How will the current economic crisis be taught to future students

[Travis]

How do you think the narrative for this economic meltdown will be laid out for future history students? Will it focus on the Mortgage shenanigans? The stimulus attempts? The financial crooks who go to prison? The major corporation bankruptcies and bailouts?

If you had to try and create a concise explanation of the crises that middle school students could understand how might you go about it? Is that even possible?

[steph]

i think that 40 years from now teachers would probably compare this to the great depression honestly. By then they will have it good and will think that our riches aren't anything to be proud of, the same way we look at the 20's and 30's (what everyone didnt have a car or a microwave?) in 40 years who knows what they will have, so if we are poor now by our standards how do think they will look at it?

[Jekyll's Guest]

"Obama socialism weakened the free market so badly that the economy suffered a blip, but the decline was turned around by President Jeb Bush's extensive tax cuts for the rich, which allowed the markets to recover."

[drkitten]

i think that 40 years from now teachers would probably compare this to the great depression honestly.

That would be my bet as well.

Financial bubble leads to market crash leads to economic crisis, banking failure, and high unemployment. Government fails to respond quickly or effectively enough to prevent or mitigate the crash.

That basic narrative is the middle school version of the causes of the Great Depression and equally applies to the more recent Great Recession.

[steph]

no in the textbooks it wont be allowed to say "Government fails to respond quickly or effectively enough to prevent or mitigate the crash." It will have something to do with the war, how "due to the terrorism in america at the time, all funds had to be put towards the war and recreating a peaceful enviroment overseas to ensure america's safety" its the same thing just without admitting that the goverment was wasting money and not helping thier own people

[drkitten]

no in the textbooks it wont be allowed to say "Government fails to respond quickly or effectively enough to prevent or mitigate the crash."

(Shrug.) That's what it says about the Great Depression.

That's also what all the actual historians and economists are saying about the Great Recession right now. Twenty years from now, I think it will be settled fact that the Bush/Obama stimulus was not effective, and no one will have enough skin in the game to try to eliminate it.

You'll notice that what the narrative I gave does not say is the reason that the stimulus wasn't effective.....

It will have something to do with the war, how "due to the terrorism in america at the time, all funds had to be put towards the war and recreating a peaceful enviroment overseas to ensure america's safety" its the same thing just without admitting that the goverment was wasting money and not helping thier own people

No. Again, twenty years on, no one will take the Iraqi terrorist threat any more seriously than people take the "domino theory" that led the US into Vietnam.

There's a limit to how effectively political activists can airbrush away inconvenient history. You'll notice that not even the most frighteningly flatheaded neocons have been able to rehabilitate public perceptions of Herbert Hoover or of Joe McCarthy.

[Arrow]

We seem to have entered an age of personalization with the internet, cable news, and talk radio. You can choose what political format you want information to come in. I suspect that the latest economic down turn will be taught to students originally by teachers with a liberal slant as most teachers lean left from what I've read in polls. But to find information about the down turn with a conservative or libertarian lean will be easy to do.

[steph]

Excuse me for going all "conspiracy theorist" on you, but it has to be said

Dont you think that in 20 years the government will have control over what it said in all the textbooks and will be able to manipulate somehow the way history is percieved?

so it is not how we see it, but how the government wants it to be seen

*x-files theme song being played in the background*

[Jekyll's Guest]

Excuse me for going all "conspiracy theorist" on you, but it has to be said

Dont you think that in 20 years the government will have control over what it said in all the textbooks and will be able to manipulate somehow the way history is percieved?

so it is not how we see it, but how the government wants it to be seen

*x-files theme song being played in the background*

Not really, but idiots on Texas school boards might use financial clout to have the country full of textbooks blaming it on commie, fag atheists sabotaging our great democracy.

So anyone not making it to college, who also have poor critical thinking skills, will think Obama Lenin was a plant.

[steph]

isn't that how things are now? Kids these days if they dont go to college they dont know jack about history. I remember that 3 years in a row we learned the same era of history. it was either the revolutionary war or ancient egypt. that was all!

[drkitten]

Dont you think that in 20 years the government will have control over what it said in all the textbooks and will be able to manipulate somehow the way history is percieved?

Not in any useful way.

