Thursday, August 12, 2010
Blog Entry 19: Freestyle
My favorite reading subject is history. It has not always been that way, in fact I used to read exclusively fiction (King was my favorite) But as I grew older I found that fiction could not hold my attention like non-fiction subjects could. I am particularly fond of military history. I don't consider myself a big military buff, I am just really fascinated by how much war has shaped our world today and the unending extreme sacrifices made by men much younger than myself. It is for this reason that I feel kids should be required to study and read about World Wars I & II when they are in school. I was taught almost nothing in the public schools about those conflicts (and I actually liked history) Why is that? Whole Countries were created and eradicated, tens of millions of people were killed, and the worlds landscape was literally changed overnight from these two conflicts. I think the public schools could do a much better job of teaching history to its students, particularly military history, if for no other reason than perhaps it will help us avoid ever experiencing the horrors of a war like that again.
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Hi, Jason. I teach a World War I literature class (ENGL 239). I really enjoy the literature from that period. British soldiers at that time, all kinds of average citizens, were highly literate and wrote extensively about their experiences in letters, stories, and poetry. The literature powerfully conveys the experience of war, and the combination of the literature with historical information is a really great way to fill in educational gaps about that period. I love teaching that class, and students seem to find it meaningful to their modern experience of war. Nancy
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