Directions:
In a comment, respond to the prompt below in 300+ typed words. Also be
sure to respond to a classmate's comment so that we can keep our
classroom conversation going.
This week, we analyzed three poems related to our current unit of study. One of the poems we read and discussed was "The History Teacher" by Billy Collins. In this poem, Collins suggests that by not teaching children the tough truths of our past, we risk cultivating a generation of people who will not be aware enough to lead us into the future. It has been suggested by some cynics that ours is a "historically ignorant" generation, meaning that we are unaware of our history and our culture. Do you agree or disagree with this sentiment? Why or why not? As an individual, what steps do you take to familiarize yourself with the circumstances of the world around you? Finally, what issues or ideas do you believe all students should be aware of and knowledgeable about? Use the RACE model to respond, and feel free to expand upon ideas we discussed in class while analyzing these poems.
Be
sure to answer all parts of the question fully. Your comment/response
to my prompt should be 300+ words. Your comment/response to a friend
should be 50+ words. Your blog entries must be completed by 11:59 pm on January 13, 2013.
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ReplyDeleteIn class this week we discussed “The History Teacher” by Billy Collins. In this poem Billy thinks that its meant for teachers to teach kids the opposite of what really happens. I don’t think this is a good idea mostly because I think it’s a good idea to teach kids the truth early in life so they don’t have to learn the truth later in life and question why they didn’t learn it earlier in life. In life I am always thinking about how my life is so much more different than my parents when they were growing up. Also how much different it was in the early 1900’s an even before that time. If I didn’t learn about all the wars like WW1 and WW2 and the Cold War and the Holocaust I would be such a different person. I wouldn’t think that anything bad could happen in life and my life would go on all dandy as it did before. I wouldn’t think that there was any conflict in this world and that there are all good people in this world. But the thing is that there are bad people in this world and countries fight over major things and we fight and we kill for our people. Not teaching young kids that would be like not telling someone that a parking spot at the very front of The Mall and that there’s only one. Then you get there and it’s been taking someone just decided to tell you now at this point. In my opinion that’s like telling a kid that the world has been fine and world peace is everywhere and as soon as they get to a certain age you tell them bout all these wars and killing and riots. It’s not right and everyone has a right to know.
ReplyDeleteI agree with savannah totally. I think she explained and gave her thoughts on the subject very clearly, and I agree with her. I believe how she brought up the world war 1 and world war 2 and the cold war was a great example of how the experiences of other people and can have an affect on your life.
DeleteI agree with you savannah. you were very clear when you explaining. and I really liked how you wrote and explained everything good job.
Deletein ms orlowskys class(; we read a poem called the history teacher by billy collins. billy collins belives that he should tell kids fake stuff about what happenes. I personaly belive that it is wrong to do that. i would tell them the truth so later in life they dont have to find out the hard way. Also it will teach the kids right and wrong. I would not like it if a teacher lied to me about something then in a couple years find out they were lying. But i know ms. orlowsky would never lie. if my teachers diddent teach me the right things do do like recyle and be respectfull to the earth i would most likley be a bad person. i think all students should know the truth about what is happing in the world today. even if it is very harsh we should know. i also think that if everybody did good things for the world we wouldent be where we are now. i also would feel bad for a student to get lied to by a teacher because the students look up to a teacher and expect them to be fully honest to them. So my like i said befor i think it is tottaly wrong to lie to there students because a teacher means a lot to a student they trust them a lot. i hope none of my teachers lied to me because i would really be upset if they did because i trust them and i just belive that its wrong to do that.
ReplyDeleteyou had a ;) face. I liked how blunt you were with this part
Delete"Billy Collins believes that he should tell kids fake stuff about what happens. I personally believe that it is wrong to do that."
Lol. its funny because it's true.
