The Glade 4.0

So then the answer to my question is yes, you want children to not understand history, but know a bunch of dates and names.

Sorry, I disagree.

Same reason studying any history at all is important. If you don't take the time to figure out why, then the past doesn't teach you anything. It just becomes an interesting story. Sorry, uninteresting pile of dates.

If children are taught adequate logic skills, then a thorough presentation of facts would allow them to fill in the "why" based on their understanding of systems of logic and the aggregation of facts. The students would then have the opportunity and ability to "understand" history much more comprehensive and complete manner than the current method of cherry-picking in order to create the desired belief system.


As if students today have the skills to "figure out why". They have been spoon-fed the public school system's desired "why" since they entered it; they have been presented with little to no information on the use of logical systems. The capability just isn't there.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

**** that.

"Critical thinking," "Facts," and "Logic?" Those are for nerds and losers.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Khross, I respect your experience and knowledge with history....but how many 3rd graders have you taught?

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

I don't buy it. A "thorough presentation of facts" is unachievable. Understanding history is a profession. Children cannot be expected to put in that much time. Nor do they have a strong enough foundation to pull it off.



Don't misunderstand me. I'm not supporting the current system. But taking away all analysis would leave them empty. It's silly.

A few, because I tutor economically under-privileged children in the community. That said, I'm not sure "history" is an age appropriate subject for a variety of reasons, when it comes to dealing with 3rd graders.

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Hmmmm. Could you explain why? My son happens to love history. (Well, and most learning altogether but he's a special breed of nerd like his mom).
We are currently studying Roman history and I can't imagine doing it without the *why* or outside of the *big picture/story* framework.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

LadyKate:

Because history requires a set of skills that 3rd graders generally haven't developed, yet. There are far more practical subjects and skill sets for dealing with 3rd graders than history. Math, Symbolic Logic, Reading Skills ... these things are all supremely important when studying history and economics and most social sciences. Consequently, they should be the foundation of any education.

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Commie.

He should be able to give you the "big picture" based on the information you've given him. i.e. Teacher: "Why were the Romans able to rise to power? How did you come to that conclusion?..."
NOT
Teacher: "The Romans were able to rise to power because..."



Yes, under the current system, but that's not the system I presented.

No, a thorough presentation of facts is not unachievable. It's required. Note, I did not state "an absolutely complete presentation of facts".

As is understanding Mathematics, what's your point?

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Well said.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

It is unachievable. There is 10,000 years of human history across how many regions?

Not only this, even a complete presentation of every related fact is not enough, especially for children. They need to be related to one another and the child shown how one affects the other.



Interesting that you bring up Math. Math is about as pure a subject as you can find, and yet, it STILL requires interpretation and analysis. Merely presenting a bunch of math facts will not help the child understand. There are entire subjects dedicated to how math facts relate and, when combined, produce new facts.

The "why" and the "how" in math are the proofs.

Would you teach math without the proofs? Because that's basically what you are proposing for history. What you would generate is a bunch of students who know the theorems, but cannot generate any new ones.

It is not unachievable, it is required; because you view the task as daunting has no bearing on whether it is achievable. There are ~1,000,000 words in the English language, do we teach students how to spell each word?


The students need to learn how to relate them to one another and the students will be able to see how one affects the other, imposing upon them an interpretation based on a sociological agenda is doing them a disservice.



It seems as if you agree with the needed instruction method about math, but not about history. If you present your interpretation of why the theorems work, but don't give the students any instruction how to perform the "proofs" then you are doing what you propose be done in history.

Again, what does it being a profession have to do with it?

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

We present the analysis of the language to them, analyze examples, and show them how they can apply those analyses to other words. We don't merely give them a list of letters, and rules (i before e except after c) without applying them. Further more, we spend a great deal of time interpreting literature, analyzing sentence structure, and conveying this to them.

Great example, thanks. It proves my point well.



Sure, like I said, you're introducing bias. But there's no way around this, unless you're not going to teach them, just tell them facts.



No, you're proposing to just give them a list of theorems (facts) with no how or why (proofs). That doesn't teach them math, it teaches them to memorize theorems.



Because you can't convey an adequate number of facts for the student to be able to piece together a subject, with no interpretation or analysis, when the subject is sufficiently large to justify spending a career studying it.

The suggestion is just silly.

You're still stuck on not giving the students the tools they need to interpret the facts for themselves. It's obvious that there's nothing I can do to change that; I'll stop trying. You'll continue believing that the only way to teach about history is to spoon-feed students a version of events that aligns with the agenda because that is the only thing you know.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

I don't know what your math education was like, but in high school geometry, I was shown proofs in order to teach me how to prove things myself, so that they wouldn't have to do the proofs on the board for everything to tell me why something was the case.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Its quite simple really - it is impossible to impart information without bias.

Firstly, we almost never have direct empirical testing of all the associated propositions with a particular fact to hand - at least some of it is received wisdom, orally, written, however it's passed down.

Secondly, for any reasonably complex set of events, there are far too many variables to actually discuss in a single humans life, if you are to cover any reasonable breadth of history.

As a result, even if you are providing 'facts', you are providing a set of facts that you have selected as relevant, from a set of facts already reduced down to those previous educators have considered relevant.

"She was beaten as a child"
"She was very miserable"
"She killed herself"

Those three facts (assuming they are such - as they become increasingly hard to verify yourself, rather than taking on faith from the authorities that have passed them on) seem to describe something that could reasonably be viewed as a causal chain.

But theres absolutely no way you cant know either that some other event has been stripped out as not relevant that may, in fact, have been highly relevant, or that other highly relevant facts may never even have been known, let alone passed on.

History is biased at almost every level, including that of primary research - folks research around topics, selecting the things they think are likely to be relevant.

Now, these are all reasonable, even necessary things, given how our brains work, the availability of information, and the time we have available to us, but they necessarily cause any interpretative assessment of time to be biased.

Its unavoidable.

But, but... he left out recess. And PE. And state/national "history." And art. And typing/computering.

We have to teach all the elementary school students this other **** too so they'll be "well rounded."

Duh.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

You forgot lunch.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

NEVER forget lunch.

You mean when they give the kids the lecture on the food pyramid and healthy eating and then serve them a bunch of unhealthy, processed, crap that doesn't even taste good? And then provide a cash-only alternative food bar with even unhealthier crap?
Mmmm....school lunch.....blech.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

You can not be illiterate and educated. The two are mutually exclusive. The ability to use a computer is rapidly approaching the ability to read in terms of importance.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

that's health



Yes, that's what I was thinking of.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

You fail at humor today.

Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine