The Buckets by Greg Cravens for September 02, 2022

I loved history classes. Made it my college minor.

They’re gonna make him repeat it.

I had a great history teacher in junior high school and another one in college, learned a lot from both

It wasn’t until I took up serious reading as an adult that I truly appreciated all of my education and wished I had learned even more in school

That’s why they have to repeat themselves.

That is no longer true! Legislators are trying to outlaw teaching of events that they don’t like.

History is, in fact, an ever-changing discipline. The facts don’t change, but new ones are found, and interpretations change (e.g., until the 1930’s, Reconstruction was a good thing; then, due to a rise in open racism [sound familiar?] and the popularity of the vile Gone With The Wind, Reconstruction became a bad thing. Now we have almost succeeded in excising that blot on the historiography & it is once again being seen as the positive that it was).

Also, facts are pushed to the forefront and, hopefully, overcome lies that were put forward as “history” previously; e.g. Columbus being a brave, forward-thinking hero who proved the Earth wasn’t flat, when in fact everybody already knew the Earth wasn’t flat – had for centuries – and he was one of the nastiest, most evil scumbags to ever draw breath.

Those who don’t know history are condemned to repeat it. Unless you’re a history teacher,

History is written by the victors. Below from the musical “Wicked”

The Wizard: [Spoken]Elphaba, where I’m from, we believe all sorts of thingsthat aren’t true. We call it history.

[Sung]A man’s called a traitor, or liberator.A rich man’s a thief, or philanthropist.Is one a crusader, or ruthless invader?It’s all in which labelIs able to persist.There are precious few at easeWith moral ambiguities,So we act as though they don’t exist.

Toby is right. You can’t guess what the history teacher is going to say. You can know in advance, but guessing isn’t going to cut it.