This week in our class, we read 3 poems related to our study. One of the poems we read and discussed was "The History Teacher" by Billy Collins. In this poem, Collins suggests that by not teaching children the tough truths of our past, we risk cultivating a generation of people who will not be aware enough to lead us into the future. It has been suggested by some cynics that ours is a "historically ignorant" generation, meaning that we are unaware of our history and our culture. I agree. I agree because if we had not known what the past was like we wouldn’t know right from wrong. The holocaust seemed to be so right for the insane people back then, but now that our generation knows how horrible and disgusting it is, I cant even fathom a sane person to try and start that in this generation. Although our generation is still sick, and twisted, I don’t think anything can compare to how horrible the Holocaust. Also, rights for a different race still seems to confuse me. Just because someone is a different color shouldn’t mean that they she be treated any differently. I’m so glad that Martin Luther King Jr. actually stuck up for what he believed in. Some people may even look at him as a hero, and he deserves that title. Just think, what if none of that changed? What if we had to look at Jews or blacks as disgusting animals? If you look back at it not many people had a choice. If was as if they were being brain washed into some sort of crazy cycle. If we didn’t know any of that, I honestly can’t even imagine what this world would be like, and I don’t want to. I’m not saying that we live a perfect world as it is now, because we certainly don’t. I’m just happy that its not as insane as it used to be, I do wish it was better though.
ReplyDeleteSo I like this subject. Because it’s a great educational way to prepare kids for the future. I think its good and bad in both aspects. Good because I think people should learn it on there own and experience it first handedly on there. But also I think people should pass down generation some other things for people to remember the dangers life could and can have. In this situation lets talk about guns. Offcourse in your life your going to shoot or hold a gun in your life atleast once. Gun safety is a big thing, you cant play around with guns. Guns are dangerous, and safety needs to be put in hands . so in this situation people need to be told the right things. In a gun related situation if you screw up then it could be a life taking consequence. In another aspect I think people should learn on there own is maybe fighting your own battles. If you ‘’mess with the bull, your going to get the horns’’ that means is if you can have the honor to start a fight then you can have the honor to get beat up. What I mean by that is first off you should never start a fight because that’s just wrong, and second is if you can start a fight then you can lose a fight in other words everybody who starts a fight is just wrong. Coming from that is everybody needs to learn that people are going to be rude and you have to learn throught life that that’s going to happen. People will learn one way or another that the world isn’t always good so they are going to understand and experience the bad for themselves. Yes you could tell someone that the world is beautiful but once something goes wrong they will experience and take it for granted
ReplyDeleteSo in ms.orlowsky class we are reading poems. In one of the poems we are reading a poem called ‘’the history teacher. It’s about this guy who explains to the students about how they feel about being told if they should be told whats in front of there lifes or If they should experience it on there owm. So I like this subject. Because it’s a great educational way to prepare kids for the future. I think its good and bad in both aspects. Good because I think people should learn it on there own and experience it first handedly on there. But also I think people should pass down generation some other things for people to remember the dangers life could and can have. In this situation lets talk about guns. Offcourse in your life your going to shoot or hold a gun in your life atleast once. Gun safety is a big thing, you cant play around with guns. Guns are dangerous, and safety needs to be put in hands . so in this situation people need to be told the right things. In a gun related situation if you screw up then it could be a life taking consequence. In another aspect I think people should learn on there own is maybe fighting your own battles. If you ‘’mess with the bull, your going to get the horns’’ that means is if you can have the honor to start a fight then you can have the honor to get beat up. What I mean by that is first off you should never start a fight because that’s just wrong, and second is if you can start a fight then you can lose a fight in other words everybody who starts a fight is just wrong. Coming from that is everybody needs to learn that people are going to be rude and you have to learn throught life that that’s going to happen. People will learn one way or another that the world isn’t always good so they are going to understand and experience the bad for themselves. Yes you could tell someone that the world is beautiful but once something goes wrong they will experience and take it for granted
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you and I like this blog and how you wrote it. I do agree with kids should start learning things first handedly instead of waiting a couple years and then being told the truth. I also liked how you started talking about the whole guns thing to. All in all very good.
