What Japanese history lessons leave out - a BBC article

[the_tyrant]

Just some observations about historical education:

In Canada, I had to take 1 course in 4 years of high school. The course was VERY shallow, just some introductory history, basic concepts, etc. The course itself was a very basic course, mainly focused on names, dates, and locations. The tests and stuff kind of felt like Mad Libs

ex: [person] killed [person] in a bunker in Berlin in [year], his replacement [person] negotiated peace with the allied forces.

In China, most high school students don't learn history, but in middle school, history comprised of two courses, history class, and political science class. In history class, we were stuck with mad libs style tests and basic names, dates, and locations cramming style teaching. Than, we had political science, a course filled with time spent teaching and hand held analysis of political and historical issues. It is really biased, and the "analysis" was never more than just "memorize what this famous politician had to say about communism!"


Yeah, history education for most students is really lacking. I mean, the issue comes down to, most students don't enjoy history, or feel that they need to learn it. History is often looked down as "do this course if you want to be stuck studying liberal arts in university" (especially in china, where people believe that the only 3 courses worth doing is Math, Physics, and Chemistry).



I learned more about history arguing with people on the internet than I ever did in a class

[Takeda Shingen]

The thing is that students in America know substantially more about The Civil War and The Second World War than they do regarding just about anything else in American or world history. On the whole, they also know a lot more about the wars in general than they do about other events. Some of that is to be expected, as it is easier to sell students on the sexy and exciting Second World War than it is the relatively mundane Louisiana Purchase. Countless times I have heard students in passing say "I can't wait until we get to the Civil War", or "I can't wait until we get to World War II", etc. I never hear "man, I can't wait until we get to the Homestead Act."

[Sailor Steve]

@ CaptainMattJ: You went to school in California. I suspect that Platapus may have gone to school somewhere in the deep south. My late friend Rocky spent a year in high school somewhere in that region, and he told me that it took two weeks to get to the Civil War and two weeks to get to the present. The rest was spent you-know-where.

He also said that his history teacher once said "I know that some of you think I believe that Robert E. Lee was the greatest man ever to walk the face of this earth. That is not so. I am fully aware that our Lord Jesus Christ also walked the face of this earth!"

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

Yet I wrote a paper and did a presentation about the Bataan death march in 5th grade.

Important lessons for mankind to learn

When I said "bad stuff" I was referring to our own atrocities, not ones done to us.

I live just inside the last Indian reservation (for lack of the proper term) that Ohio had.
I can walk to the boundry line out my back door.
Col. Crawford was burned at the stake just a few miles away.
One of the first State Roads running North/South is just out the front door.

Aside from the stake burning?
I didn't learn any of that at school. And We live here!

Johnny Appleseed and all that.

When I said "bad stuff" I was referring to our own atrocities, not ones done to us.

Maybe he put some blame on Roosevelt, MacArthur and the local government

[Jimbuna]

I've no complaints regarding history teaching during my schooling, we covered most things but admittedly not in any great depth.

As a child I learned a lot from books and yes, tv films.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

tv films.

The Bad: Some people just accept what they see as history.

The Good: I owe most of my love of history to teleplays. Six Wives Of Henry VIII got me to start reading about the Tudor era. I, Claudius got me interested in Ancient Rome. It was fun reading up on the subjects and finding out just how much they got right and wrong.

I just finished watching Rome for the first time and rewatching I, Claudius for the seventh or eighth tme, and I found myself researching each character after the show was over. It's amazing how much you can learn online.

[Catfish]

I know this thread is about japaneses history concotion, or leaving out certain subjects, but reagarding the teaching of civil war history lessons ..

[Hottentot]

It's probably not surprising that a bunch of possible future history teachers like me and my buddies at uni spend a good while every now and then discussing these themes. Last we did it was just today. So I guess I'd have a lot to say on this subject, but don't really know where to start and what would be the most relevant for the topic.

Though I do say that a lot of problems could be solved by taking the emphasis from teaching history to teaching the students to read history. For instance, I can count with only one hand's fingers the graduated adults who have in discussion consciously made a distinction between the history and the past. They do not seem to understand what is a source and what is an interpretation of source. They do not express critical thinking.

And it's hard to blame them when the history classes still are in reality a series of events that one should learn to graduate. Understanding is secondary. Questioning does not exist.

This was hilariously evident when we, with a colleague, did a practical experiment with high school students. The subject of the class was capitalism and socialism in the 19th century. We didn't tell them in advance that we would be teaching it together. Instead we started with her telling in a rather subjective way of what capitalism was and me interrupting her with comments on things she intentionally missed. Then we switched roles on fly and I started glorifying the socialism whereas she brought up points against it. We pretended to be bitterly arguing, when in fact both of us were just doing our best not to start laughing.

The students were visibly distressed. When I had interrupted her for a few times, a few of them even told me to "shut up and let her teach": they were not used to the idea of someone questioning what was being taught to them, even when it was on purpose done with exaggerated subjectivity. And these are not kids we are talking about here but high school students who will be taking their matriculation exam in a few years.

