Critical Historical Thinking
It is not a surprise that Governor Andrew Cuomo's recent statements created a firestorm and that some Americans are outraged. However, they should not be. The governor spoke the truth. America strives for greatness, but greatness has yet to be achieved.
I would like to offer a different perspective of America, and suggest that "right now" this is one of the "best nations on earth." Only in America can a diverse group of citizens rise from poverty and become successful. Some Americans can become millionaires or even president. But as amazing as that potentially is, the degree of American mobility and opportunity is limited and not available to all of its citizens.
In our daily conversations, we tend to debate "greatness". "Greatness" is a relative term, one that is best used in descriptions of movies, restaurants, food, sports teams, and music. "National greatness" or the "historical greatness" of a nation is a descriptive that cannot be quantified. In reality, no singular nation has ever been "forever great"!
However, for those who are angry or confused, I wanted to share this quote as people continue to sift through the speech or boil in anger.
I would like to offer a different perspective of America, and suggest that "right now" this is one of the "best nations on earth." Only in America can a diverse group of citizens rise from poverty and become successful. Some Americans can become millionaires or even president. But as amazing as that potentially is, the degree of American mobility and opportunity is limited and not available to all of its citizens.
In our daily conversations, we tend to debate "greatness". "Greatness" is a relative term, one that is best used in descriptions of movies, restaurants, food, sports teams, and music. "National greatness" or the "historical greatness" of a nation is a descriptive that cannot be quantified. In reality, no singular nation has ever been "forever great"!
However, for those who are angry or confused, I wanted to share this quote as people continue to sift through the speech or boil in anger.
"When I was a high school junior in New Orleans taking AP American history, my teacher assigned us a paperback book. Slim in contrast to our hulking required textbook, it was a funny, compelling, even shocking read. Lies My Teacher Told Me, by James Loewen, explained how history textbooks got the story of America wrong, usually by soft-pedaling, oversimplifying and burying the thorny drama and uncertainties of the past under a blanket of dull, voice-of-God narration.
The book also taught a lot of history. It introduced me to concepts that still help me make sense of the world, like the "racial nadir" — the downturn in American race relations, starting after Reconstruction, that saw the rise of lynchings and the Ku Klux Klan. In doing so, Lies My Teacher Told Me overturned one assumption embedded in the history classes I'd been sitting through all my life: that the United States is constantly ascending from greatness to greatness."
These words belong to Anya Kamenetz, a NPR reporter. Ms. Kamenetz wrote "Lies My Teacher Told Me and How American History Can Be Used As A Weapon" which is available at NPR.org on August 9, 2018. Her essay should be a must read for all. See: (https://www.npr.org/2018/08/09/634991713/lies-my-teacher-told-me-and-how-american-history-can-be-used-as-a-weapon?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20180816&utm_campaign=npr_email_a_friend&utm_term=storyshare)
At this point most Americans should realize that no nation can "constantly ascend from greatness to greatness." Nations are flawed and every chapter of a national history tends to lie about the past. And here in lies the problem - Americans continue to lie to themselves about their past! However, as we have all learned some type of fictional history or better yet a myth, we are angry at learning the truth or try to disregard it all together. The teaching of American mythology and calling it history needs to stop. And the current national tragedy, that has Americans fighting other Americans over the truth, is a prime reason why teaching bad history is problematic.
Students in Advanced Placement courses and at most universities are given the ability to do what many others students cannot. These students are able to deduct the truth in more scientific manners. They are allowed to think critically about situations and use evidence to come to conclusions. In essence, the truth is a conclusion not a myth.
Statistically, the majority of Americans are not taking AP history or an American history course in college. The majority of the nation is learning or has learned "bad history". Many students arrive at high school and college believing so many historical stories that reality is hard to accept. They are so convinced about falsehoods that they wear them like badges of honor. A lie is much harder to discard than the truth, even when facts are placed in front of one's face. And this is why we must re-orient our history as soon as possible.
Our national narrative needs a more honest origin. It requires a different presentation of colonial labor, enslavement, treatment of Native Americans, the goals of the American Revolution and the Founding Fathers, the real reasons for the failure of the Articles of Confederation and the rise of the Constitution. As I have often pointed out to my own students, every other revolution has had a counter-revolution except for the United States. Americans need to realize that we did have a counter-revolution. Our government's direction has been "overthrown" in many instances and not just in 1787.
That statement is not a theory. The evidence to prove this point is available, but we have to be willing to teach it and also accept its impact. Similarly, documents and evidence based learning can reveal that the majority of original settlers were not the statistical best and brightest. They were men and women running away from England with the hope of doing better. Indeed, some were being forced out of their homeland. Along with religious dissenters were criminals, adventurers, and indentured servants.
In the same manner we need new and better interpretations of the Civil War and Reconstruction, that are reflective of regionalism, sectionalism, politics, and issues of labor, gender, and race. I feel that numerous historical events are issues that require a back story. And our textbooks need to reflect this. The Civil War, for example, just did not happen. The road to war has its origins in the framing of the Constitution. But there are other events that increased the potential for war that are equally important for students to examine and analyze.
American students must also learn about the rest of the world. We must teach a more globalized account of the past. And world history needs to start in elementary school with the rise of great civilizations on every continent. Students must learn a global chronology. They must equally learn how events in other places have shaped America's destiny and how American decisions have equally changed the course of other nations.
Currently, students often snag pieces of information which might be true but lack context. And, our popular media seems to promote bits and drabs to form inadequate conclusions. For example, the Civil War is not solely about state's rights nor is it solely about slavery. These issues are connected in a greater interplay of information, and they need to be explained if we are to understand the dramatic story of the war and its social and political resolutions.
Therefore, the acceptance of limited and simplified statement types of historical knowledge must be destroyed before they causes great harm. History requires students to place things in context and to examine all sides before coming to conclusions.
Unfortunately, stating that American history needs to be re-written ignores the politics of education. Years before James Loewen wrote Lies My Teacher Told Me, Howard Zinn (1922-2010) wrote A People's History of the United States. Zinn's book, though popular with college students, was strongly denounced by K-12 school systems because it leaned too far to the left. American schools, especially southern ones, feared an acceptance of a counter-narrative, and one that seemed either communist or socialist in nature.
The development of a modern American counter-narrative was introduced by historians like W.E.B. DuBois (1868-1963), Charles Beard (1874-1948), and later Herbert Aptheker (1915-2003). This movement started in the 1930s, gained popularity in the 1960s, and still exists today. In response to his historical writings, J. Edgar Hoover once called Aptheker "the most dangerous communist in the United States." What is overlooked in labeling the counter-narratives anti-American, is the orientation and life-stories of the authors. Each of these men, and the men and women who would join their ranks, were influenced by economic, political, gender and racial struggles in the United States.
Charles Beard, a Columbia Ph.D. and co-founder of the New School for Social Research, was a father of the progressive movement. His work focused on issues of class during the formative years of the nation. Outside of the classroom he was an advocate for isolationism and expansion of socio-economic opportunities. W.E.B. Du Bois, perhaps one of the greatest African American thinkers, was a constant victim of prejudice and racism. His work on the role of African Americans during Reconstruction was among the first that denounced what was then the standard portrayal of the era. DuBois, despite having a doctorate from Harvard and being a co-founder of the NAACP, could not find employment outside to historically black institutions. In contrast, white scholars Howard Zinn, a Columbia Ph.D., and James Loewen, a Harvard Ph.D., taught at historically black colleges (respectively Spelman College and Tougaloo College). Herbert Aptheker, who was appalled by a childhood visit to the Jim Crow South, also earned a doctorate at Columbia before engaging in a career as an activist and author of nearly 50 books on aspects of the African American experience. At points in his career he also taught at historically black institutions. Each of these authors has written from the framework of social justice about subjects that shed different perspectives of the American story. Within historical circles each has made a degree of difference.
And there are other voices, with equally different perspectives, that must be shared in the national conversation!
Sadly, in spite of the need for change, the call for national history/social studies standards has been an ongoing battle. It peaked during the 1980s and it remains a part of the contemporary culture wars. This conflict extends into the textbook industry that allows certain states to produce accounts that differ from other states and standards that ignore what might be damaging facts.
