I often suggest in workshops that if you have 30 students in your American History course in 11th grade, or whatever grade level, that you maybe triple them up. You put, and have them choose, let's say 11 different Native American cultures. Maybe you give them a list of 15 and they choose 11 of those 15 so that they have some choice in the matter.
James W. LoewenHistory is important. More than any other topic, it is about us. Whether one deems our present society wondrous or awful or both, history reveals how we got to this point.
James W. LoewenAll of the common core standards stuff about critical reading and critical thinking and so on can only be positive.
James W. LoewenTaking ideas seriously does not fit with the rhetorical style of textbooks, which presents events so as to make them seem foreordained along a line of constant progress. Including ideas would make history contingent: things could go either way, and have on occasion. The 'right' people, armed with the 'right' ideas, have not always won. When they didn't, the authors would be in the embarrassing position of having to disapprove of an outcome in the past. Including ideas would introduce uncertainty. This is not textbook style.
James W. LoewenWe still have to realize that if you are say a historian of the Civil War, you donโt know anything special about say Columbus or for that matter the 20th century. You are a consumer of that information, especially if itโs stuff like Columbus and the American Indians. That information isnโt even in history, much of it. Much of it is in anthropology or archeology.
James W. Loewen