Over the course of history itself, there have been many arguments on how to effectively teach history. Historians argue that some parts of history are forgotten and some are given too much attention because of these cultures, races and women histories become lost in the debate about what is historical. There are those, specifically Americans in this case who have little or no basic historical knowledge about the excluded groups. When it comes to debating the national standards of history, historian Wilentz argued that we have moved away from traditional methods of teaching of history and are embracing it as a social and economic development as well as politics. He along with other historians such as Chakrabarty and Lyotard also criticize the Eurocentric nature of history.
Chakrabarty argues that although “majority” history has brought “minority” histories to mainstream disciplines, the subaltern past is still widely ignored. He also argues that minority history or the histories from below are basic elements of liberal democratic struggles for inclusion and representation (Chakrabarty 97). The texts acquired for the discipline of history is different from others because its primary concerned is the craft of narratives. This requires historians to be creative and imaginative in their strategies of writing and researching. This is hard for historians because of their lack of knowledge about minority history. Oppressed groups such as the working class and women were long excluded from the discourse of history and incorporating can immensely change the discipline of history. When teaching history in past times, these were the groups that were left out because of the little or no useful archival existed.
Chakrabarty argued that numer...
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...groups have been long overshadowed in history because of the nationalist mentality towards Europe by scholars and Europeans themselves. According to Sahlins, there are other cultures with rich histories and cultures, as presented in his work The Historical Metaphors and Mythical Realities in which he glorifies the Hawaiian culture. He was able to present an eccentric and diverse culture from a different view point instead of Europeans. The Eurocentric grand narrative received some criticism from scholars, whom believe that there are other ways of writing history. Lyotard and Nietzsche were two of those scholars. Lyotard criticized postmodernism, while Nietzsche critique was of historiography. Majority history has historically overshadowed minority, but more recently has open the door for minority to receive recognition in the researching and writing of history.
He attempts this by trying to show that the “master narrative” itself is currently being challenged with how diverse America as a country is becoming and that with the rise of minorities finding out their own histories it is instead challenged and diversity is instead being embraced. The larger goal behind the book ultimately was to show how each of the minorities he addresses in his book from the Native Americans, Irish Americans, African Americans, Mexican Americans, and various others were each impacted by decisions made by the majority at the time and how these various histories will ultimately impact the future of America. Takaki also states himself that “A Different Mirror seeks to study the past for the sake of the future” (Takaki, 445). Just based of this quote from Takaki himself shows that with this book he tries to at least show that by studying the past of American history from a minority’s perspective that it’ll influence the future when we all become minorities in time so we can use these past experiences to not cause harm to others or ignore others history as we keep developing as a
Many people try to think “back to the good old days,” when really they were not that good for most people who had no rights. With the advancement in technology, we were forced to open our eyes to what is going on in the world around us and the disadvantaged people face throughout the world. As a society once we start to working on damage control to clean up the mess we got into we can finally have true change. The damage control will take time and effort from all people involved on either end of the situation. One major move I feel we can make is by giving honest history lessons that cover every part of our history in schools. I feel that American History and World History should be more emphasized on in our school systems and curriculum. If the students get the full education of our history and how we got to where we are, then moving on will become easier. We expect for children to lead us into a bigger and better future, but how can we expect that without the truth coming to light for our diverse culture. We cannot expect to make this country better without knowing their full history and the mistakes we have made in our past. Looking for another way to move forward, Essence asked Dr. Joy DeGruy on what we could do moving forward, her answer was, “…more research, support, and assistance are needed to produce vital healing…that exceeds the injury
Since the inception of second-wave feminism in the West, scholars have been concerned with apparent boundaries that separate private and public domains, a concern which was underpinned by a larger ambition to fundamentally rewrite of all History. Scholarship born out of the second wave feminist movement was propelled by a reaction against the androcentric nature of history, and that which had typically been considered historically 'worthy'. In order to combat androcentrism, both women’s historians and gender historians appropriated the ‘separate spheres’ framework, though each in different ways, and to different ends. Those writing women’s history used the separate spheres as an organizing structure, through which to recover and re-interpret the stories of women, incorporating them into a distinctive female past. Contrastingly, gender historians used the separate spheres as structure of binary classification in which to compare male and female, using these definitions to contribute to (what they felt would be) a broader more inclusive understanding of history. Whether their respective accounts were characterized by an acceptance of or a challenge of the separate spheres framework, the appropriation of such a model in both cases is problematic. In their struggle to create a more balanced, comprehensive history, women’s and gender historians adopted a framework which was limited, perfunctory and essentially as androcentric as the types of history which they were compelled to react against originally.
To study history, the facts and information must be passed down. To do so, historians record the information in textbooks and other nonfiction works. Whether or not the historians retell facts or construct their own version of history is debatable. History can be percieved as being “constructed” by the historians due to their bias, elimination of controversy, strive for entertainment, and neglect to update the information.
The overall, topic for this week’s reading is Social Studies Textbooks and what is there point of view. In Loewen’s book, Lies My Teacher Told Me, the author makes the point that books show one-sided viewpoint of historical figures, fail to show conflict happening today, and fail to present multiple sides of an issue. The second article by David Tyack, Monuments Between Covers, talks about the idea to show that our past was full of right moments and if anything that was immoral was a small part and no big deal. Tyack points out the constant influence from political groups with different agendas fighting to influence and control what textbooks tell our countries’ children. In the last reading History Lesson by Dana Lindaman talks about the view point of American History throughout the world’s public schools’ textbooks. Overall, each of the countries diminished the role their nation played in terrible events and criticized other nations for their actions.
