When you wake up one morning, the truth sinks in. You’ve been lied to since second grade. Worse, the truth about it is out there, but you didn’t see it. You had more important things to do (e.g. raise a family, work, anything else aside from truth). You realize, you were so deep in privilege, you were blind. Even when you saw it with your own eyes, you didn’t really see it. When you heard it, you didn’t really listen, even though you thought you had. Of course, this isn’t about religion or philosophy (although it is in a related way). Rather, it is about the stories children are taught in lieu of the truth.
The Truth Is Right In Front Of You
As I grew up, I was always told history is a story made up by the victors of wars and battles. You understand that not all of it is accurate. But you also are taught that it is generally accurate. If the details differ, that’s OK because the big strokes are there. You are given bits of truth to divert you from the actual truth. When you hear it, you don’t believe it.
The Tree
White peoples’ ancestors did not invent everything. Many inventions were stolen from Black people who get no credit and Black children are not taught in schools that they come from greatness. This knowledge must be in all curricula.
“Every textbook account of the European exploration of the Americas begins with Prince Henry the Navigator, of Portugal …
The textbook authors seem unaware that ancient Phoenicians and Egyptians sailed at least as far as Ireland and England, reached Madeira and the Azores, traded with the aboriginal inhabitants of the Canary Islands, and sailed all the way around Africa before 600 B.C. …
Omitting the accomplishments of the Afro-Phoenicians is ironic, because it was Prince Henry’s knowledge of their feats that inspired him to replicate them. But this information clashes with another social archetype: our culture views modern technology as a European development.
So the Afro-Phoenicians’ feats do not conform to the textbooks’ overall story line about how white Europeans taught the rest of the world how to do things. None of the textbooks credits the Muslims with preserving Greek wisdom, enhancing it with ideas from China, India, and Africa, and then passing on the resulting knowledge to Europe via Spain. … ‘people didn’t know how to build seagoing ships, either.’
Students are left without a clue as to how aborigines ever reached Australia, Polynesians reached Madagascar, or Afro-Phoenicians reached the Canaries.” as cited via Pratie
The lies are shocking in scope. Is there any widely held “history” that is accurate? Almost every history I was given, memorized from second grade (all I remember) lies. How can history teachers perpetuate it?
“Paulo Freire of Brazil puts it this way: “It would be extremely naïve to expect the dominant classes to develop a type of education that would enable subordinate classes to perceive social injustices critically.”― James W. Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong
To Research
The point of historians which include history teachers and their students is to research. I play Stevie Wonders song Black Man in the library. It’s a mini historic timeline.
“4QM” stands for the “Four Question Method,” a simple yet sophisticated way for teachers to cover their mandated content while simultaneously engaging students in the key thinking skills of history and social studies. Developed by two real-life public school history teachers over more than a decade of teaching, observation, and conversation, 4QM guides teachers in planning focused and engaging lessons, and students in thinking about social studies as a dynamic discipline.
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