By all means, history should be and needs to be taught. The good, the bad and the ugly. Real history … the actual facts … not revisionist history, not misinformation, not cherry picking or changing the facts to advance one’s narrative.
Every citizen should know U.S. history from the beginning. There is certainly much to celebrate since our Founding Fathers created this nation, as well as many painful times in our country’s history. Study the lives of the men and women who helped build our nation.
Students and adults should have exposure to world history …. again the good, the bad and the ugly, to include such atrocities as the Holocaust (approximately six million Jews killed and about five million others), Lenin killing an estimated three million of his people, Stalin was responsible for the deaths of between 6 - 9 million people, Mao Zedong was responsible for between 15 - 55 million deaths.
History speaks for itself. We don’t need vulgar, vile, profane language to teach history. Nor does teaching need to be sexualized to communicate a point. I was always taught that the use of profanity and vile language was an indication of a poor vocabulary. Reasonable people understand that how an adult receives and processes information is different from a child. Our educators surely should know this.
Tom Francescon
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Yes, it does. And it needs to be presented in a form the kids will read. The comic book format will reach many who will not read the works cited above.
The holocaust was vulgar and obscene. A sanitized version is hardly adequate. I do not use such language, except on special occasions, and when I do, I explain my reason for my departure from my normal speech pattern.
Too much of our history has been sanitized to make us feel more comfortable. I was taught Philippine history in the Philippines, and again in the U.S. What I was taught in the U.S. was a totally sanitized version of events. In the Philippines, the account was more graphic. When I went to the National Archives and read the primary documents, I found that they were often vulgar and obscene.
John L. Odom