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A very interesting blog and writings.



Well, at least I know "Et tu Brute?" was coined by Shakespeare and not the last word of Caesar :D

That's kinda fun, Silvana. :)

My personal favorite is one that I think is still taught in our elementary schools - that Columbus was a genius because he thought the world was round. And that all the problems he had with Isabella and Ferdinand's science advisors was because they were convinced it was flat and he'd fall off the edge of the world.

Educated people, like the advisors, had known the world was round for 2000 years. What they had a problem with was Columbus' geography. Which was complete bunk. He wasn't a genius; he just got very lucky.

Totally! I was taught that Columbus discovered the earth was round too, which is just utterly wrong. Sigh.

It's the version I was taught in grade school, that's for sure.

This all only backs up what I've always thought, although not totally applicable here, that history is written by the victorious. Or as highlighted here, the um......less schmart. :)

Or, with the Columbus thing, by novelists trying to "do" the non-fiction thing and getting it wrong. But also getting a lot of readers.

Many of the the ancient Greek philosophers and scientists believed the world was round.

here's a Columbus fact few know.

he called the natives Indians because he thought he was India, is utter bullshit. in 1492 there was no such place as India. It was called Hindustan. remember,CC was a n Italian from Genoa, so his Espaniol esta el sucko. what he called the them was 'en dias el nino'. which meant children of god. leave it to the yanks in the 1800's to translate it as ignorant little'In-dians',which is easier to wipe off the face of the earth. children of god would take more fire power, not to mention less moral conscience.
j

btw: mi espaniol esta mucho el sucko

<< "here's a Columbus fact few know." >>

You are correct about few knowing this fact. Google had only one result for the phrase "en días el niño". It is an excerpt from a Spanish history book.

Historia general de las cosas de la Nueva Espaa I - Google Books Result
Bernardino De Sahagn - 2009 - History - 516 pages
... en días el niño nacido; por ventura será la voluntad de ...

In Yeshiva (Jewish religious school)I was taught that Columbus was definitely Jewish because it was discovered that his letters to family members included two Hebrew letters in the upper right hand corners which are an abbreviation for blessed be the name of God. This is a Jewish custom. I think this is probably untrue because if such evidence really existed, the idea that Columbus was Jewish would be an established fact rather than a controversial theory. He would also have probably been arrested by the Inquisition instead of getting funding from Ferdinand and Isabella.

As folks have noted here, knowledgeable people in Columbus' time knew the world was round; the reason he had so much trouble finding backing for his idea was that they knew about how large it is and that his math was way off, and that there was zero chance of his sailing the distance from Europe west to Asia on the amount of water and food his ships could carry; they were right. If the Americas hadn't been there, unknown to him, he and his crews would have died of thirst and/or starvation.

There was a fairly significant number of families in Spain who were hiding their Jewish roots around that time, and a lot of them came to the New World - in New Mexico, where I live, there are a fair number of families descended from those immigrants.

James wrote: "As folks have noted here, knowledgeable people in Columbus' time knew the world was round; the reason he had so much trouble finding backing for his idea was that they knew about how large it is an..."

Yes, of course. Columbus could have been a crypto-Jew. But putting Hebrew letters on your correspondence could be a problem even if they were only family letters. Someone in the family could decide to ingratiate himself with the Church, confess to Judaizing and repent. In the process, he would turn in all his Judaizing relatives. Someone who is hiding his heritage would not want to put something that incriminating in writing. That's why I don't think he would have done such a thing.

That's some conspiracy theory bs right there, man. And Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare, and we never landed on the moon.

Um no, Alex. The idea that a relative might turn someone in to the Inquisition in 15th century Spain is not a wild conspiracy theory. It happened often.

It's been that way in a lot of times and places where people were living under an authoritarian government that ruled through terror - that phenomenon of turning family members against each other happened during the witch-hunting hysteria in Europe and the American colonies, and more recently under the Nazis, under Stalin and Mao and the current regime in North Korea, to name a few examples.
Hard to grasp the emotional impact of living constantly with that kind of fear...

I'm talking about Columbus as Jewish.

Some scholars think it's possible that Columbus was Jewish. I actually have a copy of the bookChristopher Columbus's Jewish Roots though I've never gotten around to reading it.

