I was so disgusted in class yesterday (the lesson) I nearly puked (REALLY)

[skinfan133]

The class in question is high school Post-WWII US History. we have begun this semester course with studying WWII itself, mostly the Holocaust, which I'm fine with, and some bits about the war (not fine with, not enugh study of the war itslef, just the nazis). here's what happened in class.

(background note: I am well versed on the subject of and am interested in the Pacific Theater of war.)

The day starts out with the anouncement that we would go over the pacific war that class period. I think to myself, "Oh good, we will FINALLY be able to learn about this in public school (it wasn't covered in World History or American History. in fact neither textbook had the word Bahtaan in it anywhere).

what transpired sickened me and filled me with anger.

what we learned about first was how incredibly rascist every American was toward the japanese. we were shown American political cartoons about the japanese depicting them as monkeys. now I'll be the first to admit that there was quite a bit of rascism present in the contry and in the press, but the way in which it was covered disturbed me. it was setting up the assumptiont that the japanese were the victims of a rascist America bent on their destruction. for example, this cartoon was used to demonstrate this concept:

now at first what do you think? our teacher said this was evidence that we saw the japanese as sub-human and as a parasite that needed to be exterminated. this is the biggest load of bull **** ever. first, this was published in a military publication. what this cartoon refers to is the japanese military, NOT the japanese civilization. that is plainly obvious. there is a huge diference between saying "exterminate the enemy [soldiers]" and "exterminate the people of japan" again, disturbing revisionist history.

next, we very briefly hit upon the strategy of island hopping.

we were told by our teacher that the Japanese were libertating southeast asia and the pacific from european imperialism. he failed to mention that the japanese raped thousands of women and children and in the act of occupation killed over 11 million ethnic minorities and majorities and prisoners of war IN SOUTHEAST ASIA ALONE.

next we were told about some battles, Iwo Jima and okinawa for example. I had to prod our teacher into reluctantly admiting that the japanese killed 12,000 marines on okinawa and bayonetted, shot, or threw off the cliffs many of the japanese civilians living ont he island to prevent them from surendering to the americans. the japanese convinced the okinawans that the americans were coming to eat them alive (I am NOT kidding) and made them commit mass suicide, and those that didnt were killed in the aformentioned way. these were their OWN PEOPLE. imagine if you will that NYC is under attack and the US Army decides to kill the civilian population so that they dont surender to the occupying force. he denied none of these documented facts.

Next, we were told about the firebombing campaign by the Army Air Force that destroyed about 60 cities across japan. never mind that more civilians were killed in identical firebombing campaigns all across Germany. again, very much so the japanese were made out to be helpless victims of an american campaign of extermination based on rascism (like the nazis, he never told us that, but im not an idiot.)

next we covered the manhatan project. in a nutshell, our teacher's conclusion sis that droping the bomb was 100% wrong and absoltly not needed to end the war. at this point I was so furious (internally, I'm not one to show my emotions in class anymore, that got me suspended for arguing with a teacher) I failed to point out some very obvious facts. my teacher claimed that the japanese would have unconditionally surendered if the USSR had declared war on them sooner. here are some facts regarding this.

• The War department estimated that Operation Downfall (the invasion of the japanese homeland) would result in millions of allied casualties and tens of millions of japanese military and civilian casualties.
  
• There were standing orders to massacre every single POW the japanese had if one invading soldier set foot on japan's sacred soil.
  
• every able-bodied japanese civilian was issued a pike and taught basic skills in how to kill for when japan was invaded (including women). civilians were instructed to kill at least 3 americans before killing themsleves in combat or by suicide.
  

I needn't get into the details and this should NOT become a debate about the bombs, but I'd say the descision was justified in order to save American AND Japanese lives.:2cents:

but the icing on the cake was the fact that he never mentioned anything in the lesson from the US's point of view! HE DIDNT EVEN MENTION PEARL HARBOR!

we discused nothing of the Japanese's cruelty and barbarism, nothing of the prisoners of war, the hellships, the cruelty to their own people. nothing about the bahtaan death march. hell, we didn't even discuss the internment of japanese americans! he didn't mention that if we had lost Midway, the west coast would have been invaded and occupied, the japanese would have killed millions of americans and forced others into slavery. none of this was mentioned. nothing. not at all.

