bossel said:
You're even more optimistic about this than I am, Lexico!
Well, I'm no professional historian.
But I didn't know you were 'that' optimistic, Bossel !
And I'm only optimistic in principle--there'll be plenty of details to foam over. ;-)
Still the possibiliy of not having to bother with the bare minimum basics (a lot of it) is great relief !
No more futile arguments that never gets us anywhere.
I agree, but I also see the danger of watering down such textbooks to the lowest common denominator.
Yes, the books might just have gotten slimmer due to that. I also recall finding most history text books more concentrating on story telling rather than giving a wealth of material to digest and analyze. Both are important, but having only a few pages for each topic is so vastly simplifying and unexciting for the young minds.
Having multiple views, historiography, critical reading, and original documents included in the history curriculum would be much appreciated. One area where improvement is sorely needed is critical history of history telling; if many histories are distorted, then the students must know how to survive the distoritions and come out unscated by propaganda of all sorts. Do you think that is something that can be taught in junior hihg school history classes ?
We used to learn how 'nationalism' was necessary; if the imperialist-colonialist view is given its proper place in the back seat of 19-20th century historical writing, then the hypersensitive and skewed nationalist views can also shake free of the shackle of having to counter imperialist-colonialist ideas, naturally allowing for objective historical reasoning.
It would help to include selective bibliographies, references, and questions for each section for essay writing, and to have students engage in critical reading and debate.
In the case of Nanjing, it is simply like that, we have a number of varying estimates.
That could be another area where historical thinking can be encouraged for the junior high student instead of feeding the authoritative word out of the professional historian's mouth. Give them the facts and evidence, and let them draw a conclusion. Is that too dangerous ? Not having access to key documents and other kinds of evidence while being fed disinformation were the major culprits I think.
But what about shared history books between Korea & China? I'm afraid that they will simply leave out those parts that one party for nationalistic reasons doesn't like.
That's very much like putting a disagreeable member on ignore. I hope that nationalist historians be given less credit and cease to be mainstream; there should be a declaration of freedom from extreme propagandist histories.
It's a good start though, as I said. We will see what comes of it.
Absolutely.