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Likely both.Here are a couple of links I found that may shed some light....http://www.forrestsescort.org/blacks.htmhttp://www.37thtexas.org/html/BlkHist.html
“In the spring of 1865, the Confederate Congress, influenced by the public support by General Lee, approved the recruitment of black infantry units. Contrary to Lee?s and Davis?s recommendations, the Congress refused ?to guarantee the freedom of black volunteers.? No more than two hundred black troops were ever raised.”from wikipedial; attributed to: Levine, Bruce Half Slave and Half Free: The Roots of Civil War (1992) ISBN 0809053527 or Confederate Emancipation. (2006)
Looking at most of the watershed events in history it appears to me that the great men are more correctly good men that step up when called upon; less that they shape the event… more that they do what they deem best in the situation. In light of the ill-fame of some big names in history, remember, they did what they thought best, from their POV.
There is a new study out--unhappily I caught it quickly and cannot cite the source--which concludedthat the key ingredient in the making of good "teachers" was akin to voodoo! .... If you run across the articleplease let me know as I have mentally scourged myself for not tarrying to make a note. ....
[url url=http://]http://www.annarbor.com/news/education/what-exactly-is-a-good-teacher/[/url] and[url url=http://]http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Teachers-t.html[/url]Looked at both and as a former teacher my take is this: teachers cannot be expected to magically make poor students proficient. A high school student that can't read isn't illiterate because of his / her HS teachers. All the folks that say educationis like sports... if the team doesn't perform fire the coaches are looney. A professional sports team is not made up of who-so-ever walks in the door or lives in the neighborhood; they are cherry-picked from a pool of the most accomplished athletes are the previous level based on their previous perrformance. If the players fail at one level they do not make it to the next, not so with education... they are promoted and the teacher at the next level is expected to teach harder (smarter, better, with more voodoo, or whatever the current buzz word is) to both remediate and teach the new material. Coaches are fired if they don't win because not winning doesn't put fans in the seats and it is easier to fire a $250,000 coach than a 25 million dollar RB.Some teachers have the gift to get along with kids... they are not always the most successful teachers at puffing up test scores but they are the ones that instill a love of learning in the kids. Or, failing that get them through the year without totally turning the kids off to the subject and learning generally. Wish I could sound more upbeat but that's how I see it.Might should split this part off into another threat. As far as professional historians go... if your main job is history; reading, writing, teaching, research, what-have-you... you are one. Even if only a legend in their own mind.
Mark me down in agreement; while we don't always agree we are generally a very cooperative and friendly crew.
As I told my classes; “When Chamberlin indicated that he thought the Munich accord had secured 'peace in our time' he had Hitler's concept of peace wrong… Hitler meant piece not peace… 'a piece of that country, a piece of this country, and all of this one'.”
willy,I'm surprised that the material in the article surprises you. History books reflect history, as beheld by those commissioning and / or writing the book in question; we must understand that a person writing the book will place emphasis where they choose. Then up to the market to accept or reject their product. In the case of textbooks the publishers will, perhaps, have two works... one to appealto Zinn's audience and one for Beck's followers. Both books will tell the story from a POV and likely sell to folks that already have that mind set. Both books will tell the same basic story but with differing details that are deemed critical to telling that story. The publishers' realization is that not all people have the same POV and to sell the most books they will pander to the market. In the larger picture the solution is if you don't like the book don't buy it... this doesn't fix the public school situation though.State school boards political appointees and as such will reflect the light of the person that appoints them... 'nuff said on that. Any state that is going to buy a boat load of books will get the attention of the publisher and publishers will roll out new books whenever they think the states are likely to adopt something (often after a change in administration at the state or national level since education is such a hot button issue.The President, with his Race ( ???) To the Top program, coupled with the reauthorization of NCLB (ESEA) has such a storm brewing... the publishers are all running around trying to figure out which direction to go. Knee jerk reactions have always seemed to be the norm where I taught.I looked at the article and found nothing unusual... not much surprises me about education and textbook adoption anymore. [Jaded ol' fart alert!] I will illustrate:Several years ago the middle school adopted new Social Studies texts... I was used to everyone basically getting to choose the book they deemed best from the approved list (ala HS) but... direction from the district was to coordinate with the elementary school and as closely as possible get all grade levels from the same publisher. It was further deemed better if we bought from the company that already supplied the English books. (See a pattern here? Follow the money....)Long story short, rather than fighting, I went with the flow for a couple of reasons, I only had a few years to retirement, the 8th grade book was pretty comparable to the book I liked so not a deal breaker, and as a member of the union bargaining team this gave me a chance to appear collegial to the higher ups (rather than the union bastard). But wait there's more that payoff...The sixth grade teachers like a particular book (fine by me) but since I only taught one section of 6th graders... whatever. BTW it's not a bad book but we had to wait almost a quarter of the school year to get it because of a lawsuit by a Hindu splinter group in Florida over saying the ancient Indians thought the castes system was a good way to order society and they didn't give women much respect or freedom. (all true btw). The books weren't printed until after the suit settled.To avoid a rant that I feel coming on I'll stop at this point. "He who pays the piper calls the tune" is the thing to remember. Teachers (try to) teach; educators (seem to) put obstacles in the way of that.
Texas and California are the two biggest markets for textbook publishers… Texas because they order one edition from on publisher for the all the schools in the state and Caifornia because school districts can select from any of a state approved list approved list… elementary and middle schools have a rather tighter list and most districts adopt district wide while secondary often is allowed more latitude in that individual teachers can lobby for and often get a certain text adopted, but again from the approved list.Publishers often have modified editions to sell in these states that are more complaint with the standards or curriculum framework of the given state. Case in point: kids often asked me why our textbook started on page 298. The text was originally a year-long course in world history (in the other 49 states)... ancient world to present, but in CA the kids study Ancient Civ in grade 6, Middle Ages in grade 7, and pick up world history again in grade 9 or 10 (depending on the district) with the Modern Era. Our text started with a brief review and went from there... added at the end were several chapters that fleshed out some of the benchmarked standards for that particular course of study.
100% of the retired history teachers that live at my house agree that the books are more interested in political correctness than accuracy but often have no choice than publish what is more-or-less accurate. ;D
Certainly not my intent; just supplying an alternative to Zinn's POV.Beck like everyone else, is only wrong all the time if one doesn't listen to what he has to say carefully. I agree he can be daunting to listen to but no one is always wrong... even if we don't agree it may be possible that we are wrong. Vex mod off.
On the other hand… so good that I bought it twice; ol'timers kicking in I guess but worth it (from what I remember having read it once already, I think)! A Patriot's History of America
I'm with ski on this… Otto was more interested in loyal Germans than religion or ethnicity… witness the whole Franco-Prussian War.
