greasemonkey Posted April 27, 2006 Share Posted April 27, 2006 I was thinking quite a while back about how I was taught about the foundation of our country from an infant to an adult. I was wondering if anyone else had a similar pattern. As a grade-schooler: the founders were almost deified; Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and all the others were put on a big pedestal as the "founding fathers" and demanded a great deal of respect. We had the cutesy Thanksgiving plays & such with the Pilgrims & the Indians, but never were really informed out the progression of our attitude about the indians until much later... The high school thing was a little different for me, and I was wondering if this was the "norm." High School: I was taught a little less glorified version. The founders were in a way actually a minority group of "rabble rousers" who conspired to get away from what they percieved (for right or wrong) as an unjust system. If you hold things up to a modern standard, the way England treated us really wasn't all that bad. Tea tax and whatever is really nothing when you compare it to sales tax on EVERYTHING on top of an income tax. There is a thin line between being a "patriot" and being a "criminal" that is generally more determined by who writes the history books than by actual circumstance. Now, nobody get lost here ...my HS history teacher never said it was a bad thing; only that similar revolutions had been fought & failed, or often went from bad to worse. I find it interesting in a way, just because it was a slightly more human look from a modern context. There is a lot of truth behind some of those statements, and I don't see a problem with being shown a slightly different side than what we had been told in grade school. I also realize that different teachers have different styles, so it probably isn't the same across the board. What aggravates me about the whole thing is how I had to go to college to learn the true genius behind the system that those guys came up with. HS government class just didn't go a long way to emphasize that fact like college level political-science & American gov't did. So the question: was the method I was taught similar to other folks here? Standing back and looking at a distance, I see a weird pattern here. You start with the quasi-dietal status of the founders to instill a certain degree of patriotism in the children. As the children grow a little bit older and have beginnings of starting to figure out how the world often works, you actually aid the children by putting a slightly more human face to go along with the pre-installed notions. I don't see this as a bad thing necessarily, but it irks me that the high school experience was a little bit incomplete (for me, anyway). Sometimes I wonder where the boundry should lie between too much information & too little. Interesting that religion works the same way in the early stages, but they never really instill the human aspects later on; they just leave the Bible on that child-level status. It goes a long way to explain why they want to get the bible & religion back into the schools again. Any attempt to "humanize" it later on would lead to screams of religious discrimination, so it would be a win-win situation. Hell; right now, the mere lack of NOT letting it in is raising those same screams... oh well... the formation of my ideas here are sorely lacking, so I thought I would throw it out here and see if anyone else had any thoughts, observations, additions or whatever... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chefranden Posted April 27, 2006 Share Posted April 27, 2006 The Under Ground History of American Schooling The Peoples History of the United States Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
♦ nivek ♦ Posted April 27, 2006 Share Posted April 27, 2006 http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial...unding_fathers/ Gmonk, check this article out. Interesting reading on this subject. Lots of American history that isn't taught in skuLLez.. kL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greasemonkey Posted April 28, 2006 Author Share Posted April 28, 2006 http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial...unding_fathers/ Gmonk, check this article out. Interesting reading on this subject. Lots of American history that isn't taught in skuLLez.. kL I don't know if the link doesn't work, or if it just my connection; any chance someone else could try it and see if they can get it and post the article here for me?! BTW, thanks Chef! I'll be spending some time this weekend reading your links; the wife and I are both down sick since yesterday, so I won't be on a lot... blah! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greasemonkey Posted April 28, 2006 Author Share Posted April 28, 2006 ...never mind foks; I got it! great article Nivek! Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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