Canadian Aces

Well, if it's any consolation to all you Canadians (and I think it's more a cause for tears) we have just the same problem here in the U.K. right now. Can you believe that a recent survey of our pc smart (politically correct and IT trained)youth found that most could not give the year of the Battle of Britain, and did not know it was fought in the air?

The tragedy is our youth are almost being taught to be ashamed their heritage, and it bodes ill for the future.

Who was it said that "Those who do not learn from history are condemned to relive it"? (or something like that). I should know who said it....must be getting old.

Bob

[Rod_Filan]

Bob, that would be George Santayana.
Who incidentally also said:
"History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren't there."
and
"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child"

VBR
Rod

[Vin]

Yet in Australia, Anzac Day gets bigger each year, thousands of young Australians make the journey to Anzac cove and young people are interested in and moved by accounts of the diggers. The focus is on their sacrifice and privations. The mood is one of gratitude and admiration.

Triumphalism does not get a look in. None know of Cobby, Little, Dallas etc. I reckon it is pretty healthy.

Vin

Ro-Bud has provided two particularly useful expressions for this discussion - "what are we gonna do about it ?" - which I would prefer to rephrase as "What are YOU going to do about it ?" and the wonderful quotation "A child educated only at school is an uneducated child".

For those who lament that the schools have not taught about heros and the kind of history discussed on this Forum, I say - RIGHT - and it is not their business to do so. Primary and secondary schools are in the business of teaching reading, writing, and mathematical skills. They have a further duty to indoctrinate students with social habits (cleanliness, for example) so that they do not menace their communities. They have also been compelled, in recent years, to teach subjects that would earlier have been taught by parents (social tolerance, sex education, for example) Beyond these fundamentals, current schools expose a person - in a very smattering way - to a variety of other subjects - music, physics, history, literature - but they have no more obligation (because it would be impossible to do) to teach you everything you now believe should have been taught any more than having an obligation to produce Olympic athletes. Education begins at home, continues at school (but also on the street, in the playground, etc) and keeps on going until you die. Which is why we have books, libraries, and public forums.

What will turn you into a historian, athlete, or physicist - amateur or professional - will almost certainly have been inflenced by some inspiring individual - a parent, friend, teacher, employer, or whatever - but not by the school system itself. The final choice as who these mentors and guides will be will be yours.

There is no point in bemoaning "the American influence" - but there is a point in creating, within ones own borders, a "Canadian influence" or "Australian influence" or whatever. My own experience has been that of a person who grew up within 30 miles of the border, blanketed by American radio stations. I was nine before I knew I was a Canadian - and my first reaction was disappointment. I was intensely interested in aircraft from age 10, but did not really discover Canadian aviation history until I joined the RCAF at age 19 (a move motivated more by college finances than any other factor); I acquired a smattering of Canadian history from Grade 5 through to university, but did not make it my life's passion until about age 33 (previously I had specialized in Political Science - another result of an inspiring mentor - at various times, between the ages of 12 and 18 I pondered mechanical engineering (but was defeated by the mathematics) and the ministry (what a narrow escape that was !)

My point, to paraphrase Shakespeare, is that the fault lies "not in the stars but in ourselves". So if you pashionately believe in something, act as if you did. Blaming anonymous "forces" - the schools, the system, the Americans - is a silly exercise. It is reminiscent of the farmer who returned home to find his crop flattened by hail, his barn burned to the ground by a lightning strike, and a note in the house from his wife, reporting she had run off with the hired man. Standing amid this devastation, the farmer shook his fist at the sky, shouting "God damn the federal government !"

Hugh,
I found your answer to be very insightful and thoughtful. You've managed to summarize in a few paragraphs much of what I have felt as well (speaking as a forthcoming elementary education teacher in Utah USA). I printed your last post, and if it is alright with you, I'd like to share your comments with other student teachers in my university class on "teaching social studies to students"- is that OK with you?

Very Best Regards,
Mark Daymont

Hugh has touched on a factor I think important as a history teacher. The argument runs something like this: Those influenced by the values of the hippy generation ( at least in the English speaking world-not sure about the rest)have now grow up to positions of influence.As this affects education they have moved the curriculum over to 'peace and getting along studies, as we all know war is a bad unneccessary thing and to study it glorifies it'.As a result it is no surprise to find that in my school ,for example, no Social Education teachers ,except myself, teach any history at all .