Shomeret -- I believe that in the Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean: How a Generation of Swashbuckling Jews Carved Out an Empire in the New World in Their Quest for Treasure, Religious Freedom--and Revenge, they also make the case that Columbus was Jewish. I thought they made a pretty convincing case for it, but I do agree w/ you that it seems like if this were the case, it would be something more widely known. I may be wrong, but they might have also talked about this in Dogs of God: Columbus, the Inquisition, and the Defeat of the Moors too.

I'm sure most of you have seen the classic Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. It kind of blew me away when I first read it many years ago, esp. the discussion of John Brown and his alleged insanity/mental instability. I've since recommended the book to many people.

By the way, my son is currently reading The Mental Floss History of the United States: The (Almost) Complete and (Entirely) Entertaining Story of Americaand finding that a lot of the errors Loewen pointed out years ago are reproduced in that book. I'll ask him for some specific examples.

I keep meaning to read "Lies," Andrea. One of these days.

Do you mean Sass points out the same errors that Loewen pointed out? Or that Sass makes the same mistakes?

I mean Sass makes some of the same mistakes that Loewen had pointed out. Overall, my son is really enjoying the book, however. It suits the contemporary mind, I think. I find its jumpy, fragmented style sort of maddening.

Ugh, books that jump around get to me too. Terry Jones' Barbarians kinda skips around through time and place, and I couldn't keep a handle on the timeline as a result. But hey, to each his own.

When my kids were teenagers I shared some of the content of "Lies" with them, with the aims both of doing more to make history interesting for them than their schools were and of helping them learn to think critically rather than just accept whatever they were taught; when my daughter told one of her teachers about some of it, the teacher called her a liar. I was all set to go to the school and confront the teacher, but my daughter begged me not to, because she said the teacher would be vindictive toward her.

Oh my God, I would have killed that teacher. (Well, okay, you probably made the right decision for your daughter, but STILL. I would have killed her later.) It's not just the "not knowing the thing one's supposed to be teaching" issue, it's the vituperation too. Awful.

I've never understood why some people who dislike children become teachers. My mom taught first grade, and she adored the kids in her classroom, and there are a lot of good teachers like her around too, but quite a few seem to live to stomp on the souls of children. Maybe they're inadequate personalities who hate people in general and know they're too feeble to get away with bullying adults.

I always figured they used to like kids, or used to think they liked kids, and then got beaten down by...whatever people get beaten down by.

Maybe so. Burnout is a big problem in my field (I'm a therapist) and it probably is for teachers too; Mom just seemed to be immune.

The best ones are.

Some of Mom's first-graders came back to her classroom to see her when they were in college, to say hi and let her know what they were doing.

She was a force of nature, to use a cliche that fits; also very shrewd. She had to retire early for medical reasons (we lost her way too young at 63.) During her last illness before she gave up trying to go back, she called the school to ask how things were going for the sub who had her class, and the secretary told her the kids were eating the sub alive. Mom asked her to have two of the kids come to the office, the ones she knew would be the ringleaders, and got them on the phone - she told them she needed them to keep things running and help the sub out, so if any kids were acting up, those two were to straighten them out. They did just that, and things got back to normal almost instantly.

I think that if she'd been the teacher whose student brought in some surprising information from "Lies" or the like, she'd have asked, "What's your source on that?" and then if it checked out, found a way to turn it into a class project.

Aw...I just got kindof emotional at that story. She sounds like a cool lady, man. And that's way too young. My mom's that age now.

Yeah. Last Saturday was the 10th anniversary; I'm still not good for much on that date.

On the side of gratitude, my supervisor at the time was great. I was the solo therapist at a small residential treatment center for adolescent boys; in the last couple of weeks he just said, "Take whatever time you need to, we'll be fine here." So I was able to spend pretty much every day with her, and I was holding one of her hands - my youngest brother had the other hand - when she slipped away.

We held her memorial at an AA club she'd helped found, in the biggest meeting room. Each of us - my stepdad, my aunt, my brother, me, a couple of close friends - got up to say some things about her, and when I looked around the place, there was my boss with all the staff and all the kids from the program. I still get choked up about that.

I've kind of pulled this string off topic - sorry about that.

I don't mind off topic at all! Your mom sounds like a great person. I teach college students, and, sadly, see a lot of students going into elementary ed. who wouldn't read a book (other than required text) if you paid them in gold bars.

Lovely story about your Mom, James! Thanks for sharing her memory with us.

Thanks, Andrea, Martha!