Deletein class we read 3 poems. And of the three poems there was one poem called "The history Teacher" by: Billy Collins and the poem talked about how as a history teacher had to basically make the decision between, telling children the cold truth about maybe some terrible things or, sugar coating it and making it easy for the kids and not telling them the truth. This really pokes a huge hole in the "honesty is the best policy" thing, because how can you just tell somebody all the terrible things that happened in say the Holocaust. Witch brings me to the question regarding my opinion on the matter of whether or not this generation is historically ignorant or not. To be honest i'm not sure. I know i probably am but i don't know about every body else, because you might see some pretty ridiculous stuff on Facebook, but then you might look in the comments of these posts and you see some pretty deep things that other people added. Like people clearly went out of their way to educate themselves about this. And it makes you feel ignorant sometimes because you don't know what this person knows. Its one thing to be uneducated (ignorant) but historically ignorant is just kinda different. When i hear historically ignorant i just see a kid all swagged out, siting on a laptop posting memes that joke about what is and isn't politically correct, and that question every little thing that society has to offer because they're to swag for it, and none of these kids ever have a clue about what's going on around them or there nations history. But there weak argument to that is always the same, "yo bro srsly when am i gunna ue dat in life bro". Same goes for any math problem with a variable... You know how calling a Jew a Jew sounds kinda wrong yet it's not because that's what they call each other, well is it the same with calling this generation historically ignorant? Even though they may seem to be true sometimes, it has a bad ring to it and nobody would ever really say it, so i'm not going to profile my peers and call them historically stupid or smart. Instead i'm going to give them a fighting chance to make history.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with you. The truth is the truth, bad ring to it or not. I like your comment about giving our generation a chance to make history!
DeleteI personally don't think teachers should lie to kids no matter what the circumstance. It is a teachers job to educate students on facts of things that have happened the actual way that they did. It would not make any sense to go to school to "learn" if we weren't learning about the truth. To be able to really learn the true way, how, or why something happened, one needs truths to comprehend it fully. For example, if my history teacher was doing a lesson on the twin tower bombings, and told me that both planes crashed into the buildings on accident, that it was all just a mistake by the pilots, it wouldn't make any sense to me. To try and make something seem easier to take in then it actually was, makes no sense what so ever. If I'm going to have to learn, I want it to be the right way...the truth. I think my generation is a little bit ignorant about history. I always hear older adults say that we are the "me generation"', and I have to agree. I kind of feel kids around my age have lost interest in what has happened so long ago, as it really doesn't effect our everyday life. There are some things that are really interesting, but for the most part, history is pretty boring! Not to get too far off topic, but I think teachers need to find cooler ways to teach us about our past. If they could find a better way to get our past history across to us, we might actually take the time to want to learn about what happened so long ago. When I grow up and apply for a job, I don't think I will be tested on the history of WWII, And what effect it had on our society. My generation lives in the here and now, I feel. What interests us, we want to learn about, and what doesn't....well, we really don't think matters all that much. I know that is probably the wrong attitude to have, but it is what I feel about a lot of the things we learn in school.
ReplyDeleteOur generation is terrible. A lot of our people(kids) are making it hard to live life. In another way there making it easy. With all this new technology we have our lives will be much easier. In this case i am disagreeing of what he is saying. He is saying our lives are going to be ruined because of us? This is a very false statement... With the things we have and the things we will have to come to us... It is going to put us into a world of new life some may say. We already come out with the amazing iphone every year. Every year the iphone has something new too it. Imagine what we will have every different year in 10 years! This generation is going to create the all time invention. We will come out with the latest car the latest phone the latest currency system... Our generation is smarter then any other generation in the tv industry. We run this generation personally. No one can say different If they do they should take a minute to see and look around. Sometimes i must take a minute to see what it took to come this far in history. I have tv production as a class and ive learned things about our techonolgy history its amazing. Did you know one man made the motion pictures... and that was by accident. This man took a group of photos and then put them on a spinning tray. As he watched the picture of the horse he saw the horse move in a running motion. This is becuase there is 30 frames per second. thats how fast it is. For every second, one picture is almost sliced in little parts. thats why is looks like its moving. Back then they had to put pictures together to be able to make a movie. They didnt have audio back then either. Now we do everything by a 1080p HD video camera. It records audio and motion its amazing. Surprisingly, this only came out in the 1990's. Imagine the things that are to come...
