Politics 20/20

[Gromnir]

2 hours ago, Hurlshot said:

We have certain educational standards we have to cover.

apologies for double, but this is maybe a bigger thing than many realize. the state don't tell @Hurlshot how to teach subjects, but the powers that be make certain he knows there is dozens (hundreds?) o' topics which need be covered during a school year, topics which will be addressed at some point with mindless standardized tests even if hurl does not. 

hurl has freedom to teach what and how he wishes, but he will be evaluated based on how his students test and the test will cover an extreme number o' topics. hurl doesn't need teach peloponnesian war, but if he does not and there is a couple peloponnesian war questions on the standardized test... well, who cares? one or two questions? no biggie. the thing is, there is many dozens o' such topics and if hurl doesn't teach the right answers to questions he knows could be on the test, his students may test poor even if they is whizbang junior historians. students testing poorly hurts the school and the school is gonna blame who?

perhaps would be better for hurl to describe standards, but am guessing many non americans, and many americans, likely do not know what standards look like and just how much virtual territory is covered.

grade 6 content standards

6.1     Students describe what is known through archaeological studies of the early
physical and cultural development of humankind from the Paleolithic era to
the agricultural revolution.
1. Describe the hunter-gatherer societies, including the development of tools and the use
of fire.
2. Identify the locations of human communities that populated the major regions of the
world and describe how humans adapted to a variety of environments.
3. Discuss the climatic changes and human modifications of the physical environment
that gave rise to the domestication of plants and animals and new sources of clothing
and shelter.
23
California Department of Education Created May 18, 2000
24      GRADE SIX
6.2     Students analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social
structures of the early civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Kush.
1. Locate and describe the major river systems and discuss the physical settings that
supported permanent settlement and early civilizations.
2. Trace the development of agricultural techniques that permitted the production of
economic surplus and the emergence of cities as centers of culture and power.
3. Understand the relationship between religion and the social and political order in
Mesopotamia and Egypt.
4. Know the significance of Hammurabi’s Code.
5. Discuss the main features of Egyptian art and architecture.
6. Describe the role of Egyptian trade in the eastern Mediterranean and Nile valley.
7. Understand the significance of Queen Hatshepsut and Ramses the Great.
8. Identify the location of the Kush civilization and describe its political, commercial, and
cultural relations with Egypt.
9. Trace the evolution of language and its written forms.
6.3     Students analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social
structures of the Ancient Hebrews.
1. Describe the origins and significance of Judaism as the first monotheistic religion
based on the concept of one God who sets down moral laws for humanity.
2. Identify the sources of the ethical teachings and central beliefs of Judaism (the Hebrew
Bible, the Commentaries): belief in God, observance of law, practice of the concepts of
righteousness and justice, and importance of study; and describe how the ideas of the
Hebrew traditions are reflected in the moral and ethical traditions of Western civilization.
3. Explain the significance of Abraham, Moses, Naomi, Ruth, David, and Yohanan ben
Zaccai in the development of the Jewish religion.
4. Discuss the locations of the settlements and movements of Hebrew peoples, including
the Exodus and their movement to and from Egypt, and outline the significance of the
Exodus to the Jewish and other people.
5. Discuss how Judaism survived and developed despite the continuing dispersion of
much of the Jewish population from Jerusalem and the rest of Israel after the destruction of the second Temple in A.D. 70.
California Department of Education Created May 18, 2000
GRADE SIX 25
6.4     Students analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social
structures of the early civilizations of Ancient Greece.
1. Discuss the connections between geography and the development of city-states in the
region of the Aegean Sea, including patterns of trade and commerce among Greek
city-states and within the wider Mediterranean region.
2. Trace the transition from tyranny and oligarchy to early democratic forms of government and back to dictatorship in ancient Greece, including the significance of the
invention of the idea of citizenship (e.g., from Pericles’ Funeral Oration).
3. State the key differences between Athenian, or direct, democracy and representative
democracy.
4. Explain the significance of Greek mythology to the everyday life of people in the
region and how Greek literature continues to permeate our literature and language
today, drawing from Greek mythology and epics, such as Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey,
and from Aesop’s Fables.
5. Outline the founding, expansion, and political organization of the Persian Empire.
6. Compare and contrast life in Athens and Sparta, with emphasis on their roles in the
Persian and Peloponnesian Wars.
7. Trace the rise of Alexander the Great and the spread of Greek culture eastward and
into Egypt.
8. Describe the enduring contributions of important Greek figures in the arts and sciences (e.g., Hypatia, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Thucydides).
6.5     Students analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social
structures of the early civilizations of India.
1. Locate and describe the major river system and discuss the physical setting that supported the rise of this civilization.
2. Discuss the significance of the Aryan invasions.
3. Explain the major beliefs and practices of Brahmanism in India and how they evolved
into early Hinduism.
4. Outline the social structure of the caste system.
5. Know the life and moral teachings of Buddha and how Buddhism spread in India,
Ceylon, and Central Asia.
6. Describe the growth of the Maurya empire and the political and moral achievements
of the emperor Asoka.
7. Discuss important aesthetic and intellectual traditions (e.g., Sanskrit literature, including the Bhagavad Gita; medicine; metallurgy; and mathematics, including HinduArabic numerals and the zero).
California Department of Education Created May 18, 2000
26      GRADE SIX
6.6     Students analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social
structures of the early civilizations of China.
1. Locate and describe the origins of Chinese civilization in the Huang-He Valley during
the Shang Dynasty.
2. Explain the geographic features of China that made governance and the spread of
ideas and goods difficult and served to isolate the country from the rest of the world.
3. Know about the life of Confucius and the fundamental teachings of Confucianism and
Taoism.
4. Identify the political and cultural problems prevalent in the time of Confucius and how
he sought to solve them.
5. List the policies and achievements of the emperor Shi Huangdi in unifying northern
China under the Qin Dynasty.
6. Detail the political contributions of the Han Dynasty to the development of the imperial bureaucratic state and the expansion of the empire.
7. Cite the significance of the trans-Eurasian “silk roads” in the period of the Han Dynasty and Roman Empire and their locations.
8. Describe the diffusion of Buddhism northward to China during the Han Dynasty.
6.7     Students analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social
structures during the development of Rome.
1. Identify the location and describe the rise of the Roman Republic, including the importance of such mythical and historical figures as Aeneas, Romulus and Remus,
Cincinnatus, Julius Caesar, and Cicero.
2. Describe the government of the Roman Republic and its significance (e.g., written
constitution and tripartite government, checks and balances, civic duty).
3. Identify the location of and the political and geographic reasons for the growth of
Roman territories and expansion of the empire, including how the empire fostered
economic growth through the use of currency and trade routes.
4. Discuss the influence of Julius Caesar and Augustus in Rome’s transition from republic
to empire.
5. Trace the migration of Jews around the Mediterranean region and the effects of their
conflict with the Romans, including the Romans’ restrictions on their right to live in
Jerusalem.
6. Note the origins of Christianity in the Jewish Messianic prophecies, the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as described in the New Testament, and the contribution of
St. Paul the Apostle to the definition and spread of Christian beliefs (e.g., belief in the
Trinity, resurrection, salvation).
7. Describe the circumstances that led to the spread of Christianity in Europe and other
Roman territories.
8. Discuss the legacies of Roman art and architecture, technology and science, literature,
language, and law.

