thoughts on comparative education

One of my classes this semester at UO is Comparative Education taught by a prof named Spike (okay, so that's not his real name, but that's what he has us call him). He's the kind of prof that's so interesting to listen to that you can actually ignore the fact that he stands there talking to you for an hour and fifty minutes without stopping. The thing that I think I really appreciate about him is the fact that he challenges me to be critical of the lens through which I view the world. 

For example...

Have you ever heard of the Bengali famine of 1943? I hadn’t until today. I hadn’t realized how influential Winston Churchill had been in instigating the mass export of rice from Bengal which resulted in a country-wide famine. The British needed rice, and so naturally Churchill set out to find it, but in filling his country's need he, in essence, caused the death of nearly 4.5 million Bengali men, women and children. Now I'm not a political history buff, so I do plead some ignorance in not having heard any of this before, but I just couldn't fathom how this significant piece of history has essentially been pushed aside in light of the devastation of the Second World War and Churchill's significant involvement in that. Even a quick glance through research on the 1943 famine would lead you to believe that an earlier cyclone and drought were to blame for the destruction of crops, but the way in which many of the studies are framed is deceiving.

Think of this in light of the holocaust. How do we know so much about World War II and the death of millions of jews, pols, homosexuals, gypsies and others over a period of 5 years, but the death of 4.5 million in less than a year is virtually ignored by the history books (or at least by social studies curricula)? We are quick to blame Hitler for the holocaust and the idea of concentration camps, and yet in Mein Kampf he wrote the he got the idea from the way in which Americans, and I would argue Canadians, treated First Nations people and the consequent introduction of reservations and residential schools. I am in no way meaning to downplay the evil of Hitler's character, however I realize now how quick we are to focus on some events in history and complete wash over or neglect others. Obviously the social studies curriculum could not possibly contain a complete overview of world history, but I believe a critical look at the events included in the curriculum is necessary to ensure that we're not sending students out into the world completely as completely biased individuals with limited critical thinking skills. 

I guess I write all this to say that I realize now (well, maybe only a little bit more than before) the extent to which I have been indoctrinated with such a biased view of the world, its history and its people. In class my prof came to the conclusion that the Greatest Generation (the parents of baby boomers like himself) need to be told that, “you guys really f*&%#d the world up bad”. I don't know if I'd quite go that far, but I do agree with him when he said that, “all this s**t has been designed by men… it could be undone by men too” though I would argue that men alone would struggle to do just that. 

So there you go. That's just a glimpse of my first week back at school this summer... we'll see how the next three weeks pan out.