ReplyDeleteIn Ms. Orlowskys class we read three pomes. I do agree with the statement that by not teaching children the tough truths of our past, we risk cultivating a generation of people who will not be aware enough to lead us into the future. I agree because children need to know what happened in the past so that it does not happen again. Also those children should not be hidden from the effects and of what happened in the past because the past is the past for a reason. And what happened then happened for a reason and had changed or made laws or rules for a reason. All students should be worried or aware about many different things. One is bulling, not to make fun of someone for how they look or how they talk or dress. Also to not making fun of someone by the color of their skin, because you don’t know what kind of person they are just by how they look. But by how they treat people and how hard they work. All people are different and no one really knows who you are until they take the time to get to know someone. So all in all bulling is a big issue that students should be worried or aware about.
ReplyDeleteI read "after ashwuasasdhbslusas". It was touching, how the author related lives of many to death. Maybe I didn't get the message of the poem but i found it very disrespectful. Making it seem like the Jews that took part in the holocaust were useless... Even though when we were originally evolved to the way we are today we had no purpose. The only reason we have a "purpose" now is because we created our own problems and now we have to fix them. I don't understand why humans are put into different classes. We are all the same breed. So basically we are having a HUGE civil war. No one is higher than anyone else. It's seems that to have glory in our world you just have to be the first one to create nonsense. Like the people who created religion, all religions were created at different times because someone wanted glory. People's diabolical creations to find glory. As long as someone has a story, and some is there to listen you can always make a scene.
ReplyDeleteIn class we read a peom called "the history teacher" By Billy Collins. In this poem the teachers sweetin up the bennifit of the doubt to there students. There for the children of our generation grow up not knowing the truth about the world around us. i personally dont agree with them doing so because i myself would want to know about everything happening on our planet earth. AS an individual i take many steps to try and connect with the news,magazines,and internet. Everyday i learn somthing new weather its somthing from school or the morning new i attemp with all my might to watch atleast a few minutes everyday. AS for learning in school i second think what i hear and question alot of things because i always have a different opinion or outlook on what the teachers and piers think in my school. To sum up i believe that every pier of mine should be aware of political issues,news,and weather. They should be aware because if they arent they will be blinded and suguar coated with false information.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that we are a society that is so exaggerated with the truth of history that it might as well not be taught at al. However, I believe that we are far from the ignorance that Billy Collins has made us out to have. We are a smart people, and to say otherwise is wrong. We, especially now, have so much history going on now, that it's almost impossible to deny our past. As of right now, if you look on the news, there is so much on an economy crisis, political drama, and physical war violence. It seems imperative that we don't butcher our history, so our generation and the ones further on doesn't make the same mistakes that our generation and the ones before us has run into before. And you definitely don't have to look far to notice whats going on in the world. As I said, you can just turn on the news, go open up your computer, or read a newspaper or magazine to see how much insanity is currently going on. I also feel that as young adults and as we are the next in line to lead the country, we deserve to know what is really going on. After all, the future is really up to us, and we may be the ones to find a way to fix this mess.
ReplyDeleteNicholas Chase
ReplyDeleteIn class we read the poem “The History Teacher” by Billy Collins. In this poem the teacher taught the little kids a nice way of bad history. For example he told the kids that in World War 2 when we dropped a nuke on japan like it was not a bad thing and it was a nice thing like it was a gift or something. I do not think we should keep history away from little kids and tell them the truth right away because it’s better to throw them into reality and not tell them later in life. I do think that we are historically ignorant because we just want to know the good things about us and not the bad or the bad that we have done to other people for example in japan with the nuke. Also in the war of the roses between Lancaster and York going at it or fighting at it. He explained it as two sides arguing over of flower garden of roses and a huge debate and how nothing has happened. Realistically it was a terrible war and ended with Lancaster’s king head ended up on the streets. It was very bad and was very bloody and gore. So I think that we should tell kids about history as it happened exactly but not something to gruesome like a big war and not explain everything bad about it and not put pictures in kids heads. Like for example the holocaust its not a very good showing kids pictures about the gas chambers and people starving it could scare the kids for life and maybe get them crazy. This is what I think on this subject and why I think we should get more into our history with kids.