In order to do it justice, here is a small recount of the above listed incidents:

• The japanese were responsible for the deaths of nearly 9-10 million innocent civilians in china, south east asia, and the pacific.
  
• The japanese cruelly subjected POW's to forced labor, improper work conditions, torture of all varieties, some of which are so inhumaney cruel I cannot even comprehend how a human mind comes up with it, and systematic slaughter and starvation.
  
• the hellships were the transports taking american and british POW's to the Japanese homeland after the philipenes and vietnam were freed. the hellships were large tankers barley seaworthy with conditions the same or worse than 18 century slave ships. men went delerious as they were given no food or water, resorted to self-canabalism and drank their own blood because they were so thristy. many POW's died on the ships. the ships weren't marked as prisoner transports and many were torpedoed by the americans.
  
• One of the most deplorable events in human history was the Bahtaan death march. thousands of US soldiers and Marines were forcably marched without food or water for 90 miles in the philipene summer to a POW labor camp. at first the japanese did simple abuses, like kicking and punching prisoners, but after a few sakis going around, it all snowballed. first they started beheading the officers, most senior first on down and putting their heads on pikes. next they disembowled philipinos and strung them on barbed wire fences, they disembowled American soldiers and hung them by their intestines and made them eat their own excrement. they murdered helpless civilians before the soldiers demoralized eyes and philipinos lined the way begging the japanese to have mercy on the POWs, to which the civilians were promptly executed.
  
• POW camps were terrible places of toruture and human suffering. common forms of torture of POWs and civilians who spoke out against the japanese occupation were pouring water down the throat and then jumpig ont the stomach so that it exploded, tying people to a tree with a bucket of water just of out reach and depriving them of water for 3 whole days (the human limit for dehydration), hanging people by their thumbs with barbed wire, bayoneting, burning limbs, slicing genitals, exposure to extreme heat, and in rare cases improper crucifixion (meaning the victim didn't die because they had the process wrong, thus resulting in a prolonged bleeding to death rather than suffocation) and castration.
  

this is history that SHOULD NOT be ommited at ALL. this should be showcassed in the classoom right next to the holocaust. the sad thing is so few know about it and so few are learning about it, there is a very real possibility that this will be forgoten history, labled as a conspiracy theory or such. the japanese right now have state issued school textbooks that clearly say that the US started the pacific war, that the japanese were defending themselves from american impirialistic advance, were liberating southeast asia, and of course leave out the atrocities commited by the japanese.

I am so furious, when I graduate in june I am sending scathing letters to my state rep. and the school board about this.

I just wanted to share this and to gauge your opinions on the matter.

[909997]

Iam not gonna read all that. But i agree with you.

[drums and skins]

Hey, leave the history teacher alone. There's only so much you can do career wise as a History major.

And if you think he isn't being objective about the presentation of the material, well first I'd ask: does he say he will? Is that expected? I do recall my world history class in high school always taught atleast two sides of the story, but in my history class in college, we were pretty much encouraged to take our own view.

[Fergasun]

Ask him about the comfort women from Korea (and other countries). Ask him why the Japanese government has never officially apologized to the comfort women. Ask him if this happened while America occupied any of Germany or other territories. Furthermore ask him about how Japan treated Korea leading up to World War II and during the War.

[Larry]

Uh, I think I'd point out that Hitler didn't exactly have good PR in the US, during the war, either.

OTOH, I do remember seeing, IIR, the front page of the NYT, announcing the bombing of Hiroshima. It prominently displayed a map of the island of Japan, with circles drawn on it, displaying how it would only take (some number. 17?) atomic bombs to devastate the entire island. (And no, the thought of killing everyone on the island of Japan wasn't portrayed as a Bad Idea.)

-----

Your instructor's point does have some validity: The US response to the Japanese vs. the Germans can be at least partially attributed to some racism. There was some racism on the US's part.

(Although from what I understand, there was a lot more racism on the part of the Japanese, against some of the countries they invaded. IMO, the Japanese really shouldn't be complaining about the US's racist behavior.)

