Bill Gates changing the way high schools teach history. What say you?

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/magazine/so-bill-gates-has-this-idea-for-a-history-class.html?_r=0

It's too broad to even be taught in a year long course. American History goes by the wayside and we get this anti-Creator agenda to go along with the diatribe the Common Core folks want to perpetrate. This also is geared toward the college/university bound of which not everyone fits the mold. Why is it that we think all people have to be pushed towards college and the universities? Only 1 of 5 that start will ever graduate. We should be putting more emphasis on REAL vocational training with REAL apprenticeships led by local academia/businesses that will help to create a workforce the community wants and needs. Oh that's right, it is against the Common Core agenda to have your own niche and a workforce that will succeed in the geographic region you inhabit. Common Core wants automatons that can be plugged in where ever BIG GOVERNMENT wants to suit their needs.

The object of teaching history shouldn't be the need to push a religion, or a single nation's political actions. History is about understanding the truth of what's taken place up to this morning -- across the universe, and the world.

It's about truth, not politics.

If you want to teach creationism do it in a church. If you want to use history to promote political nationalism, or present patriotic bullshit as a reality, you need to join the academy of propaganda.

And the most heart-warming aspects of what I wrote above are that today's young people inherently recognize bullshit, no matter what it's form.
That's what makes me an optimist -- and a good Atheist.

PACEDOG#1 wrote:It's too broad to even be taught in a year long course. American History goes by the wayside and we get this anti-Creator agenda to go along with the diatribe the Common Core folks want to perpetrate. This also is geared toward the college/university bound of which not everyone fits the mold. Why is it that we think all people have to be pushed towards college and the universities? Only 1 of 5 that start will ever graduate. We should be putting more emphasis on REAL vocational training with REAL apprenticeships led by local academia/businesses that will help to create a workforce the community wants and needs. Oh that's right, it is against the Common Core agenda to have your own niche and a workforce that will succeed in the geographic region you inhabit. Common Core wants automatons that can be plugged in where ever BIG GOVERNMENT wants to suit their needs.

It seems to me that teachers need to recognize that they are not employed to teach ethics, moral integrity or nationalism -- but to do all they can to enhance a child's understanding of reading, writing, arithmetic and analytic thinking. They should be taught at an early age not to accept everything tossed at them by an adult as the truth -- but to examine what they find interesting.

Howard Zinn's "Peoples History of the United States," is ten times more accurate than any history textbook in use in a classroom today, at any level of education.

Bob wrote:http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/magazine/so-bill-gates-has-this-idea-for-a-history-class.html?_r=0

Gates is right -- the way we teach history today is totally unproductive. The people who edit textbooks have to serve political, religious and corporate boards and committees -- and in the process, history gets bent.

Wordslinger wrote:

Bob wrote:http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/magazine/so-bill-gates-has-this-idea-for-a-history-class.html?_r=0

Gates is right -- the way we teach history today is totally unproductive. The people who edit textbooks have to serve political, religious and corporate boards and committees -- and in the process, history gets bent.

Sorry, but RELIGION (free practice thereof) is a dominant part of the historical reasoning behind why the English came to the new world. Had the monarchy of the English not been so oppressive in their stance on religion, a good many people would not have sold their soul (indentured servitude) to get here.

I don't mind the inclusive approach to history, so long as the details don't get muddled in the process. But Bill Gates scares me. He's very involved with Monsanto and Sygenta...pushing GMO's on agrarian societies...I don't trust him.

PACEDOG#1 wrote:

Wordslinger wrote:

Bob wrote:http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/magazine/so-bill-gates-has-this-idea-for-a-history-class.html?_r=0

Gates is right -- the way we teach history today is totally unproductive.  The people who edit textbooks have to serve political, religious and corporate boards and committees -- and in the process, history gets bent.

Sorry, but RELIGION (free practice thereof) is a dominant part of the historical reasoning behind why the English came to the new world. Had the monarchy of the English not been so oppressive in their stance on religion, a good many people would not have sold their soul (indentured servitude) to get here.

You're right -- history teachers should mention the role religion played in motivating immigrants. I have no beef with you or anyone on that issue.
But it would be good to also mention that the Quakers were targets for the Puritans, who attempted to make deals to see their ships sunk, or that they were captured to be sold as slaves in the Caribbean. And tell how the German Lutherans of Pennsylvania helped justify the extermination of Delawares and Shawnees for being "Spawn of the Devil." And while you're expanding on the Christian religion being a powerful motivator for travel to the New World, toss in the Plymouth Witch-hunts, interrogations, hangings, drownings and burnings -- which are, quite possibly, the most severe religious-based atrocities of the New World.

But it's all moot anyway Pdog. There's a million miles of distance between a teacher mentioning religious freedom as an incentive for Europeans considering travel to North America, and a science teacher telling kids the universe was created by a Jewish God, that people and dinosaurs dwelt together some 6,000 years ago. Or that Native Americans were originally Jews whom God brought to the New World and were one of the tribes of Israel.

Reality.