When my mom started college (1956), she wanted to be a doctor, but my grandfather refused to pay her tuition unless she went into either education or something clerical; I guess the best I can say about it is that he was a product of his times. Her guidance counselor told her she shouldn't go into teaching because she was too smart for that field!

The school district asked her to become a principal several times but she said she'd rather be in the classroom; she'd wanted to get a master's in special ed and do that, but her health failed her before she was able to achieve that goal.

I don't understand that lack of interest you see, Andrea - why spend so much of your life doing something that doesn't even interest you? - but a lot of therapists are like that too. I actually did a degree in education before the one in psychology, and it was fascinating. My planned second career after the military was teaching. However, along the way I realized that for the kids who need the most help, the teacher often can't give them enough time and attention because he/she has the whole class to take care of. So I decided to be one of the folks to whom those kids get handed off. Sort of like Mom wanting to go into special ed, I guess. It's been a good choice, although I've spent most of the time working with adults rather than kids.

On historic errors (or omissions), the one that provoked so much scorn from my daughter's teacher was the account of President Warren G. Harding, while he held that office, joining the KKK in a public ceremony. On a less grievous level, I've never forgiven him for making up the "refudiate" style word "normalcy", which has plagued the language ever since.

I've worked at a residential facility for behavior disorder youth for 15 years (anniversary in about 2 wks). I'm also a Special Olympic coach and have been blessed beyond all measure by these people that many feel are not worth the time. They are my best friends. Our oldest son is 35 and has been a Special Olympic athlete for 15 or 16 years.

James, I want to thank you for sharing your thought and emtions about your Mom. Ithink the role a teacher can play in their students lives can be life-changing. SOME teachers really SEE their pupils or the pupil that needs some help and they make all the difference. I had an English teacher that did that for me back in high school. I will never forget her. It is trmendous that your Mom was one such teacher. Again, thank you for sharing.

Thanks James for pulling us off topic. The exchange of messages was heartening.

One of the things I learned when I worked in educational publishing was that wise principals always put their best teachers in First and Second Grade because that is where the most motivation can be started or where the most damage can be done. Sounds like your mom's principal had some smarts.

Speaking of education, I assume, some of you have seen bits and pieces of the NBC "Education Nation". It is a very well done project and can be accessed across all the NBC channels as well as on the internet. The story today was about a group of parents in Cupertino, CA raising 2 Million Dollars to keep 107 teachers from being fired.

One of the most interesting data dumps was comparing Finland and the U.S. In Finland, teachers come from the top 10 or 15% of college graduates. In the U.S. most teachers come from the bottom 20% to 25% of college graduates. BTW, that was true when I was in school in the the late 50s and early 60s. That is not to say there aren't exceptions but unfortunately that's what the statistics tell us.

Lastly, my opinion as to why teachers burn out is the system is such that there is no reward except self-fulfillment for doing a good job.

I remember running into excellent male teachers at the primary level, a rare occurrence, who felt they had to go into administration in order to support their families. One of the reasons the number of female teachers so outnumbers male teachers is that for many families teaching is a second income.

I'm sure we all could go on and on about this issue. Unless we all make education a priority in voting for our representatives, it will continue to fester on the back burner. (I know, a mixed metaphor. My Journalism teacher, Bertha White would be all over me if she read this.)

Well said, Ed. Back in the day, teaching is what the very most educated people did, from Socrates to this dude I'm reading about now, Giordano Bruno (16th century). It used to be a valid choice for the highly educated. It's lost so much respect that now its for the zealots - like James' mom, and I mean zealots in the positive way - or the indifferent. It's tragic.

But we all have those few teachers who made an impact, right? Like Chrissie said. And the impact those teachers had was immeasurable.

I liked your story, James, because your mom asked to speak to the kids who she knew were causing trouble. That's a smart person there, and one who's connected to all of her students. I used to cause trouble; a few teachers got me, as hard as I tried to sabotage that, and it meant the world.

Yes, it's sad that our society values teachers so little. One of the reasons Mom loved teaching first grade was that she was excited about her classroom being the first school experience most of her students had (no kindergarten at most schools then, and she taught in the poorest part of town so she got fewer who'd gotten to attend kindergarten than in more affluent neighborhoods.)

