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From: "Sherry Migdail" <shermigd@erols.com>
To: <nifl-esl@nifl.gov>
References: <00b601c2dce8$b43523a0$95255544@ewndsr01.nj.comcast.net>
Subject: [NIFL-ESL:8618] Re: Re: War as a cross-cultural issue
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2003 09:44:27 -0500
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What seemed to have happened is that somewhere in the late 40's and 50's
there was a trend to "social studies" which turned out to be a smattering of
information (I would not use knowledge - that connotes a bit more
scholarship) on a number of what were considered "great and sweeping"
issues - the effects of climate, of world areas, social history etc... and
much of it watered down to trickles of information for upper elementary and
middle school kids. These generalizations were then in some way advanced and
adapted to the higher high school levels. There was no focus for grammar
soon after my own years in "junior high" and good grammatical structures do
not exist to any great extent - there are countless errors in excellent
newspapers - not to mention non-print newscasts. And what is sad, again in
my view, is that no one seems to care enough to create change!
My own children were brought up in Mexico where world geography is (was)
taught as world geography. They knew, perhaps not too needlessly, the world
capitals etc.. and where places were geographically - yes, France was in
Europe and Guiana was not in Asia!! They did "monografias" of countries;
they drew maps to scale etc...but again they did not have any social history
except for a somewhat biased view of the in which they were living.
If one could give kids a foundation in both types of learning and
understanding about the world in which they live - we'd have a far better
educated individual.
I am not defending or decrying either educational methodology per se - it
is not my intention to bash; we've got lots of good teaching going on in
this country for kids; but that they miss what comes with some necessary
rote learning . There is something great about remembering the lines to
poetry once read; to getting proper noun-verb agreement; to knowing where
Haiti is.
By the same token in other countries in which I have lived and taught
the need for greater student participation in the classroom is sadly
lacking - get the two together and you have a good basis for knowledge. Add
to it a multicultural and, from my point of view, multilingual teaching and
the world could be a better place with persons better prepared for changing
demographics.
Sherry Migdail
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ujwala Samant" <usamant@comcast.net>
To: "Multiple recipients of list" <nifl-esl@literacy.nifl.gov>
Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2003 8:20 AM
Subject: [NIFL-ESL:8612] Re: War as a cross-cultural issue
> I think there is a spectrum of knowledge of politics, history and
geography
> amongst students in America. While most know a little bit (or a lot) about
> where their ancestors came from, international geography and history are
not
> things they know very much about. An example, using the first Persian Gulf
> war. Students in a (primarily upper classmen and graduate students) class
on
> cross-cultural psychology at Syracuse University wanted to know "What a
> Kuwait was?" when war was declared. They were even more shocked to know
that
> their country was not helping create or defend a democracy, rather handing
a
> kingdom back to one of the most spoiled and detested Emirs of the Arab
> world, all to keep their petrol prices down. Having lived here (America)
for
> long periods of time since 1984, I have observed that the one thing that
> each conflict that America has been involved in has done for this country
as
> a whole is, improved a knowledge of world geography.
>
> As far as God Bless America for being the country where a government
> sponsored listserv serves as a forum for discussion, please be aware that
> this also happens in most of Europe, in Asian countries such as India,
etc.
> Perhaps we need to brush our own knowledge of the world? Regularly?
>
> regards
> Ujwala Samant
>
>
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