Thanks! I wish I could take credit for it. Actually, though, it was made by pixelbee.
Don't worry, that was a rhetorical question. But yes, the concept of civic virtue has its origins in Antiquity, before being developped by everyone from Machiavelli to Milton to Montesquieu. (You see why this deceptively simple question quickly becomes complicated.)
That's awful. I would say this is a result of teaching to the test, but of course, the model of standardized testing is only a symptom of the greater problem of the purpose of public education. The prevailing view in the US and increasingly elsewhere, unfortunately, is that one get's an education to find a good job and make as much money as possible, which is, of course, only one possible application of education and not the one that those who first theorized and put into place public education had in mind. For them (and I confess to subscribing to this view as well), the purpose of public education is to create citizens, and part of that process is creating people who can think critically. From the point of view of your classmates, and, it seems - and what is more disturbing, considering her career choice - there is no reason to study history at all. What they're really saying when they say that Robespierre's place in history doesn't matter because he's dead is that there's no reason for the class they're taking/teaching to even exist, which is a far graver problem.
That said, I highly doubt that even within this system, should you write something more historically informed than your textbook on your AP exam, you would get points off. Alas, if you did, you would have no way of knowing because of the lack of transparency regarding standardized testing in general...
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2011-03-30 09:49 pm (UTC)Don't worry, that was a rhetorical question. But yes, the concept of civic virtue has its origins in Antiquity, before being developped by everyone from Machiavelli to Milton to Montesquieu. (You see why this deceptively simple question quickly becomes complicated.)
That's awful. I would say this is a result of teaching to the test, but of course, the model of standardized testing is only a symptom of the greater problem of the purpose of public education. The prevailing view in the US and increasingly elsewhere, unfortunately, is that one get's an education to find a good job and make as much money as possible, which is, of course, only one possible application of education and not the one that those who first theorized and put into place public education had in mind. For them (and I confess to subscribing to this view as well), the purpose of public education is to create citizens, and part of that process is creating people who can think critically. From the point of view of your classmates, and, it seems - and what is more disturbing, considering her career choice - there is no reason to study history at all. What they're really saying when they say that Robespierre's place in history doesn't matter because he's dead is that there's no reason for the class they're taking/teaching to even exist, which is a far graver problem.
That said, I highly doubt that even within this system, should you write something more historically informed than your textbook on your AP exam, you would get points off. Alas, if you did, you would have no way of knowing because of the lack of transparency regarding standardized testing in general...