However, racism certainly wasn't the most important lesson from that theater.

[Prosperity]

Imperial Japan sucks, and American response to Japanese here was fairly racist, though not as racist as the Japanese "response" to say... all of Asia. But I think your main problem here is that you have done so much independent study that you are way ahead of the game. Do the other kids who probably know nothing about WW2 really need in depth knowledge about the entire war? I'm sure you'll get a full dose at college.

EDIT re read your post... the Japanese hardly liberated anyone, I honestly can't believe your teacher said that... maybe you are mis characterizing the situation

why don't you send your letters now? Waiting only makes your claims less important

[Sarge]

Ask him about Singapore and whether or not they thought they were being "freed"

This is what you get in government run schools

And we wonder why kids are stupid nowadays

[Xameil]

I would complain to the dept. head personally. I think all colleges and universities have that one teacher who is (and maybe I am generalizing) ultra liberal and sees everything not PC as evil. I had a class that was supposed to be Columbus to the Civil War. In a 10 week class we spent 6 weeks on how Columbus was evil. It is obvious your prof just is pushing their own agenda, and not doing what a history prof should do.

[Thiebear]

If we went by Cartoons: The US thinks GW is sub human.. editorial/propaganda cartoons are not to be used as Historical facts.

He started with a conclusion and worked his way back from there in his outline...

[Burgold]

On the other hand, I think you are a victim of the curriculum more than anything else. When I was a special ed teacher at the middle school level, I remember feeling that it was ridiculous and stupid that the history teachers were being forced to cover the entirity of Ancient Egyptian History in two weeks. Imagine that. Imagine having to compress thousands of years of events, motivations, inventions, cultural achievements, etc. into ten days. What winds up happening is that the teacher is forced to give an incredibly truncated and superficial overview of history. No period of time is given the depth, the thought, and the intensity it deserves. It's why history which is such a fascinating subject is always so darn boring in school.

If I were to teach a class on the Pacific side of WWII, I would certainly include something about Japanese internment, because it is something we shouldn't forget. We treated our fellow Americans poorly. That's a very small part of the story, but I would include that element. From there, I would talk about the heroics and the efforts of the war.

Still, having a very limited scope of time by law (or county rule), the teacher can't cover comprehensively or even often adequately any period of history.

Edit: Okay, I read a bit more of the opening 'graphs. I will say if this is a true representation than the teacher needs to tamp down their bias. It's a bit overboard.

[Larry]

If we went by Cartoons: The US thinks GW is sub human..

And?

[Burgold]

If we went by Cartoons: The US thinks GW is sub human.. editorial/propaganda cartoons are not to be used as Historical facts.

He started with a conclusion and worked his way back from there in his outline...

I do think that the art, cartoons, editorials of a time period can be used to take an ethnographic snap shot. Remember, the eugenics movement was big in this country too and actually continued into the 1970's. It wasn't only the Nazis that did the monkey/jew evolutionary comparisons.

[Mark The Homer]

The history teacher is obviously a liberal. What do you expect?

[youngestson]

Iam not gonna read all that. But i agree with you.

I did, and the kid is right. His teacher is a tool. Actually that's not exactly right, tools have a use.

Complain to the school board. Seriously. Teachers take a very dim view of nit-wits like that guy giving the profession a bad name, and you may find yourself with a great deal more support than you thought you would recieve.

Good luck.

[MDRedskinsFan]

Ask him about Singapore and whether or not they thought they were being "freed"

This is what you get in government run schools

And we wonder why kids are stupid nowadays

QFT.:applause: Going to private high school is quite possibly the best investment a parent can make for their children, even if it isn't one of the more prestigious ones. By far the best decision I've ever made.

[Larry]

Actually, when it comes to the Pacific in WW2, the part I found interesting was that after Pearl Harbor, the US still "owned" a lot of Pacific Islands. McArthur knew that the only reason for the Japanese to attack our navy was because they were intending to take those islands away from us, and the immediate orders were for the US to reinforce the ground bases we had on those islands, to at least make the Japanese fight to take them away.

