| he only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see | | | | completely negating that Columbus "discovered" |
| every problem as a nail." --Abraham H. Maslow | | | | America, but it's saying, well, there were people here |
| Have you ever stopped to think about your high | | | | first and technically, Columbus wasn't a hero because |
| school history books and whose perspective the | | | | he was responsible for bring disease to and |
| history was presented? There is no omnipotent, | | | | slaughtering the native population. And even if you |
| impartial scribe to record every thing that ever | | | | don't share this perspective, it's a whole new take on |
| happened from every perspective, obviously, but the | | | | the country through the eyes of the disenfranchised. |
| only view of history schools seem to teach is the | | | | So Columbus' discovery, through the eyes of the |
| world from the perspective of the powerful elite. We | | | | natives was: genocide and blankets with small pox. |
| learned Columbus 'discovered' the new world. We | | | | Or how about the pilgrims in their cute hats? They |
| learned Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. | | | | were supposed to be fleeing religious persecution as |
| It's also an over simplified description of a very | | | | they explored the New World, but maybe the |
| narrow slice of a huge country's entire history. My | | | | natives didn't see it this way.. .more of a violent |
| examples are just to make a point. Viewing history | | | | colonization. |
| from this perspective, is not really knowing history. | | | | At the end of the most recent edition of "The |
| Educational institutions use frames whether they | | | | People's History" is an amazing reframe of the "war |
| describe them as such or not. The frame public | | | | on terror". For the most part, people have accepted |
| schools work within has mostly to do with what the | | | | what the media and powers that be have handed |
| powers that be will allow as history. Text books are | | | | out as the reason Arab terrorists attacked us on 9 |
| consistently banned for information that may seem | | | | 11--they hate our freedom. Hmmm.. . But maybe they |
| to 'radical' which, in essence, is what all of history is. | | | | hate our foreign policy and would leave us alone if |
| Helen Keller, for example, wasn't just a deaf/blind | | | | we left them alone. Maybe they're simply fed up |
| mute woman, but a great humanitarian who spoke | | | | because we have stationed "U.S. troops in Saudi |
| on behalf of change in a period of nationalism and | | | | Arabia... sanctions against Iraq which... had resulted in |
| capitalist control. The fact that many of the early | | | | the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children; |
| presidents were slave owners is consistently glossed | | | | [and] the continued U.S. support of Israel's occupation |
| over because 'that's how it was at the time'. History | | | | of Palestinian land." |
| is revised in a very Orwellian way when school | | | | But wait.. .That's not what the TV or newspapers tell |
| boards choose what to present and what not to. | | | | us. Why? Because it doesn't fit with what they want |
| Recently I cam across a book called "The People's | | | | to do or how they want us to be passive in their |
| History of The United States". This book has been | | | | doing it. |
| around for more than thirty years and is updated as | | | | Frames are complicated, just as reality is complicated, |
| history continues to unfold. | | | | just as life is complicated, but if we can see the |
| The way this book reframes history is an excellent | | | | frames for what they are, then we can control them. |
| example of how the idea of reframing works. It's not | | | | |