Can There Be An Unbiased Teaching of History?
Why not? We just need massive research and new critical thinking skills…
Those of us of a certain age know what it was like in the sixties and seventies, with the Cold War threatening the West. Visiting this relic above from the arms race made my skin creep closer to the protection of steel walls and oxygen supplies. All the missiles were decommissioned, including this one, but seeing a weapon of mass destruction in person makes history from 50–60 years current today.
Actually seeing helps believing. At least, it did once upon a time.
2015 ushered in with fanfare the era of “alternative facts.” The reality is that we’ve always had alternative facts in the teaching of history; we need to revise the definition of “left out of history completely” to “here’s what you should know and why you never did hear about it.”
Who writes the history? The victors, mostly white males.
Who writes the laws? Mostly wealthy white males who could read and write and needed to preserve what they already had or wanted.
What people were left out? The list is extensive. Women, Indigenous peoples, the enslaved, the poor around the world, the third world countries, the children.