Supposedly, McArthur's recommendation for the US was to "let Hitler and Stalin bleed each other", and to try to hang onto as much of the Pacific as possible (under the theory that it's a lot cheaper to hang onto an island than it is to take it back after you've lost it).

But that strategy would have run up against Stalin's threat that if the US didn't send enough troops to Europe, then he'd just sign another treaty with Hitler, and then we'd have wound up fighting all of Germany, instead of only half of them.

[hkHog]

That is absurd, your teacher should be fired. That is not history, that is simply anti-American propaganda.

[sacase]

History is fairly easy to teach, you can just teach what happend and the cause and effect. No need to put your own political ideals on what happend. Let the students make their own choice about the moral implications of it. I don't think that the cartoon was racist at all. Reason being is that we were in a WAR. In war you are trying to desensitize not only the soldiers, but the population to the humanity of the enemy. The sad part is the teacher completly failed to teach what really happend. This is another reason why NEA sucks.

[headexplode]

It's unfortunate that not all teachers are created equally and some of them use their position as a platform to push whatever agenda it is they may have. This should not be an indictment of the entire public school system, as clearly some members of this board (who have their own agendas) would like to turn it into one. My US history teacher in high school was excellent--she was fair-minded, she always gave more than one point of view--she was illustrative and engaging, and she gave me a love for history, particularly American history, which is still with me. She inspired me to do my own research and to realize that you only get what you put in, or, that a teacher's job is to point a student in the right direction, and it's the students job to take that walk on his own.

There are a lot of problems with public education, no doubt about it, but this teacher, who chooses to propagandize rather than teach should not be considered indicative of all public school teachers, or with the system at large.

If you have a problem with his cirriculum, it is well within your right to speak with him, or with an administrator. You don't have to wait until the end of the year. No student should have to suffer through a class that makes him or her so clearly upset. As others have said, I'm sure you can find a sympathetic ear.

Still, it's nice to see someone so interested in learning on their own. I commend that. And there's no shame in standing up for what you believe in.

[chipwhich]

Ahhh the dumbing of american children in our schools. It's sad to see how far it's gone.

[Burgold]

Don't sweat it. Schools will be obsolete in a few years. Everything you need to know is on Wiki anyway

I disagree that this is about the dumbing down of our schools. It's most likely about a tight curriculum and a lazy, biased teacher. I'll bet this teacher's concentration of history was not WWII or even twentieth century. So, when studying and researching for that little slice of the pie, he came across this stuff and it was exciting, it was sexy, and it was sure to grab his kids' attention.

Fighting apathy is an unfortunate necessity in teaching.

I suspect the problem is that the thread opener is more of an expert on this area than the teacher. The teacher could probably write a book on other areas of history, but just has superficial knowledge of this one. Thus, he takes his limited knowledge and tries to fill it with research relatively quickly, gets excited or outraged about this aspect, and so that's what's on his mind as he lesson planning and sharing.

Because some of the stuff we did was outrageous, and racist and bad that's what gets filtered down to the class. It's not that what he probably shared was wrong, but just that the story taught was woefully incomplete.

[jrockster21]

Well, I do agree with him that the American treatment of the Japanese living here is one of the low points in our history.

[Xameil]

QFT.:applause: Going to private high school is quite possibly the best investment a parent can make for their children, even if it isn't one of the more prestigious ones. By far the best decision I've ever made.

sorry man, gotta disagree. I went to a public school and probably had a much less propaganda driven education then some friends I knew who went to private school.

[Zguy28]

Japan didn't liberate anybody. They conquered SE Asia and the SW Pacific to secure natural resources such as oil to continue to fuel their imperialist foreign policy.

They realized if they didn't capture those areas, they could easily be blockaded and their war machine in areas like Manchuria would be starved to death.

The only threat to them was the US. Hence they preemptively bombed the fleet at Pearl so that we couldn't strike back immediately in response to the Phillipines invasion.

[IONTOP]

My grandfather was a survivor of the Bahtaan boot camp. I read his autobiography and it was horrible... He pulled "death duty" just to get extra food, he would take out and bury his fellow soldiers at night, then in the morning would go and build bridges in the morning... He had a deep seeded hatred for Japanese....

I wish I could find the word document of his book, I'd let you read it...