The government (broadly defined) currently has control over which textbooks are purchased. This does not give them control over which textbooks are written or published, except in as far as a particular government controls a particularly influential segment of the market (see Texas and California for examples of this). But the federal government has almost no say at all (it controls textbook purchases for government-run schools on foreign military bases and whatnot, which is a tiny market), and even most state governments delegate textbook selection to the individual districts. Albany, by choice, allows Buffalo to buy whatever books it likes.

I don't see that changing any time soon.

Arrow is wrong in that the teachers don't typically control classroom presentation (the school board does). But he's also right in that any student who wants to get her news from the FOX edutainment channel will be able to do so. Which makes government control even less effective.

[steph]

So you don't think that in 20 years that the government will be able to tell the authors what they can and cannot put in the text books. I live in florida and they have already made it where you aren't allowed to teach religion in history class (im not religious my self, but it was still a time in history and i have missed many questions watching "are you smarter then a fifth grader" because it was not taught)

As for a student watching fox news, yes they very well could but what grade school age student do you know who voluntarily watches fox news in thier spare time? I know i wasn't.

[Corsair 115]

I would hope that any textbook on the matter will point out that not every country lets its financial system become what seemed to be little more than a giant pyramid scheme, and not every country had to bail out its financial system.

[MikeMangum]

i think that 40 years from now teachers would probably compare this to the great depression honestly.

I doubt that. Where are the hobos and the hundreds of thousands of kids with rickets?

Yes, someone could make a comparison to the great depression based solely on percent of economic contraction (we aren't close yet) or some other factor, but if you attempt to make a comparison based on absolute standards of living, the comparison very quickly falls apart.

[Jekyll's Guest]

I doubt that. Where are the hobos and the hundreds of thousands of kids with rickets?

Yes, someone could make a comparison to the great depression based solely on percent of economic contraction (we aren't close yet) or some other factor, but if you attempt to make a comparison based on absolute standards of living, the comparison very quickly falls apart.

It's American discourse (especially political and media discourse). Everything is extremes, absolutes, black and white.

It's either the great depression or the best thing since V-Day. You're a saintly nation or you're the new Nazi's.

If it doesn't fit in a neat little box, you won't see in on the national stage.

[steph]

I doubt that. Where are the hobos and the hundreds of thousands of kids with rickets?

Yes, someone could make a comparison to the great depression based solely on percent of economic contraction (we aren't close yet) or some other factor, but if you attempt to make a comparison based on absolute standards of living, the comparison very quickly falls apart.

Did you read my post all the way through? I had explained that in comparison to what they will have, we will be "like the great depression". Back then there were alot of people who were grateful for what little they did have and didn't find it to be all that bad. Same as now, there are some who are suffering more than others and in the future that is what they will base it on.

[Gazpacho]

Dont you think that in 20 years the government will have control over what it said in all the textbooks and will be able to manipulate somehow the way history is percieved?
American history textbooks already manipulate the way history is perceived in favor of those at the top of the social order. Overt government censorship isn't necessary and is understood to be counterproductive.

Regarding the current crisis, every major legislative initiative during the period will be presented as necessary to recovery and as a representation of popular will.

[Travis]

So you don't think that in 20 years that the government will be able to tell the authors what they can and cannot put in the text books.

They can't do that now so why would they be able to twenty years from now?

I live in florida and they have already made it where you aren't allowed to teach religion in history class

:confused: How in the world can the Crusades, Renaissance, Reformation, Counter-Reformation, etc be taught without mentioning religion?

Did you read my post all the way through? I had explained that in comparison to what they will have, we will be "like the great depression". Back then there were alot of people who were grateful for what little they did have and didn't find it to be all that bad. Same as now, there are some who are suffering more than others and in the future that is what they will base it on.

If I'm reading this correct you are saying that it will be compared to the The Great Depression based on the fact that some people suffered from it.

[steph]

They can't do that now so why would they be able to twenty years from now?



:confused: How in the world can the Crusades, Renaissance, Reformation, Counter-Reformation, etc be taught without mentioning religion?



If I'm reading this correct you are saying that it will be compared to the The Great Depression based on the fact that some people suffered from it.

because it is america, government is screwed up like that

And the crusades etc. was not taught. However the did skim over the renaissance a bit, and only mentioned that they may have done it for "religious purposes". Other then that I learned it all at the library in my spare time.

It won't be exactly like the great depression because we know that it isn't, but if it keeps falling anymore it will be. I have already heard people on the news comparing this to the 20's and 30's. Perhaps in 20 years they will end up exagerating it even more

This is not my personal opinion, this is what I predict. Please do not confuse that