The question of what I will call "pre-college knowledge" has been on my mind a lot the last couple days. I suppose it started when, during a "discussion," someone was firmly convinced of the truth of his/her historical "knowledge" based on what (s)he learned in middle school, despite numerous cited references to the contrary.
Over the course of my musings on this, I decided there are four things we need to remember about everything we learned, especially in history and literature, before college:
1) Everything we learn then is simplified.
2) Everything we learn then is sanitized.
3) Pre-college teachers are generalists (whether within their own fields or across the curriculum).
4) Due to school boards and other requirements, most pre-college information is out of date and most teachers don't have time to keep up to date.
[Insert disclaimer that I have several relatives who teach or recently taught at various pre-college levels and am not disparaging any pre-school through high school teachers.]
What this comes down to is that, once we graduate from high school, nothing from our K-12 education outside the physical sciences should be brought into debates, discussions, or arguments. A few examples:
1) Even in high school (early-1990s) we were told that Chris Columbus was the first European to set foot in the Americas and that he had no clue what was out there in the Atlantic . . . later we learn that he had access to Viking maps that pre-date his voyage by 400-500 years and that this information has been accepted for quite some time.
2) In HS we were told that in Columbus' day, everyone believed the world was flat . . . later we learn that for nearly a century scholars have known that ancient Greeks mathematically determined the planet's circumference and weight.
3) We are told that before the 1900s, all women in all cultures around the world were oppressed . . . later, historians tell us that in fact, Athenian women were equal to men with different spheres of authority, Spartan women were equal to men, many African tribes were matriarchal, medieval English women owed property and often took over the education of their deceased husbands' apprentices, and many Celtic tribes were matriarchal, among other things.
4) We were told that women never worked outside the house before the Industrial Revolution, except as prostitutes . . . later, historians tell us that this is complete b.s. (not in those words, obviously) and point to massive numbers of businesses in London, Paris, and elsewhere that were owned by women before the 17th century. And this has been known since at least the 1980s.
5) We were told that Nordic culture was epitomized by guys in horned helmets raiding monasteries . . . later, historians tell us that in fact the "viking" was only a small part of an extremely complex culture built around trade, fishing, and herding; that the "vikings" were most often landless young men essentially "blowing off steam." Oh, and that they never wore horned helmets. And we've known both of these things for many decades.
I guess the moral of this mini-semi-rant is that claims of "that's what I was taught in middle school" have no place in "adult" discussion/debate and that, contrary to many conservatives, history is a constantly evolving field as we rediscover more records and archaeology makes new discoveries.
Foreign Exchange Cat
2 hours ago
