Heroes

I mentioned in my last post that I'm reading the book Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen. It's pretty much my new favorite book and I might be getting borderline obsessed with it. Loewen studied twelve different history textbooks used in U.S. high schools, and examines how they contribute to students understanding (or misunderstanding, as the case may be) of our society. His research is stellar, and highlights one of the reasons that I want to be a teacher: students are not encouraged to think critically, to form their own opinions, or to make connections between the past and the present. I think this shortchanges students in such a major way, and could be nothing short of disastrous for society.

In his first chapter, Loewen talks about "hero-making". Think about how historical figures are presented.....either angel or pariah. We don't really talk about how many of our beloved Founding Fathers were slave owners; we don't learn about how President Wilson was a big old racist and dragged his feet on women's suffrage; we hear only about how Helen Keller overcame her deafness and blindness as a child but nothing about her decades of activism as a socialist and communist. It's almost as if we don't trust that students can handle nuanced, multifaceted characters. What are we so afraid of? That if students find out America was founded by slave owners, they might not be loyal citizens? Will finding out that Christopher Columbus not only did not "discover" America, but also brutally raped, tortured, and murdered indigenous peoples be too difficult to wrap their heads around?

I don't think so. Students are plenty smart enough to be presented with facts that they can discuss, debate, and decide for themselves their thoughts and opinions on. I was in a 6th grade class once that did a great job of this with Minnesota history--students had to wrestle with the question "James J. Hill: Robber Baron or Empire Builder?". The teacher did a great job of guiding the students through material in a way that allowed students to make their own determination about the nature of Hill's legacy. What an important skill to have. We live in a world with flawed people, and very few things are black and white. Learning how to navigate through the shades of gray is not only important for each student as an individual, but in my opinion it's essential for a healthy society. Perhaps I'm being too simplistic, but I see a connection between students in classrooms with distinct black/white/right/wrong presentations of history and adults who accept the "you're either with me or you're against me" polarities of today's civic society. Maybe, just maybe, if we can teach students to deal with complex, nuanced situations, we won't need to have Jon Stewart dissect hyperbole for us like this:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-january-20-2011/word-warcraft

Or this:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-january-18-2011/petty-woman

Let's remember that we're all flawed characters, that nobody's all good or all bad, and treat each other with respect--whether we're in the classroom or we're in Congress, it seems like a lesson that we could all use.

P.S. Sorry I couldn't actually get the video embedded into this post--the link was broken!