When I was a child, I had the history of thanksgiving and George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and the flag.
Those were tied to holidays in 1st,2nd,3rd, and 4th grade--every single year. We made a turkey and colored it, cut out pilgrams, talked about the first thanksgiving and how the pilgrams came for religious freedom. We cut out hearts and glued the faces of Washington and Lincoln in them, talked about how brave they were. Talked about Washington's false teeth and cutting down a cherry tree and never telling a lie and Lincoln being born in a log cabin--which is why our Lincoln Logs are called Lincoln Logs. Talked about Betsy Ross and the flag and the stars are for the current states and the stripes are for the original 13 colonies.
Four years of that, no further details. Each event pretty isolated and unattached to everything else.
In fifth grade, (And 6th, 7th, 8th, 10th, 11th) we had history ( in 9th grade we had a semester of Oklahoma history, starting with the dinosaurs and ending with statehood, and Civics, "how a bill becomes a law" but before the songwriter made it a catchy tune): U.S. history, starting with the European explorers discovering America while seeking a faster route to India and China so they could NOT go over the mountains that separated Europe from Asia, and so they could NOT go all the way down and around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa.
Someone decided that the Earth was a sphere, and we could go straight west to reach the Far East. This, according to our history books was Columbus, although the theory was accepted in Ancient Greece by the 6th century BC.
Sometimes, the Church is not the best thing for the progression of basic science and math.
We learned about all the explorers reaping the Gold of the Aztecs and Incas and Mayans. (And what savages they were, how backward, easier to take from bad people) We learned that Columbus called the people "Indians" because he thought he had reached India. We eventually learned that Ponce de Leon went through the swamps that would become Florida in search of the "Fountain of youth" and conquistadors went through Oklahoma in search of Cibola--the 7 cities of gold. We learned that fur traders went across the top of North America and that explorers sought a "northwest passage" so the fur traders could get the furs out faster. We learned about Pocahontas, though the story was not so embellished as Disney's, it was also not very clear about why this young woman married some man she barely knew.
Then we had the revolution and the War of 1812 and the civil war, then the school year ended.
Every year, we finished just at the end of the Civil war.
We memorized names and dates and places.
The only thing we learned with great assurance was that the United States was the greatest Nation that had ever existed.
Everyone hated history.
Except for the art and construction paper.
I had to take a US history class in college, so I took post-civil war, since I had never gone that far before. It was a bit meatier, but still heavy on the names and dates and places. It was all about wars and politics and economics and not at all about the people that actually lived or died in those wars or politics or economics.
While this class did discuss some corruption, it was not focused on except as aberrations but rather on specific "bosses" that sounded like crime syndicates had gotten themselves elected to positions of power.
Then, I took a few electives in history. Wonderful stuff. Where every single individual that lived in a period is part of that history. History is alive, its our story, our ancestor's stories and is happening as I type.
I read some books, and discovered that history is all about perspective. I talked to some people that lived through some well known events, the co-worker that was hiding behind a large rock with bullets and bottles flying while attending Kent State. She was not protesting. She was going to a class. The co-worker that drove to Wounded Knee to deliver a collection of weapons and food stuffs, my father, who was in WWII, and saw no battle, only German and Italian prisoners-of-war in a camp in Louisiana. (what? we didn't have prisoners-of war, I never heard a word about that!)
I was on a roll.
Talk to people, talk to grandma about the depression. Talk to Daddy about the KKK. Talk to mom about being a war bride, the PSO's, the hose and leg shaving and tanning.
Talk to strangers. Talk to strangers about whatever. Listen.
And start to hear what the history books didn't include.
Stories about the Indian Schools, the blankets we gave away--infected with smallpox--on purpose or by accident, the stories about land-grabs when oil became a valuable commodity. Homesteaders with little, losing everything to rich ranchers that paid the sheriff to move them on.
The twists of history brought on by women, long relegated to powerlessness, so long that all they could focus on was getting the vote and making their man quit drinking. Such low goals set. The second backfired so badly.
Prohibition, which just created a new opening for a giant criminal enterprise. Yet, slow as we are, we repeat ourselves with criminalized drugs that are highly sought either for their effect or for their addictiveness. ( a great little pharmacy museum in New Orleans went over so much info about drug usage before government regulation--drug addicts are nothing new) If they try it with tobacco, the country will burn unless we learn to cure the addiction before making it illegal.
So, do you remember the moment that you started questioning whether this was really the greatest country that has ever existed. Or perhaps the America we were all taught NEVER existed: only as An Ideal, A Myth.
It's a patriotic stance.
It's a loyal position.
But is it about reality?
Does it have anything to do with anything any of us have actually seen?
"History is written by victors" doesn't have to be true. When it was oral history, only those that survived could tell the tale. Today, we have not just books but also audio tapes and video tapes and film and pictures.
We can see all the sides, from all the sides.
Instead of patriotic loyalty that does nothing but teach us lies, we can learn from our mistakes and become a better nation.
There is no single best country. Every country that has a single person experience something horrifying could be improved. Every horrible country that exists has nurtured someone that was needed in the future.
Instead of always comparing our country to other countries, using less then honest parameters to make ourselves look better, how about we only compare ourselves to ourselves--are we getting better for everyone, or are we losing ground.
We could always be our own best country. Neither patriotism or loyalty will improve us. We need great compassion and high goals for every single person.
We are all a part of history and every time we let a child fall through the cracks educationally, every time we convict an innocent person, every time a poor person dies of a easily treatable disease, we are creating a history that some future historian will judge us all for.
Remember that.
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