Joseph Stalin stated, “Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.” Many people say “knowledge is power” so therefore education is powerful. With such a universal tool as education a commonly debated question is what should be taught in our schools. Our government is constantly being manipulated and changed to fit the standards of what our board of education believes we should learn. But should our government really be deciding what we learn?
As we see in 1984, government control of history is an incredibly terrifying idea. Aside from memories, humans only have knowledge of information they are taught; whether it’s through teachers or printed material. The Party is able to keep the population brainwashed through the idea, “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present, controls the past. Although our government is supposed to be a representation of the people, it is easy to believe that a politician can become corrupt or bias and influence our education in a negative manner. Also, it is impracticable to believe everyone is going to agree on the information that should be taught. A good example of this is the Wall Street Journal article we read in class which talked about, “emphasizing the roles of the Bible, the Christian faith and the civic virtue of religion in the study of American history. There is no doubt that the Christian faith influenced our constitution and development of our country, however it may not be included in education because it may offend some people’s beliefs. This is wrong; history should include the facts, even if it deals with a religious or controversial subject. But not every fact can be included, and therefore people will argue on which facts are most important.
This leads to the thought that no matter what curriculum is decided to be taught in schools, all curriculum should be taught in a way that is objective as possible. However, it is extremely difficult to be objective when teaching about certain subjects. Everyone holds a personal opinion about a subject and naturally their view impacts the way they teach. A good example of this would be government teachers. Most likely by the end of the school year you will be able to recognize whether your teacher is a republican or democrat.
Education will continue to be a controversial subject because as Stalin said it is powerful. Everyone is a student at one time, making the curriculum taught extremely influential. It is important that both the information and teachers stay as objective as possible.
Hey Andrew, I agree with what you posted. In class I think your point or views on the subject may not have been presented as really as your blog did because the conversation was getting pretty defensive. But I do believe that essentially the opposing sides agreed that, even though Christianity is extremely important to our history, teachers still need to present it to their students in an objective manner, like everything that is taught in school. Also, I like how you quoted from Stalin. He was a symbol of evil to the world not too long ago, but he was very intelligent, and he spoke true when he said knowledge is power. Since knowledge is very powerful that makes another reason why the criteria taught in school should be as objective as possible... A little off topic, but I bet you were thinking of Olson when you wrote that comment about Government teachers, he does make it quite clear what his political views are.
ReplyDeleteYo Combs, I dig your blog this week. I think people get scared when it comes to controversial issues, and when it come to those issues, Christianity always seems to pop up. Religion, unless it is your own, tends to make people argue for some reason. People freak out too much in this country. From taking prayer out of school to the sad attempt at taking “One nation under God” out of the pledge of allegiance, American’s needs to simmer down and reflect on their roots in Christianity. It seems scary to break down the fact that the Board of Education really does control what we learn, very similar to the “Party” in 1984. But it is hard to say who should control what we learn in school. Is there an objective group of people out there? I wish there were, but I have my doubts. I can’t understand why people can’t take the fact that Christianity really did shape our nation, and that it needs to be included in our history classes. I like your comment about how it is easy to see what political party a history teacher belongs to. That is so true.
ReplyDeleteShrimpyyy! =) I completely agree with your blog. Christianity did shape our nation especially with the Constitution. If the Bible did not exist who knows where our country would be today. I enjoyed how you started off with a strong quote that Stalin stated in comparing it to how by the end of the year one can tell if a teacher is a Democrat or a Republican. In the end, a teacher's own morals shown in his teaching can be based off his own discourse. In addition, I admired how you brought up, "history should include the facts, even if it deals with a religious or controversial subject." People are saying they want factual evidence in historical text books and this is one of them. I know that it should not take over the whole history book itself, but it for sure should be added in for its impact on America. Well done =)
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