history; how can it be taught objectively? it seems that the actions of a historical figure or an event that has taken place can always be seen in different ways. how this information is taught can greatly influence the scholars opinion or interpretation of what happened. for example, any war in history could be seen to have a right side or a wrong side. take the U.S. Civil War for example, both the South and the North had ideals they fought for which they each believed to be "right."
so with the ability to portray the same events as heroic or malicious, who can say which the events really were? well the only logical answer is to provide the facts as objectively and unbiased as possible. but to do this takes extremely tactful word choice and, of course, the inclusion of all peoples involved. the concept of manipulating history's connotation must be acknowledged and furthermore used to caution those reading the textbook.
thus the simple breakdown for an objective display of history has a recipe. for the events which transpired everyone who was effected must be noted. and instead of saying how these events or actions were right or wrong, the feelings of those effected must be shown. objective history lies not with describing the ethics of an event, but instead describing how those who experienced the event reacted to and felt about it.
Derekk! So your insight was defiantly interesting during the Socratic circle. I agreed with almost everything you said. Everything in history has to be biased. It is impossible for humans to not feel anything, and this comes out when they record history. Like you said, people are always on one side or the other. The only thing I disagree with is that I do not think it would really be possible to create a non biased text book. I think all opinions and sides could be included, but there is always going to be a group of people, and idea, or a name left out. Just a thought :)
ReplyDelete