HA! Good Fun!

 

Edited October 26, 2020 by Gromnir

[Guest]

31 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

<snip>

HA! Good Fun!

Didn't see "teach students to understand the value of history" or "foster love for the subject" anywhere on that list

[Maedhros]

 

[Gromnir]

4 minutes ago, Achilles said:

Didn't see "teach students to understand the value of history" or "foster love for the subject" anywhere on that list

we only posted content standards... one sec.

we read the intro material as well as the analysis portions. there were a paragraph in the intro which kinda/sorta expresses your desire.

"However, the State Board hopes that during their years of formal schooling, students will learn to distinguish the important from the unimportant, to recognize vital connections between the present and the past, and to appreciate universal historical themes and dilemmas."

*shrug*

HA! Good Fun!

[Guard Dog]

19 minutes ago, Achilles said:

Didn't see "teach students to understand the value of history" or "foster love for the subject" anywhere on that list

Hopefully that will come later in life. It certainly did in my case

[Guard Dog]

That’s a hell of a lot of subject material over a pretty broad range. I don’t recollect exactly what my sixth grade history teaching was like but I’m pretty sure it was not that cluttered. As best I can work out I guess I was in sixth grade in 1980? Close enough to guess. I do remember discussing the evolution of language which I remember being very interesting.

you know the one teacher I had that I will never forget was a history teacher. Mr. Cahill. seventh or eighth grade. The entirety of his lesson plan was cause and  effect. This happened because that happened. I found his method of presentation very engaging.

it was my 12th grade economics teacher who introduced me to Milton Friedman which really got me reading and thinking on my own. It also made me the absolute bane of my future MDCC professors and some of you guys too!
 

teachers definitely make a difference in kids lives. Particularly the conscientious and diligent ones. I remember reading a quote once the job of a teacher was not to plant forests but to irrigate deserts.

Edited October 26, 2020 by Guard Dog

[Malcador]

Thinking back many of my professors and teachers certainly thought of us as intellectual deserts. One used to tell us as much

[Hurlshort]

Students are tested on Social Science in 8th grade, and the test breakdown was pretty much 4 questions on 6th grade content, 3 questions on 7th, and 4 questions on 8th grade content. 

It has actually shifted quite a bit in the last few years and is no longer the silly multiple guess format. I also teach in an area with a lot of parent involvement and it is predominately Asian, so I am spoiled by not having to really worry about the test scores. I have taught in lower socio-economic schools and it matches that clip from The Wire to a tee.

[Gromnir]

31 minutes ago, Hurlshot said:

 

It has actually shifted quite a bit in the last few years and is no longer the silly multiple guess format.

literal the best news we has heard in days. am knowing it weren't too long ago CA were still using multi-choice for high school and middle-school content standards for history. idiotic.  congrats to CA for abandoning obvious stoopid.

HA! Good Fun!

[HoonDing]

"2. Discuss the significance of the Aryan invasions."

lol

[Gorth]

1 hour ago, HoonDing said:

"2. Discuss the significance of the Aryan invasions."

lol

That has to be a trick question... scientists still can't agree whether it was an invasion or a migration

 

Edit: Continued here