If you're looking for modern politics or anything about candidate watch, just move right along.. I'm venting here, so if you don't want to read a rant.. this won't be for you. That being said........ Today is the anniversary of the start of the Night of the Long Knives. I know this crowd well enough to know you know full well what that is and in the event that you don't, click here. what launched this rant is a friend of mine who is a history professor announcing that instead of teaching anything about what happened today in history, they'd be showing a documentary on Ida B Wells and teaching 'positive history' about fighting 'a real struggle.' There's nothing wrong with teaching the story of Ida B Wells... That's not the point. The point is, dating back to even when I was a student, there is a shocking lack of teaching regarding the subject of the Rise of the 3rd Reich. We can talk till we are blue in the face about 'never again' but if you don't understand how it happened, if you don't nail the facts to the wall, some asshole will re-write them in time. We've already seen this countless times with historical items in American history. Sure, classrooms point blankly toward the Treaty of Versailles and our own President being to blame as if that is context enough... but it falls far short. They don't teach that Hitler rose to power initially as the candidate of 'peace and unity.' Hitler created an imaginary conspiracy theory to create another social boogeyman. The same people used to dispatch of the experiment of democracy in Germany were the ones he turned on to show the German people he could 'keep the peace' all the while carrying out political assassinations to solidify the place of Nazism and his permanent place in power. Driven by fear, the German people turned a blind eye toward brutish behavior to gain a 'greater good' of peace in the streets. The blind eye had first been turned in 33, but now rampant violence and executions were being ignored for the greater good. Targeting your 'own people' will only take you so far and from this moment on, it wasn't a matter of if, but rather when the Jews would begin to be rounded up by the SS.. If anyone thinks it can't happen here, or anywhere, they are kidding themselves. The problem isn't a German one, it's a human one. It's the fear of a boogeyman and the reality that freedom is a cold and scary place without little comfort or government assurance of security. Obfuscation of issues and selective criteria in education only aid in that process... Not teaching the Night of the Long Knives because 'f*ck Nazis' is not reason enough. In my opinion, the place of history in academia is it's prevention of recurrence. I fear that aside from the select few, we are failing miserably at this. ok /rant
Isn't it because history has been de-emphasized so much in our schools over time that we are in this mess to a great extent? We're not blazing new trails here.......
Classes in subjects such as history are being replaced by subjects such as health where kids get to learn about various "topical" issues such as alternative lifestyles.
:idea: The Los Angeles School District recently abolished homework. Maybe it doesn't matter anymore...
That should help. What happened? Did the Crips and the Bloods complain that homework was cutting into their drug distribution time?
:roll: Maybe the union felt that the teachers were overworked. Remember, when kids do homework, teachers have to read it; correct it; and record it. Which brings us to those kids who don't do any homework anyway. Those assignments go into the book as a zero, which makes the grading process a breeze. I guess the suits downtown want to keep all the breezes for themselves...