It’s truly fascinating how there are so many different approaches to history, how so many different types of minds and schools of thought can come together to study the events of the world’s past. There are so many ways to approach what happened in our past, and the groups of historians previously mentioned are only a fraction of the actual number of different ways of researching and thinking that exists as it pertains to the study of history. History is in some ways, always a mystery, and all historians, regardless of schooling, training or biases, seek to accomplish one goal: to understand what occurred before us and why, and to use that knowledge to learn how the world was shaped into the world we live in today.
...storians must learn what these authors all teach by their consensus novels, that teaching history through a sided story is the only way to determine all perspectives of history. We must understand that the voices of the outsiders matter just as much as the powerful. Richter and Johnson shed light on how difficult live can be as the low-class through the suffrage of Indians and slaves. Ambinder and Holton show that the outsiders still had the ability to change their destiny. Both of these details are misplaced in history text books because history is taught on a factual basis. We teach history in facts that the white powerful leaders wrote for us, therefore the losers are left out. History is a two sided story, which means we must teach both sides of the losers and the winners. This is the only way to understand the lives of the world’s lost voices of the outsiders.
Wineburg astutely notes that "History offers a storehouse of complex and rich problems, not unlike those that confront us daily in the real world. Examining these problems requires an interpretive acumen that extends beyond the 'locate information in the text ' skills that dominate many school tasks." (51) By being given the challenge of recognizing and combating natural psychological tendencies towards presentism and ethnocentrism, as well as the challenge of comprehending and analyzing complex and diverse historical sources, biased points of view, cultures, contexts, and historical ramifications, students are encouraged and supported in developing the reasoning skills and patience needed to accurately listen, analyze, empathize, interpret, make evidence-based
“History never says goodbye. History says see you later” (Eduardo Galeano). History teaches us valuable lessons from the past, which can be used for the present time, yet our leaders usually overlook these lessons and repeat previous mistakes. I have recently immigrated to the United States and since in my home country history classes are not a place to really discuss the history, I was amazed by the way that this history class challenged every event and fact. I have learned that history is told by bias, so we should be able to think critically and question what we are taught. History is usually written by the dominant group of the society, so if we are looking for the truth, we should study each event from different resources and different
United States school systems have has a history of segregation. This segregation began with the passing of Jim Crow laws in the south in the late 1800’s. The influence of this practice was at first the slave culture of the southern states, and later was manifest as residential segregation and school choice programs. There were also many Supreme Court rulings which failed to overturn implement segregation which allowed for the practice to continue to flourish. Although we have seen social improvements in our society in the past 50 years we can still see that many citizens of the United States are still placed at a disadvantage due to their class and race. In this paper we will examine the history of segregation practices and
The education of an author on their topic is the biggest contributor to their reliability; having enough prior knowledge and background information on a subject is crucial when providing a historical analysis. An author’s personal background is of great importance as well, because their personal heritage and beliefs may lead to bias and misrepresentation of information, which removes all credibility of them and/or their work as source. Partiality, favoritism, and/or prejudice towards a specific demographic can create a blurred line between what is fact and what is opinion, which in turn can allow for personal assessments to be presented as arguments and facts even though they have been influenced to a great extent by prior thoughts and opinions.
There are quite a few different minority groups in today’s society. Minority groups are all unique in there own way. With groups rapidly growing as well as groups decreasing in size minority groups go through change in areas like discrimination, society, and within the criminal justice system. Discrimination, society, and within the criminal justice system are all unique to different minority groups in their own ways, but most of them all have things in common as well.
The fight on racism in the Untied States was in full swing during the 1960s. The protests for integration were just as prominent as those for segregation. Mississippians were the worst offenders in fighting civil rights, even forming Citizen’s Councils to preserve “states rights and racial integrity” after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling (Sperry and Westmoreland). In the Yazoo City chapter of the council, names of African Americans who were bold enough to sign a petition for the city to integrate schools were published in the Yazoo City Herald newspaper. Many retracted their signatures in fear that they and their families would be targeted by the Ku Klux Klan or other white supremacists, while others remained confident and did not waver. This perseverance among African Americans during this time pushed America toward having racial equality. America is now a different place. Racism is highly frowned upon, and in 2008 the first black president, Barack Obama, was elected. Because of how far African Americans have come, some people believe that racism has ended. On Rosa Parks Day,...
In the year 1800 whites started to move into westward in very large numbers. The white settlers mostly settled in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois in the North whereas Alabama and Mississippi in the south (Zinn). As the white expanded into lower South it became problem for them as it was home to Indian tribes Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole. The white settlers wanted to grow cotton and also the government thought the land would be very suitable for agriculture and farming. During that time Thomas Jefferson began the President of the Unites States and he made treaties with the Chickasaw tribe guaranteeing their land (Zinn). In 1814 Andrew Jackson a war hero fought battle with the Creeks known as Battle of Horseshoe Bend. In this battle he seized lot of land of the Creeks in Alabama and Georgia. The battle caused a lot of death on the Creeks side. Also the Creeks tried the non-violent resist by adopting the white civilization so that they could live in peace.
We are all taught essentially the same things in school. We learn of the presidents and what they did and when they did it. But we know, as adults, that we did not get all the facts or even a portion of the correct facts in regards to history. In the essay, "The Historian and His Facts," Edward Hallett Carr shares a bit of insight into the people who record history and write about it. We are given a deeper understanding of historians and just what it is they do and what they know. By doing so Carr gives the reader an opportunity to question much of the history that we are exposed to and taught. The historian Barbara Tuchman says that the most common question asked of historians by the public is whether history serves a purpose and whether we can learn from the lessons of history (Tuchman 608).