrote:
Something something about history being written by the victors always.

unless you where there anything you read or hear will be on the bias of the victor as they spin it to their side.

Not entirely true. Imperial Japan lost, but Americans in general only know about the Holocaust and have no idea what the Japanese were getting up to. Neither do the Japanese anymore since it hasn't been taught.

Spoiler:

Like massacring 100,000+ civilians in a search for the Doolittle raiders

Thats true i guess

then again its not as relative to Americans for some reason.

Now the Koreans and Chinese

they remember

id know

**trexmeyer**

Desubot wrote:
trexmeyer wrote:
Desubot wrote:
Something something about history being written by the victors always.

unless you where there anything you read or hear will be on the bias of the victor as they spin it to their side.

Not entirely true. Imperial Japan lost, but Americans in general only know about the Holocaust and have no idea what the Japanese were getting up to. Neither do the Japanese anymore since it hasn't been taught.

Spoiler:

Like massacring 100,000+ civilians in a search for the Doolittle raiders

Thats true i guess

then again its not as relative to Americans for some reason.

Now the Koreans and Chinese

they remember

id know

I think the Holocaust was remembered because it was white people killing white people en masse. Few white people at the time cared about Asians massacring Asians or the Armenian genocide. The fact there was a growing movement to form an independent Jewish state as early as 1880 I believe contributed to the focus on the Holocaust.

**d-usa**

Another thing to keep in mind is that the USA also had Jews in WW2, so we had a "local" face to put with the people that were slaughtered over there. We also had "local" Asian faces, but we already locked them up in camps ourselves so they didn't feel like they were a part of "us".

**trexmeyer**

d-usa wrote:
Another thing to keep in mind is that the USA also had Jews in WW2, so we had a "local" face to put with the people that were slaughtered over there. We also had "local" Asian faces, but we already locked them up in camps ourselves so they didn't feel like they were a part of "us".

Definitely. At that time the Jews may not have been "us", but they were much closer than Asians.

**LordofHats**

trexmeyer wrote:

Why should a country be ashamed of its past?

People have this stupid reaction to negative aspects of the past, as if somehow the pervasive and ignoble role of slavery in the early American economy somehow means we should all be ashamed at all times. It doesn't help that there are idiots who walk around saying that we should, but well they're idiots and it be nice if people stopped pretending that history is a binary between pride and shame.

**BaronIveagh**

LordofHats wrote:
trexmeyer wrote:

Why should a country be ashamed of its past?

People have this stupid reaction to negative aspects of the past, as if somehow the pervasive and ignoble role of slavery in the early American economy somehow means we should all be ashamed at all times.

Well, you might consider being ashamed of things you STILL DO let alone the ones that happened in the past. Which was what I was driving at. You act as though your treatment of natives is something that happened 200 years ago, when it's something that happened yesterday, today, and probably tomorrow, too.

**LordofHats**

BaronIveagh wrote:
Well, you might consider being ashamed of things you STILL DO let alone the ones that happened in the past. Which was what I was driving at. You act as though your treatment of natives is something that happened 200 years ago, when it's something that happened yesterday, today, and probably tomorrow, too.

Oh I considered it. I just didn't bring it up because there's not way to explain it without delving into US politics.

**Relapse**

There is only so much time to teach subjects in high school, so it comes as no surprise that extensive world history education is reserved for college majors.

**LordofHats**

Relapse wrote:

There is only so much time to teach subjects in high school, so it comes as no surprise that extensive world history education is reserved for college majors.

But US history doesn't take that much time to teach is the thing. We haven't been around that long. Example;

1st Year, Pre-Colonial America to Civil War. Good chunk, nice cut off. A single class on into and Pre-Colombian to early Colonial, just the overview then take us on to Civil War and maybe Reconstruction.
2nd Year, Pick up at reconstruction and go to present.
3rd Year, Intro to World History, nothing that complicated just some a quick tour to various parts of the world and some of the stuff that went on there.
4th Year, Whole year for whatever. Electives are fun I guess. Honors and AP gak XD

Adjust to semesters for people on such schedules of course. The hard part for this isn't history but that some course plans mix history/civics/political science/social studies into a single class (or at least they did when I was in school), though imo Civics/Political Science and History really need to be separate classes. Especially Civics cause I'm tired of dealing with people who don't understand the most basic components of the Constitution and that John Hancock didn't sign it. We need to put more time into that gak XD

**John Prins**

Relapse wrote:

There is only so much time to teach subjects in high school, so it comes as no surprise that extensive world history education is reserved for college majors.

The real problem is how interwoven history is. You can teach the history of one single nation fairly easily, but you'll be sidestepping a lot of tangential stuff. Once you start stepping into world history, there's many, many moving parts and you can't ignore things, because everything affects everything.

**trexmeyer**

John Prins wrote:
Relapse wrote:

There is only so much time to teach subjects in high school, so it comes as no surprise that extensive world history education is reserved for college majors.

The real problem is how interwoven history is. You can teach the history of one single nation fairly easily, but you'll be sidestepping a lot of tangential stuff. Once you start stepping into world history, there's many, many moving parts and you can't ignore things, because everything affects everything.

i.e. The Revolutionary War was in part successful because the French were distracting the British across the globe

The French-Indochina War is hardly discussed, but it is hugely relevant to Vietnam

**Relapse**

LordofHats wrote:
Relapse wrote:

There is only so much time to teach subjects in high school, so it comes as no surprise that extensive world history education is reserved for college majors.

But US history doesn't take that much time to teach is the thing. We haven't been around that long. Example;

1st Year, Pre-Colonial America to Civil War. Good chunk, nice cut off. A single class on into and Pre-Colombian to early Colonial, just the overview then take us on to Civil War and maybe Reconstruction.
2nd Year, Pick up at reconstruction and go to present.
3rd Year, Intro to World History, nothing that complicated just some a quick tour to various parts of the world and some of the stuff that went on there.
4th Year, Whole year for whatever. Electives are fun I guess. Honors and AP gak XD

Adjust to semesters for people on such schedules of course. The hard part for this isn't history but that some course plans mix history/civics/political science/social studies into a single class (or at least they did when I was in school), though imo Civics/Political Science and History really need to be separate classes. Especially Civics cause I'm tired of dealing with people who don't understand the most basic components of the Constitution and that John Hancock didn't sign it. We need to put more time into that gak XD

I was talking more of the difficulty involved with finding time for much more than a cursory study of the history of other countries.

**LordofHats**

Ah. Gotcha. I agree then. I think a cursory study would be very useful but there is indeed not really a place for the History of Ancient China in high schools.

**Relapse**

If there were more emphasis on this country's founding and the documents involved, with a crossover into Social Studies, people might not be so damn gullible or complacent about the government.

**LordofHats**

We definitely gloss over the really complex situation this country was in for it's first 20 or 30 years. We treat the founders like this group of guys with a unified vision when really they were at times within inches of strangling each other. There were points in the 1790s and 1800s where civil war seemed like a very likely possibility, and the economic and ideological struggles between the men who created the Constitution were never fully resolved.

They sat down and wrote some words on a piece of paper, and we beguile ourselves into thinking that was the end of the chapter.