[Vin]

Peter

Or has the world just moved on. The media brings home graphically that war is not glorious. The community is better educated, questions authority, has greater leisure and different values. My son has just finished school. History was certainly taught to middle secondary. Although he did not study it in his final 2 years,it was certainly offered and some of his mates did.

Vin

I tene to think that giving history its due is fine as long as we don't get incensed by it. Aren't many of the problems we have right now the result of not being able to give up what happened in the past, such as Northern Ireland; Bosnia; the mideast; Africa? History is interesting, but get a life already. Move on, people, move on.

I am flattered by the responses of Mark and Peter, coming as they do from the United States and Australia. Needless to say, anything that I post on this Forum is in the "public domain", to be discussed, damned or distributed as you see fit. You do not even have to mention my name (but if you do, please spell it correctly !).

The discussion, as it has developed, may strike other Forumites as the babble of teachers and former teachers (what I call "occupational incest") and if you know of a website dedicated to the broader subject of history teaching, you may wish to adjourn to that site. Alternatively, you may wish to communicate further through direct e-mail communications.

Although risking the ire of irritated or bored Forumites, I would like to comment further on the matters of raised. Some of what follows is repetition, some of it expansion.

(a) Schools have only a limited amount of time - even if you could "time" in terms of 12 to 15 years - and cannot be expected to teach everything. People who complain that schools fail to teach this or encourage that frequently do not appreciate the limitations of time - that "more history" may translate into "less science" or "more literature" may be achieved only by sacrificing health studies.

(B) Given these limits, the schools and teachers have an obligation to teach the basic skills of reading, writing, oral communication, and mathematical skills - the means by which one learns all the rest.

© It next becomes incumbent upon the educational system to expose the student to as wide and diverse an array of subjects as possible, without attempting to turn out "experts". Thus the pupil is brought into contact with history, physics, music, literature, civic government, etc. Nevertheless, the choice of specialties resides ultimately with the student (and indeed, that choice may change several times in a lifetime).

(d) It is the special duty of the teacher to communicate (if possible) certain attributes of appreciation and skepticism - hence, an explanation (however basic) of one's governing system with an understanding that it does not represent perfection. This is a difficult task, for the teacher walks between encouraging naivety on one hand, cynicism on the other. The greatest danger is that a teacher/ideologue may attempt to clone philosophical clones of himself. The greatest protection against this is the informed teacher whose own professionalism warns him of when personal preference begins to border on propaganda (that, and a sense of humour).

I must cut this message in two; Part 2 follows.

(e) While it is impossible to expect that everyone should become as dedicated to history as you or I (after all, somebody has to turn out to be lawyers, violinists or webmasters), it is to be hoped that everyone will have some exposure to the subject, and that such exposure should be as broad (not deep) as possible. My views are coloured by experience in Manitoba in the 1950s; believe it or not, the standard curriculum, taught in cities and rural schools alike, went like this - Canadian history (Grade 6), Classical and Medieval history (Grade 7), General European history (Grade 8), History of the English-Speaking World (Grade 9 - my first academic exposure to American history), British history (Grade 10), Canadian history again (Grade 11). None made me (or anyone else) an expert on Caesar, Bismark, or Wilfred Laurier, but when circumstances (and inspired mentors) presented themselves to me, I was familiar with the cast of characters, prepared to go further.

(f) The learning experience goes on outside the school and after formal schooling. Old interests fade and new ones grow. A fascination with German aircraft may be replaced with a passion for bush pilots. Forumites know my interest in Honours and Awards - it was not a major concern to me until I was 50 years old. The most important thing, for teachers to impart and for individuals to learn on their own, is that there is something beyond one's small world of food, work and sex, so that one has the curiosity to explore (whether by travel, books, or websites) that world and compare it with one's own.

(g) Note Vin's latest post - the world does move on. Napoleon's politics and campaigns - now of passionate concern to scholars - were probably more hotly debated 150 years ago. The South African War and Spanish-American Wars have dwindled in historical importance and significance (the American Civil War, by contrast, has probably grown when its impact on both politics and warfare is studied in the long view).

(h) Finally, to Mr. Tucker, who credits excessive historical passions with causing problems in Ireland, Bosnia, etc, I would say - you may have a point, but not necessarily. These problems may have historical roots - but they are as easily created or exacerbated by people who deliberately chose to distort, misinterpret or selectively forget history. Schools, teachers, and others who aspire to be mentors (parents included) have that additional duty - to encourage a critical reading of current events in their historical context - developing in themselves and their students an acute "bull@#$% detector".