Why the history that is taught in school is different from the complete history


I like learning about history. And I like sharing what what I'm learning. And the most common thing that I hear from people after I share stuff is, “Hey, they didn't teach me that in school!” No, they probably didn't. But it's not a conspiracy, man. Nor are the schools trying to withhold information. It's all about priorities, and teaching students the best way that it can be done.

It was only when I started my teaching career (no, not history, Graphic Design), that I started to understand the limitations of what can be taught. And as much as I'd have liked to have gone into a lot more detail, there were always time constraints. And someone has to decide what to cover during a given semester, and what not to.

I grew up in Minnesota, and if you know your American history, it's where the largest mass execution in United States history took place. No, they didn't teach me that in school. I learned about the Dakota Indian Wars after I became an adult, and I am still learning. It is a shameful part of history, and really, I can't blame schools for not wanting to dwell on this kind of stuff. It's wildly complicated, and something that requires maturity to even begin to understand. The execution order was signed by Abraham Lincoln, but it's not really what most children need to learn about this president. Besides, if you know the rest of the story, you know that he stayed the execution of over 90% of the men who had been condemned to die.

Nowadays I collect old images of Phoenix, Arizona, where I now live. And I have the time, and the maturity, to thoroughly explore. There is no need for me to accept easy answers, sound bites, and “Cliff Notes”. I want to know the whole story, and I'm willing to take the time to try to understand. I know that I never will completely understand, but this is a journey, not a destination.

I plan on living a very long life, and enriching that life with as much knowledge as I can find. There was a time when simplified history was enough for me, but that was when I was a child. As an adult, I want more.

Photo above: Maricopa and Pima Indians with a cowboy in 1889, Phoenix, Arizona. This is part of a very complex story, and the more I learn about it, the more fascinating it is to me.

 Understanding the alliance of the Pima, Maricopa, and Papago Indians with the Phoenix pioneers

Understanding the Phoenix Indian School

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is ...
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the...
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me...
Read more