My folks divorced when I was seven, and my father got custody of my brothers and me for three years until Mom was able to get custody - he was a psychopath (I'm thinking of the clinical definition and not exaggerating) and a sadistic genius (he knew that the best way to hurt her was to make sure she knew how he was hurting us), and she only got to see us one weekend a month. I was really lucky in the teachers I got in grades 2 through 4 - I think they saved enough of my sanity that Mom and my stepdad had something to work with when she did manage to rescue us! I had several very good teachers in high school, too, in particular a journalism teacher and one math teacher.

I think teachers burn out for the same reasons therapists do: crushing workloads, micromanagement, and too little validation. It's ironic - to become a therapist (or clinical social worker, as my wife is) a person has to spend at least six years in college and earn a master's degree, then pass the licensing exam; and therapists average about five years in the field before they're too fried to keep going. So they actually spend less time doing the work than they spent in school to get the opportunity to do it.

My best job as a therapist was actually one working in the forensic psychiatric hospital that serves New Mexico's prison system, both state-run and private prisons. I started as a line therapist and moved up to clinical supervisor for a while. I ended up having to quit because injuries from a rush-hour freeway wreck left me unable to work full time (advice: don't get rear-ended by a semi if you can avoid it!) At any rate, I loved it because there was no managed care nonsense of having to argue with an HMO to be allowed to do therapy; I got to do in-depth work with guys with really serious problems; and I got to work with them for months or years instead of doing the stupid six-session drive-by therapy to which the insurance companies have reduced treatment in most settings. Beyond that, I just felt more connection with the inmates than any other group of clients I've ever had; it was so easy to see that if perhaps they'd had my mother and stepfather and good teachers instead of me, we'd probably be sitting in each other's places and they'd be the ones that got to walk out and drive away every afternoon.

I've always continued doing my own therapy off and on, and when I told my therapist that he cracked up and said, "So you've found your people, and they're the criminally insane."

Back to the topic! A couple of other books that are fun are That's Not in My American History Book

by Thomas Ayres
and A People's History of American Empire

by Howard Zinn.

There is such a great saying that history is always written by the victors or conqueres. I see another reader has already mentioned this. But its so true, for example look at until recently females have largely been left out of history. If you look at the treatment of Catherine the Great, Cleopatra, Boadicea, even Elizabeth the 1st you can see their treatment through history has been far harsher then say some male leaders that were their contemporaries.

Another example is if you look at history from the conquered or defeated history looks through a different lence. For example I am a Kiwi and what they taught us in school about the colonization of New Zealand was different to what I was taught in my university and what I have read from books etc.

For example in school the Treaty of Waitangi (a famous treaty signed between Maori, our native peoples, and the British and the Queen) was pushed as a real advantage to show how well Maori were treated in comparison to Australian Aborigines or Native Americans. But the truth is treaties were not new, the British had them in the Congo and with several tribes in America. They broke every one of them, including the Treaty of Waitangi. They didn't teach us that side at school.

We were also taught, Maoris were never put on reservations or shot like wild animals. But there were reservation like places where Maori were pretty much dumped. There were even cases of Maori tribes fighting on the side of the Crown during the land wars, still had their land confiscated along with 'rebel tribes' and given over to white settlers.

We were also never taught that the Maori invented trench warfare and during the Land Wars won quite a few battles over the British.They just lost the war, mainly due to the fact the British had more bodies, more manpower.

So I think alot of what is taught in high school leaves alot ot be desired. That said I too had some great teachers, my english teacher through my last 2 years of high school was inspiring. My classicl studies teach, 1 lecturer in Anthroplogy, 1 history lecturer and a 5th form science teacher are also great standouts in my mind. I also remember a few bad teachers that stuck out for the opposite reasons. But a good teacher is so valuable, teachers are not given due respect anymore.

A final comment - its not just history that is mistaught as well, look at the loud debate in the States over teaching the science of evolution.

Great points there, Cin. It can be hard to track down the history of the vanquished, but it's so interesting and valuable when you find it.

And thank you for that crash course in Maori history! Any book you'd particularly recommend?

And yes, the debate over evolution here in the States is appalling and embarrassing. Only about half of us "believe" in it. Sigh.

Particularly ironic when you consider that it's our second or third (or fourth?) go-round arguing the subject. (One of my alma mater's past presidents got into trouble with the school's board of trustees for pushing the teaching of Darwin. In the 1880s.)

