10/2/2020
Ben Railton Joins "Keeping Democracy Alive" to Talk "Patriotic Education"
Historians in the Newstags: history education, patriotism, teaching history, Donald Trump, podcasts, 1776 commission
He called our current history education in our schools “a form of child abuse.” Teaching critical thinking and the real history of America would be shut down in Trump’s “Patriotic Education.” The popular 1619 Project and Zinn’s Education Project which dare to teach uncomfortable truths would not be allowed. Instead “patriotism education” would be restricted top just the mythic and celebratory aspects. Our guest professor Ben Railton, whose upcoming book is called Of Thee I Sing, the Contested History of American Patriotism, explains that the choice is not blind allegiance or treason, but that to effectively understand and deal with where we are right now kids need to be able to think critically.Trump’s version requires passivity. That is not patriotism but blind nationalism. Railton is optimistic that this threat contains real opportunities.
comments powered by Disqus
News
- Josh Hawley Earns F in Early American History
- Does Germany's Holocaust Education Give Cover to Nativism?
- "Car Brain" Has Long Normalized Carnage on the Roads
- Hawley's Use of Fake Patrick Henry Quote a Revealing Error
- Health Researchers Show Segregation 100 Years Ago Harmed Black Health, and Effects Continue Today
- Nelson Lichtenstein on a Half Century of Labor History
- Can America Handle a 250th Anniversary?
- New Research Shows British Industrialization Drew Ironworking Methods from Colonized and Enslaved Jamaicans
- The American Revolution Remains a Hotly Contested Symbolic Field
- Untangling Fact and Fiction in the Story of a Nazi-Era Brothel