Education discusision
And it had nothing to do with feminism, the Black Power movement, the Student's up raisings of the 60s
OK now you’re just going a little bit overboard aren’t you. How did we get to the 1960s civil rights legislation, if we didn’t have a 1960s civil rights movement? You claim America just naturally moves towards more equality. You’re wrong. People have to FIGHT for it. Often they are called “radicals” or “militants” by people like yourself.
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The feminists demanded that they be allowed to teach their "Women Studies" programs without being under the thumb of the evil patriarchy of evil white men.
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So? If you’re not patriarchical, why should that upset you?
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The same happened with "Black Studies" and Latino in literature, humanities, and history. Everyone screwed it up.
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You’re contradicting yourself. Without black studies movements we would all still be learning only about white male authors and white male history. Those movements forced education to include the contributions of others. Just yesterday you seemed interested in learning more about those other cultures, but you don’t know anything about the social movements that forced higher education to acknowledge the existence of other sub groups within the U.S.
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And again. How would you do it?
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Expanding the narrative was not acceptable since then Women Studies would still be under the thumb of the evil patriarchy and Black Studies would still be under the thumb of evil white oppressors
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When was the last time you TOOK an American history course at a major university. I think you’ll find that most courses now do the best job they can expanding the narrative to include alternative voices. Speaking as someone who has been a teaching assistant for freshman American history surveys at a major big ten university, I can say I’m very impressed with the attempts made by professors to tell a particularly integrated narrative. Inevitably though, I have white male students who complain that they aren’t learning enough “real” history and why can’t we focus more on “the presidents” and “businessmen who made this country great.” Republicans I might add.
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In American Lit. 101 class you teach the literature of America.
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Which is what? You clearly have no experience putting one of these courses together. You have 13 weeks and in a 101 course that means you’ve got about 300 years of history/lit, to cover. Choices have to be made. What’s really important about the various sub-studies courses is they allow you to expand and specialize so that the things that are left out of the big survey are included. What’s the beef here?
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You don't use a quota system or some "equal weight" system. To keep courses from becoming too large you create sections based on time periods. Colonial American Lit. would be largely about the writings of a bunch of white guys. Early American Lit. would still be largely about a bunch of white guys, but it would include the writings of Frederick W. Douglass, Booker T. Washington.
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There are dozens and dozens of African American, native American and women writers who wrote in colonial and early America. Why should they be excluded from this course you’ve proposed? Also Booker T. Washington is turn of the century so not sure why he’d be in “early America.”
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It would make American Lit. a much more demanding subject. I believe this should be the approach at the undergraduate level.
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It IS the approach at the undergraduate level, it’s called choosing a major. If you want to specialize in the areas you’ve proposed then you become an English major. But there have to be courses for non-specialists so they can fulfill their humanities requirements. And really in depth courses in early colonial literature are too advanced for students who are just getting out of highschool. You have to actually KNOW the history of the era in order to really delve into the literary offerings of people at the time. I might also add. You would have to greatly expand funding for humanities in higher education in order to afford all the specialists you’re planning to hire to teach the thousands upon thousands of students at any given university who need to fulfill their requirements by taking one of these specialized 101 courses you’re proposing. Currently, any number of professors can teach the early America historical survey. But if you have to offer a colonial America, early America, post civil war America history survey each semester you triple the number of professors you need to teach those classes. I LOVE the idea and, I might add, this is how its done in the Ivy League. Republicans, however, hate the idea as they continue to slash budgets for big state schools.
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Sadly women and African-Americans also look at a white guy taking African America x or women's history with suspicion or as an oddity.
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You are correct. Sometimes those classrooms aren’t so comfortable for white students. It’s not really comfortable being in the minority. Maybe it’s a good thing to take that experience and try and understand how minorities feel every day. But in my experience quite a few white students feel quite comfortable in those courses. Some are even more militant than my black students. So the question is WHY do you feel uncomfortable?
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The degree of sensitive needed and the scope of knowledge required would require the full Prof. to do some actual teaching rather than an assistant doing it for them.
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Wow are you sure you’re not a liberal? Teaching assistants exist because our education system refuses to hire enough full professors to teach all the students in an undergrad institution.
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Difficult, not impossible
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Spoken like someone who’s never had to do it. I’m sorry but as a person being trained to be professor, I just really don’t have any patience for your flippant descriptions of the education process. You really have NO idea how difficult it is and the kinds of choices that have to be made. Seriosuly..you don’t.
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No. That's on our education system. It is important for all Americans to learn the perspectives of all historical events. Since you are so keen on questioning the hidden agenda, reread your words in the above quote. Do you notice how you create a duality that is inherently based on race and the premise that white men are evil oppressors, even today?
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Pay closer attention. I was talking about the different way whites and African Americans interpreted different moments in American history. The revolutionary period, great for white men, not so great for enslaved people. Civil War, exciting time for freed slaves, less exciting time for defeated southerners. Reconstruction, an era of white KKK terror, or an era of white vigilante justice. Both were very real perspectives and both should be part of a history course. How exactly should I talk about those periods in history. Only in terms of “liberation” of the revolutionary period, that’s not the whole story. Should we only talk about the south’s defeat? That’s not the whole story. Should we only talk about the KKK as heroes to white southerners? That’s not the whole story.
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Unspoken, but implied is the premise that only a white guy of today would mourn the loss of the south and cheer the white vigilante soldiers of the KKK. Well, the great majority of white guys today are just as offended by slavery, the KKK, or of cross burnings as any black guy. Both should take such things and such events personally.
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Thou dost protest too much. I was only talking about them in terms of historical perspective. PHEW! This is a good conversation. You don’t let up huh. You are of course totally wrong and look forward to your response.