Thanks, Cin - some things I want to learn more about. You're right, the teaching of history can be badly skewed not only by what's taught that isn't true, but also by what's never mentioned at all. Down the memory hole, as Orwell said. And like Alex and Susanna (and many others, I'm sure) I find the idiocy of creationism or "intelligent design" a national embarrassment - kind of like having a 35-year-old relative who loudly and belligerently insists that Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy exist. But a message I saw on someone's t-shirt at the grocery store captures it: "Never underestimate the power of really stupid people in large groups."

My high school was a new one being treated as kind of a testbed for experimental methods when I went through - in many ways it was great. I think the best thing they did may have been that they integrated English, history, and social studies into a single double-length double-credit course in 9th, 10th, and 11th grades - so when we studied the Civil War, for example, we read and talked about the history, read MacKinlay Kantor's Andersonville
and Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage,

and they even got a group of Civil War re-enactors to stage a battle at our school. It was great, a lot better than the trivial-pursuit style memorize-and-regurgitate-dates-and-names activity history had been in junior high. Then in college my first history professor used a text that presented three chapters on each era covered - one on the standard wars-and-politics stuff, one on sciences and technology in people's daily lives, and one on the arts and literature of that time. He framed history as the study of all the different ways people have tried to deal with the same existential challenges in every time and place.

Thanks guys. This is such an interesting topic and always brings up so many interesting slip ups or bits and pieces that were left out. If anyone is interested in learning a bit more about NZ history I highly recommend Michael King's History of New Zealand. There is a doco series by a similair name that follows a similair route as the book. Great, so interesting. Did anyone else know the Maori weren't the first peoples in NZ? The Maoriri were here first . . Something denied by Maoris, but archaeology and links between the native people's living in the Chatam Islands tells the real story. I can go on and on about the real truth behind the colonization of NZ that most Kiwi's haven't a clue about.

Yes the argument over teaching creativism or evolution theory to kids does seem silly to those of us living outside the States. I mean these days all a kid needs to do is go on the internet or pick up a book from the library. There is even the odd doco out about it, so refusing to teach it in school just looks even worse. It's not like kids can't find out and imagine a world where you don't learn about earth's true history? I mean I've always wondered how these people that resist it explain the dinosaurs.

But even on the subject of Darwin, what is being taugh tis incorrect as well. His grandfather and father actually did 90% of the research and theory building for what he did. The only diferrence between Darwin and his grandfather in particualr is that he got out of his study and went out into the field. But his ideas weren't actually as original as they appear and have big loop holes - ie alot of his ideas have been dispproved, but its so important to learn about it anyway.

Wow! So many ideas so little time.

The textbooks used for the teaching of History in Elementary and High Schools are adopted in a political process. That's why they are so bland. They must not piss anyone off. That's why Biology textbooks must contain so-called "Intelligent Design."

I remember when we first integrated the illustrations in the Math books, I sold. Yes, Math books. There were immediately many parts of the country in which we would not be considered. And in a bit of irony, when we submitted them in Detroit, we were accused of putting black kids in the illustrations just to get the Detroit business.

Teachers are, at some level, politically vulnerable, if they say the "wrong" thing in the classroom. That's why tenure is important. Yes, we should not keep teachers who are lazy or incompetent but we also must protect teachers who are unpopular but are otherwise good teachers.

If Principals and Administrators did their job, incompetent teachers would never attain tenure.

A word about Darwin. He definitely was not the first to propose the idea of evolution. Many scientists of the day thought Creationism was a false theory. What made Darwin memorable was that he published his findings while everyone else was too busy, too insular or too afraid to do so. The power of the pen, so to speak.

I respectfully disagree, Cin. While the groundwork had been laid, Darwin was the guy who put it all together. (And, yes, Wallace too.) Of course it wasn't out of thin air, but I think Darwin is as important as he's made out to be.

Which of his ideas have been disproven? I'm aware of some fine tuning, but I don't know that he's been suspected of being wrong in any meaningful way.

I'm not a biologist, but I think the time frames Darwin suggested might now be considered too vast, as we understand more about mutations? I know I read something about the Burgess Shale in Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History. But as I said, I'm not an expert.

I've run across a lot of mistaken ideas about the Puritans. Most people's understanding of them comes largely from Hawthorne's fiction, which was, after all, fiction. One is that the Puritan's thought sex was sinful. They were actually quite frank about it and the role of sex in a healthy marriage.
The Puritans did see economic success as a sign of God's favor, an idea of theirs which is then mistakenly attributed to Calvin.

An interesting book about the Puritans is Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America.