Personally I have no complaints about what is taught in Finnish history classes. But I have a huge chip on my shoulder about how it's being taught.

[em2nought]

Personally, I think we(USA) don't glorify what we once were enough. Maybe it's so that people will more readily accept what we have now become.

The founding fathers were frackin' Jedi!

Jar-Jar Binks is in charge now, that goes for both sides of the isle.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by em2nought

Personally, I think we(USA) don't glorify what we once were enough.

We never were what we once were. Yes, the Founders had the advantage of an Enlightenment education, studying the likes of Newton and Locke, and they had an opportunity no one else had before, to create a new government using what they had learned. They came up with a system that still manages to work today despite two hundred years of people consistently trying to get around it, if not actually tear it down.

And when it came to running that government, they weren't any better at it than our leaders today are. They squabbled, they fought, they backstabbed and they compromised. They said they wanted a partyless system, and then they created parties. Mention any great Founding Father and if you don't already know I can show you stories that will make your hair stand on end.

They were every bit as human as we are.

[keysersoze]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

We never were what we once were. Yes, the Founders had the advantage of an Enlightenment education, studying the likes of Newton and Locke, and they had an opportunity no one else had before, to create a new government using what they had learned. They came up with a system that still manages to work today despite two hundred years of people consistently trying to get around it, if not actually tear it down.

And when it came to running that government, they weren't any better at it than our leaders today are. They squabbled, they fought, they backstabbed and they compromised. They said they wanted a partyless system, and then they created parties. Mention any great Founding Father and if you don't already know I can show you stories that will make your hair stand on end.

They were every bit as human as we are.

Absolutely. If we're being generous, the "idyllic" period of American political history lasts maybe for the first six months of Washington's first term. And that's to ignore all the intrigue and political infighting that lead up to the creation of the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution. By the second year of Washington's presidency, we were already violently suppressing a full-blown tax rebellion, while American politics was bitterly divided over questions about government centralization and our foreign relationships, especially with France. The backstabbing and political pettiness of early Americans was every bit then as widespread as it is today.

No, I think the problem is we are far too willing glorify the Founding Fathers and create grandiose mythologies about our country's beginnings.

[Hottentot]

Originally Posted by keysersoze

No, I think the problem is we are far too willing glorify the Founding Fathers and create grandiose mythologies about our country's beginnings.

In short doing what popular history has always been about. It's no wonder that when you have to teach a huge amount of people certain things to create the master story and common reality where they can live in, you must simplify things. Pretty much everyone is doing that.

Of course whether it's ideal or not is a completely different question. But to play devil's advocate, do ask yourself: how would you do it effectively while still considering as many perspectives as possible?

[keysersoze]

Originally Posted by Hottentot

In short doing what popular history has always been about. It's no wonder that when you have to teach a huge amount of people certain things to create the master story and common reality where they can live in, you must simplify things. Pretty much everyone is doing that.

Of course whether it's ideal or not is a completely different question. But to play devil's advocate, do ask yourself: how would you do it effectively while still considering as many perspectives as possible?

That's a fair question. In response, I would echo two points that you've already made: emphasizing the importance of critical thinking skills and underscoring the essential difference between history and historiography. A third interrelated point, and one that is admittedly difficult to achieve, is to restore a sense of uncertainty and contingency to history courses. When I taught history as a long-term substitute teacher, the greatest challenge was to prepare lessons that avoided presenting the past as an inevitable progression toward a predetermined, triumphant endpoint. My goal was always to teach history as a kind of Hegelian dialectic, but without Hegel's teleology.

Now, of course, this is always easier said than done. But when it can be managed, students often respond enthusiastically, better internalizing historical minutiae while also coming to understand the importance of reading history with a critical eye. Your story of teaching economic theory by holding a debate between a "socialist" and a "capitalist" is exactly the sort of thing I have in mind.

[Hottentot]

Originally Posted by keysersoze

When I taught history as a long-term substitute teacher, the greatest challenge was to prepare lessons that avoided presenting the past as an inevitable progression toward a predetermined, triumphant endpoint.

Aye, that's another very important point which I failed to mention earlier. But now that you brought it up, it also leads us to another problem relating to the students. Seeing that an average person (at least in here) is between 11 - 18 years old when he or she studies history, it sets some limitations for this goal.

I don't want to underestimate young people, but when they have gazillions of other school subjects to study every day in addition to history, it puts a strain on them, even more so than on adults. I can imagine (and remember from my own days at school) how enticing it becomes for them too to just think of history as a linear progression. And it doesn't help that historiography itself aims to answer questions relevant to its own era, thus writing certain kind of history for each generation.

It's also problematic to "erase" the knowledge they already have in order to understand why something happened in the past. "Why did a caveman go fishing on a lake where there was no fish" is a dumb question unless they first realize that the caveman did not know there was no fish in there. Likewise "Why did Gavrilo Princip shoot Franz Ferdinand when it led to the First World War" is a silly question. But since we already know what happened and see history as a linear progression, these questions happen.

I could probably also rant about questions like "why did the First World War start" in the first place: yeah, and right after answering that we are going to solve the starvation problems in the world and cure AIDS.