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Re: History education
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From: Claudia Pearson <pearsoncrz_at_earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2012 12:49:44 -0600 (GMT-06:00)
Eve Ta l has e xcellent section s on th e se subjects in her book, A TRU TH TO TELL. Although Tal's text focuses on narratives abou t the Holocaust, what she says is applicable to any hard t ruth which we need to tell children. Claudia
style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-brea I think this topic is absolutely relevant to the co nversation as it gets at the thorny issue of who can tell the "truest" stor y about a historical event.
Conventional wisdom would ha ve it that the insider to the experience and particularly a first person ac count from a victim of a historical event is the truest story. And yet just as there is a tendency for the aggressor to deny evil doing, there is a te ndency for the victim culture to excuse themselves from all responsibility and not consider other more productive avenues that might have been t aken. A complete outsider to the historical event, may have a broader and m ore objective view than is available to someone from the participating cult ures. Of course we should take first person accounts seriously and value th em as both literature or history if they are carefully researched and well written. But we should be wary of thinking of them as objective when what t hey really are is intimate.
I also think in your e xperience, Keiko, your teachers were grappling not just with a tendency to deny past evils but also with the evergreen issue of what to tell children about the world's atrocities. Sparing children horror is a reasonable goal so long as guilt is not denied and the truth is addressed at some point in a young adult's education.
I struggle with this my self. How much should I say about the brutality of the Soviet Union in a MG novel? One of my characters in Second Fiddle was a Soviet soldier from the Baltic Republics. I knew from my research that toward the end of the Cold War, Soviet enlisted men were not given their pay. Many of them were forced to steal from civilians and give the money to their officers. Corporal pun ishment was common. Gang rape was also common. It was used to socially and culturally and racially isolate soldiers from the republics from Russian bo rn soldiers. So a solider from one of the 15 republics would be conscripted , sent far from home, separated from his countrymen, and brutally and repea tedly raped on entry to his military unit. Afterwards he would be tagged an d tormented as a homosexual. Suicide was shockingly common among the republ ican soldiers. And AIDS was rampant in the Soviet army, though they denied its existence behind the Iron Curtain. So, do I tell the truth about all of it? I decided to
stick with corporal punishment, theft of pay and extortio n. Not because I'm interested in denying the brutality of the Soviet Union, far from it. But many of my readers are as young as eight, and gang rape i s more information than I can reasonably ask them to bear. The trick is to give them a manageable mouthful of the truth and not so much that they chok e.
When I was seven I must have read Marie M cSwigan's Snow Treasure a dozen times. It's a great adventure story which t reads rather lightly over Nazi atrocities. What the book gave me was an app ealing introduction to a historical era. It peaked my curiosity so that lat er when I was able to cope with the darker elements of the Second World War , I was interested in reading more.
Perhaps, Keiko , your teacher who enjoyed acting out the figures of ancient Japanese histo ry was hoping you would come to love history enough to seek out the truth f or yourself in your adult life. I would hope so, and it seems that at least in your case, he succeeded.
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n class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb (0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal ; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans : 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2 ; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border -vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-t ext-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; "
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te; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-styl e: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: norma l; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizont al-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorat ions-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-w
Rosanne Parry WRIT TEN IN STONE, 2013 SECOND FIDDLE, 2011 HEART OF A SHEPH ERD, 2009 www.rosanneparry.com
Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2012 12:49:44 -0600 (GMT-06:00)
Eve Ta l has e xcellent section s on th e se subjects in her book, A TRU TH TO TELL. Although Tal's text focuses on narratives abou t the Holocaust, what she says is applicable to any hard t ruth which we need to tell children. Claudia
style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-brea I think this topic is absolutely relevant to the co nversation as it gets at the thorny issue of who can tell the "truest" stor y about a historical event.
Conventional wisdom would ha ve it that the insider to the experience and particularly a first person ac count from a victim of a historical event is the truest story. And yet just as there is a tendency for the aggressor to deny evil doing, there is a te ndency for the victim culture to excuse themselves from all responsibility and not consider other more productive avenues that might have been t aken. A complete outsider to the historical event, may have a broader and m ore objective view than is available to someone from the participating cult ures. Of course we should take first person accounts seriously and value th em as both literature or history if they are carefully researched and well written. But we should be wary of thinking of them as objective when what t hey really are is intimate.
I also think in your e xperience, Keiko, your teachers were grappling not just with a tendency to deny past evils but also with the evergreen issue of what to tell children about the world's atrocities. Sparing children horror is a reasonable goal so long as guilt is not denied and the truth is addressed at some point in a young adult's education.
I struggle with this my self. How much should I say about the brutality of the Soviet Union in a MG novel? One of my characters in Second Fiddle was a Soviet soldier from the Baltic Republics. I knew from my research that toward the end of the Cold War, Soviet enlisted men were not given their pay. Many of them were forced to steal from civilians and give the money to their officers. Corporal pun ishment was common. Gang rape was also common. It was used to socially and culturally and racially isolate soldiers from the republics from Russian bo rn soldiers. So a solider from one of the 15 republics would be conscripted , sent far from home, separated from his countrymen, and brutally and repea tedly raped on entry to his military unit. Afterwards he would be tagged an d tormented as a homosexual. Suicide was shockingly common among the republ ican soldiers. And AIDS was rampant in the Soviet army, though they denied its existence behind the Iron Curtain. So, do I tell the truth about all of it? I decided to
stick with corporal punishment, theft of pay and extortio n. Not because I'm interested in denying the brutality of the Soviet Union, far from it. But many of my readers are as young as eight, and gang rape i s more information than I can reasonably ask them to bear. The trick is to give them a manageable mouthful of the truth and not so much that they chok e.
When I was seven I must have read Marie M cSwigan's Snow Treasure a dozen times. It's a great adventure story which t reads rather lightly over Nazi atrocities. What the book gave me was an app ealing introduction to a historical era. It peaked my curiosity so that lat er when I was able to cope with the darker elements of the Second World War , I was interested in reading more.
Perhaps, Keiko , your teacher who enjoyed acting out the figures of ancient Japanese histo ry was hoping you would come to love history enough to seek out the truth f or yourself in your adult life. I would hope so, and it seems that at least in your case, he succeeded.
rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: no rmal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orp hans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizonta l-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorati ons-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-wi
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"word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after
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ak-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "
: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: n ormal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; or phans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; wido ws: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-b order-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -web kit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medi
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n class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb (0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal ; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans : 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2 ; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border -vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-t ext-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; "
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wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white
te; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-styl e: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: norma l; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizont al-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorat ions-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-w
Rosanne Parry WRIT TEN IN STONE, 2013 SECOND FIDDLE, 2011 HEART OF A SHEPH ERD, 2009 www.rosanneparry.com
---Received on Tue 13 Nov 2012 12:49:44 PM CST