So in order for history to be re-crafted and respective of more diverse interpretations, the historical profession, historians, and state politicians will have to find common ground. In this climate of "alternate facts", agreements seem unlikely. However, we must start the process of providing a more complex story of America and the people who comprise what hopes to be seen as a great nation.
In the same manner we need new and better interpretations of the Civil War and Reconstruction, that are reflective of regionalism, sectionalism, politics, and issues of labor, gender, and race. I feel that numerous historical events are issues that require a back story. And our textbooks need to reflect this. The Civil War, for example, just did not happen. The road to war has its origins in the framing of the Constitution. But there are other events that increased the potential for war that are equally important for students to examine and analyze.
American students must also learn about the rest of the world. We must teach a more globalized account of the past. And world history needs to start in elementary school with the rise of great civilizations on every continent. Students must learn a global chronology. They must equally learn how events in other places have shaped America's destiny and how American decisions have equally changed the course of other nations.
Currently, students often snag pieces of information which might be true but lack context. And, our popular media seems to promote bits and drabs to form inadequate conclusions. For example, the Civil War is not solely about state's rights nor is it solely about slavery. These issues are connected in a greater interplay of information, and they need to be explained if we are to understand the dramatic story of the war and its social and political resolutions.
Therefore, the acceptance of limited and simplified statement types of historical knowledge must be destroyed before they causes great harm. History requires students to place things in context and to examine all sides before coming to conclusions.
Unfortunately, stating that American history needs to be re-written ignores the politics of education. Years before James Loewen wrote Lies My Teacher Told Me, Howard Zinn (1922-2010) wrote A People's History of the United States. Zinn's book, though popular with college students, was strongly denounced by K-12 school systems because it leaned too far to the left. American schools, especially southern ones, feared an acceptance of a counter-narrative, and one that seemed either communist or socialist in nature.
The development of a modern American counter-narrative was introduced by historians like W.E.B. DuBois (1868-1963), Charles Beard (1874-1948), and later Herbert Aptheker (1915-2003). This movement started in the 1930s, gained popularity in the 1960s, and still exists today. In response to his historical writings, J. Edgar Hoover once called Aptheker "the most dangerous communist in the United States." What is overlooked in labeling the counter-narratives anti-American, is the orientation and life-stories of the authors. Each of these men, and the men and women who would join their ranks, were influenced by economic, political, gender and racial struggles in the United States.
Charles Beard, a Columbia Ph.D. and co-founder of the New School for Social Research, was a father of the progressive movement. His work focused on issues of class during the formative years of the nation. Outside of the classroom he was an advocate for isolationism and expansion of socio-economic opportunities. W.E.B. Du Bois, perhaps one of the greatest African American thinkers, was a constant victim of prejudice and racism. His work on the role of African Americans during Reconstruction was among the first that denounced what was then the standard portrayal of the era. DuBois, despite having a doctorate from Harvard and being a co-founder of the NAACP, could not find employment outside to historically black institutions. In contrast, white scholars Howard Zinn, a Columbia Ph.D., and James Loewen, a Harvard Ph.D., taught at historically black colleges (respectively Spelman College and Tougaloo College). Herbert Aptheker, who was appalled by a childhood visit to the Jim Crow South, also earned a doctorate at Columbia before engaging in a career as an activist and author of nearly 50 books on aspects of the African American experience. At points in his career he also taught at historically black institutions. Each of these authors has written from the framework of social justice about subjects that shed different perspectives of the American story. Within historical circles each has made a degree of difference.
And there are other voices, with equally different perspectives, that must be shared in the national conversation!
Sadly, in spite of the need for change, the call for national history/social studies standards has been an ongoing battle. It peaked during the 1980s and it remains a part of the contemporary culture wars. This conflict extends into the textbook industry that allows certain states to produce accounts that differ from other states and standards that ignore what might be damaging facts.
So in order for history to be re-crafted and respective of more diverse interpretations, the historical profession, historians, and state politicians will have to find common ground. In this climate of "alternate facts", agreements seem unlikely. However, we must start the process of providing a more complex story of America and the people who comprise what hopes to be seen as a great nation.
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