Hey look, a non-science related post? Like, whoa.
There was an interesting question posed on this morning’s BBC World Service podcast:
Should the Iraq War be taught in high school history? There is a debate in England (can’t find a link to an article now, sorry) about whether the Iraq war should be included in the high school history curriculum (and thus on standardized tests, etc.). Some argue that it has been going on for several years now, and is clearly an important part of our history. Others say it is not yet history, rather the war is more current events territory. Their concern is that by including very recent history in the curriculum, equally or more important (but much older) lessons would be pushed out, which would certainly be a problem.
I can see both sides of this. (I should say that, not knowing very much about high school education across the pond, my argument here is geared toward US high school education.) I consider the war to be current events, but i think that it should be included, in some way, in high school education. If not in history class, then where? It’s not like we have a social studies/current events class every year- there’s US History, US Government, World History, etc. But would it be so bad if a small(ish) part of every history/social studies class curriculum were set aside for discussion of current news* and events? Hell, i feel like that should be the case for every class, wherever relevant material comes up in the news. There are a lot of very important things that we all need to learn about, but that shouldn’t be at the complete sacrifice of the Now. I suppose, the more history we accumulate, the harder it is to teach it all. And we can all imagine the problems associated with condensing/prioritizing/revising history…
A corollary question- when does a current event become a historical event?
*Real news, people. Not Martha Stewart’s dog. Or lack thereof.
April 22, 2008 at 6:38 pm
1. Sure. If anything, it provides and excellent opportunity to compare/contrast different modern (1850 and later) wars. What makes the Iraq war different from the others? The same? Discuss.
2. A much tougher question. By strict definition, immediately after the act is done. By that logic, the initial strike and specific actions of the war are history, but we have yet to see the conclusion. Imagine it as a mini-series, but we don’t get to see the end for several weeks (months, years). So, we can’t teach the war as a whole, but there is something to be said about the beginning of it all and the geopolitical climate that put us there.
April 23, 2008 at 7:32 am
Loren-
1. Agreed, totally.
2. Strict vs. realistic, yes? Certainly the thing has to end (pleeease!) and we have to see how it all shakes out before the war as a whole can be taught in a (an?) historical context. Certainly there would be difficulties isolating the pre-war/early war without the conclusion to add context, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing. I absolutely agree with your last point, particularly since said geopolitical climate hasn’t changed all that much, and could contribute to putting us in other bad situations, politically or (Jeebus forbid) militarily.