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- #261
Red:
It can be done. It has been done by individuals who've made studying slavery (or any other complex topic), its history and effects the focus of their academic pursuit. The issue is when is the right time for one to do so.
For most folks there is never any time to specifically need to understand the full scope of a given topic, be it slavery, women's rights, quantum or Newtonian physics, geometry, linguistics, etc. Instead it is only necessary to expand one's understanding when one is required or called to make key decisions -- affecting oneself or others, particularly large quantities of others -- based on one or more aspects of the topic at hand. In order to accurately judge the nature and extend of "greater investigation" one must perform, one must at least be aware that there is more substance and context than what is presented in the texts one encountered at a high school or baccalaureate level of study.
My remarks above allude in part to the binary impression that many folks get regarding the content presented in K-12 and college freshman and sophomore level courses. I believe that many people feel as though what they learned then is substantively all there is to know and/or all one needs to know. To be broadly educated, that content and context probably is all one needs to know. To speak authoritatively on a matter, to have a well informed opinion on a matter, in many instances, the content presented in those classes is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. One's not recognizing that is little but willful ignorance. Our education system and its teachers's not making that clear is little but a disservice to citizens
Deciphering the role and import of willful ignorance and systemic disservice is similar to determining whether the egg preceded the chicken, if you will. The fact is that it really doesn't matter which is the greater ill. What matters is that people recognize that learning should not cease upon graduation and if they allow that happen, it is they, not any school system, who are to blame. (See the quote in my signature.)
Moving forward from there, and assuming one is of a mind to partake in a lifelong journey of intellectual development, it merely becomes a matter of seeking information from the appropriate sources. What is an "appropriate source?" Well, IMO, it's scholarly articles, papers, and books. Unfortunately and in my observation, far too many folks rely on editorials, news programs, politicians, and hearsay as their sources of decision supporting information. I don't reject using those sources; they are convenient for gathering "quick and dirty" information on a topic; however, relying on them exclusively and not ever reading scholarly works on the matter of one's interest constitutes one's doing oneself, at the very least, further disservice, depending on the power one wields, the disservice may extend, deliberately or inadvertently, to others.
I posted: Not a matter of context but simply a matter of including every possible interpretation of the subject matter all at once. It can't be done. You countered that it can be done, and then provided your rationale in a well written post that I'm sorry, I don't think defended your thesis.
For instance, the whole context of the discovery of America and the first non-Indian residents here is far too broad for a single discussion and all the points of view and perspectives about that. If it could be done then the whole thing could be boiled down to a single paragraph that the student could memorize and have ready for the standardized test. That would be like including all points of view and perspectives of the history of the Renaissance or the Reformation into a single paragraph or essay. There are people who have devoted a great deal of their adult lives to researching and finding answers to the intricate relationships and events and responses that occurred.
The best we can do in history class in high school or core college curriculum is to provide the basics that have to be understood in order for the student who is motivated to do so can know what s/he is looking for to get the whole story. And we don't do that when history is presented from a biased or dogmatic point of view: "This is what you must believe. . . . ."
Blue:
??? Perhaps I'm confused.
Are we talking about whether it's possible to cover the all the relevant events, players and aspects of a given topic or the ways that individuals may interpret those things? I was thinking the former is what we are truly discussing. Admittedly that's not what you wrote, but I didn't really believe you intended to refer to the myriad ways individuals of potentially vastly varying degrees of awareness on a given matter might interpret it. I fully agree that folks are capable of divining an infinite quantity of interpretations, some of which can be predicted and some that cannot, as well as many of those possible interpretations being invalid and a few of them having some merit.
If indeed you genuinely meant interpretations of history as opposed to learning/teaching the nature and scope of history's events, players, causes and direct effects, I misinterpreted your intent. Sorry.
What I was trying to say is that history is not just a simple set of one liner facts that kids can memorize for a standardized test. And I fear that is exactly what is happening.
History has to include the culture it lived in, the circumstances that triggered various events, and ultimately the consequences. Otherwise we have people believing things like Lincoln freed the slaves or Columbus discovered America as if that is all that anybody needs to know about that. But it needs to be taught honestly and without prejudice so that fertile minds are not manipulated into believing whatever the teacher wants them to think and believe. A government empowered to indoctrinate is a very dangerous thing.
Green:
I agree that many students do exactly that.
Interestingly and coincidentally, the distinction between learning and memorizing was substantively the topic of a discussion I had with one of my mentorees this past week. I was specifically sharing with him and reinforcing for him the various study habits that I have found effective for enhancing/maximizing information retention in the long and short term. The topic came up because as we discussed his biology class, he was shocked that I was able to rattle off (I was driving a car as we had the discussion) the basic elements and components of the Krebs Cycle even now after not having studied or used it for some 40 years and he's struggling to remember them precisely after just a week.
I have found the only technique that works for me is to use the information in a practical way frequently. I probably memorized a thousand Bible verse in my Sunday School years but subsequently could recall only a handful of those and that would he the ones I most often repeated. But it was useful later in life as I knew pretty well where to go in the Bible to find a specific passage. I was lucky to be grilled and grilled in the multiplication tables and had to recite them enough that they are ingrained and effortlessly recalled today. Repetition is invaluable for memory of things--especially for me. I use a lot of repetition when I teach too for that reason.
In all honesty I had to learn the Krebs Cycle in biology and I think I got it right on the test. But because it was information I never ever needed again, I couldn't even give you any part of it now and I haven't thought about it in decades, but it was fun to know what you were talking about when you brought it up just now.
That is how I look at government, Constitution, and history too. Every nuance and event is not necessary to remember or even know, but I do believe a good grounding in why things are as they are, the good and the bad, is essential for every citizen to know.