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Originally Posted by Stephjk
Works such as The Secret River highlight an era and, hopefully, allow us to explore our responses to the atrocities that resulted. In the western world many people consider that political correctness has gone mad and forget that it's prime purpose is to ensure that all are treated fairly. Hopefully bullying in schools and workplaces will one day be seen as outrageous. The wilfull cause of human suffering is something we should all strive to end. There are plenty of modern day atrocities that will one day be written and read about with horror.
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“We have witnessed similar developments in our schools and universities—increasing monitoring of viewpoints, disrespecting of those with whom one disagrees, and foreclosing of the common ground upon which we can listen and learn. The major culprit here is not “political correctness,” a term coined by those who tend to trivialize the scars of others and minimize the suffering of victims while highlighting their own wounds. Rather the challenge is mustering the courage to scrutinize all forms of dogmatic policing of dialogue and to shatter all authoritarian strategies of silencing voices. We must respect the scars and wounds of each one of us—even if we are sometimes wrong (or right!).” Cornel West from a book I am reading at the moment.
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Originally Posted by Bookpossum
One certainly might! I suspect I'm quite a bit more antique than you are Caleb, so I'm talking about school in the late 1950s/early 1960s. Australian history back then was mostly about the explorers (who were certainly brave and sometimes foolhardy) who of course did it all on their own - no mention of the help given by Aboriginals in the crossing of the Blue Mountains for example.
It was still triumphalist British Empire stuff back then, and the maps were still mostly coloured pink, even though the Empire had collapsed after WW2. Empire Day, when we had fireworks, was 24 May, which was Queen Victoria's birthday. Boy, were we behind the times! (I grew up in Sydney, so it may well have been different in other parts of Australia.)
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We share a common point on the time line of our childhood education, if in a totally different country. My grades 1-8 education in history was very much from the view of and an endorsement of Americans of European descent in all matters. With many of those years spent in Texas there was also nostalgia for the Confederate States of America flavor to it. Thankfully what is presented to school children now has changed a lot, but unfortunately over the last decade or so the has been a major effort in some quarters to go backwards.