Over the course of my nearly-continuous study of military history, I have made the conclusion that war allows us to witness both the worst and best of humanity. War and conflict create an atmosphere where incredible acts of heroism and self-sacrifice walk alongside unspeakable acts of cruelty and barbarism. Indeed, the study of military history gives us an opportunity to better understand humanity as a whole.
Looking at the curriculums of our public education system, however, would cause you to think differently. If you examine the textbooks, you'd think otherwise. From a quick perusal of my 1400 page history textbook (which, for the record, contains more BS than a fertilizer refinery!), the examination of military conflicts is miniscule and/or noexistant. Take, for example, World War I. WIKIPEDIA says more about World War I than the supposedly "reliable" 1400-page paper-weight in my backpack!
Examining the notes I received today for History 20 IB, the section on World War I reads something like this (heavily paraphrased):
1: Origins
2: Immediate Causes
3: NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE HAPPENS FOR 4 YEARS FROM 1914-1918....
4: Aftermath
It's crazy. To even suggest that nothing of importance happened in the four bloodiest years in human history is absurd, is insane. Not only does it create a society where one of the most important aspects of our history - conflict - is ignored, but it also spits on the graves of those who fought those wars. 20,000,000 people died during those four years, and the morons sitting up in Edmonton in the pathetic excuse of an Alberta Learning Group or the only slightly better IBO in Zurich have the balls to somehow tell me that those 20,000,000 deaths didn't matter, and that we're not gonna bother studying them, LET ALONE EVEN MENTION THEM DURING THE 90TH ANNIVERSARY WEEK OF THE WORLD WAR I ARMISTICE?!
this is rediculous. Why do our curriculum-developers feel the urge to whitewash and pacify our history? Is it because they're afraid we'll find it too gory? Hello, this is the generation that's grown up playing M-Rated video games and watching R-Rated movies, I don't think that's it. Is it because they deliberately want us to be ignorant? not likely.
Is it because they just don't think it's important?
If that is the case (and I'd be willing to wager that it is), then I am disgusted.
Ebook , by Autumn Reed
6 years ago
3 comments:
Another possibiity, Cam, is that the history-mongers in the International Baccalaureate program have another agenda entirely: to move x number of students through y number of years of history in z number of weeks. Like it or not, you're going to get skimming; unfortunately for the memories of the war dead in the Great War, that's one of the places where they skim.
I agree that there are elements in the 1914-18 war that absolutely need to be considered--the advent of submarine warfare, the use of gas, the Treaty of London, just to name three off the top of my head--but many history texts consider the trench war on the Western front to be the same old same old, with little to distinguish Ypres from Arras from Verdun from Vimy...
When you have to get through the curriculum, as I said, they're going to be doing some elimination of details.
My favorite moment from the Great War: Belleau Wood--"Come on, you sons of bitches, you wannna live forever?"
AWWWWWWWEsome. Not even Gears of War II comes close to that in terms of stinkin' plain cool.
the funny thing is that the old social 20 curriculum did quite a bit of coverage of World War I. given the internationality of the IBO, and the fact that they like us to analyze everything under the sun, WWI has all sorts of areas where you can do that. Maybe it's just my teacher, maybe it's just Alberta learning, I don't know.
Regardless, my history books are getting overread in my spare time at the moment, to compensate.
Umm I'd like to gather that it's all of the above Cam. I mean I had a very different teacher as you know and the ummm vague details at best that occur in your class may be a lot to do with both skimming being necessary as well as the classroom environment. I mean.... there are loads of half hearted things said about her for a reason.... I mean we're still talking about two things pertaining to history 1) the size of, "A History of A Modern World" and your teacher since well she's special....
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