On Feb 13, 2007, at 8:51 AM, Sunshine49 wrote:
> You are making a huge leap here, no one ever said books should be
> "sprinkled with inaccuracies" to appeal to the kids. All I said
> was, if there was some obscure detail that only the serious experts
> would even notice, it should be excused by those same experts.
At the risk of flogging dead equines again, as has been said, one
person's trash is another's treasure. What may seem to be an obscure
factoid by the person doing the writing is an huge, in-your-face and
growling error to the expert. People without appropriate knowledge
routinely dismiss these as "minor" when in fact they make the author
look justifiably like an idiot. The author goes blithely about their
business unaware of the magnitude of the mistake. I am also well
aware that there are experts who feel that their particular factoid
is in fact highly important when in reality it is more a product of
their own O/D obsession with a subject. In this context I am thinking
of errors that all the experts in a field would instantly cringe at
seeing in print. The magnitude is equivalent of visiting the powder
room at a dress ball and emerging unclothed on the bottom half and
not thinking it mattered.
> And it still wouldn't take away from the whole good the literary
> work would have on the kids. I am in no way advocating passing on
> nice fabrications. History, even fiction and even for kids, should
> of course teach facts. But to the non-expert and scholar, it is not
> something people are going to obsess over to the Nth degree, and it
> is that kind of extreme attention to detail that turns the average
> person off to history. Make it palatable, make it interesting, make
> it human, something they [kids and adults] can relate to. Help them
> learn.
Well, there are authors who combine both who are also extremely
popular. In my experience, most folks have been turned off to history
because the proverbial high school football coach taught the course
and basically fed the class a set of names and dates. About as
exciting as watching paint dry. Those who can teach history do it by
bringing it alive.
Lyle
Weevil Brained & Butt Sprung
(Walter Brennan -Bad Day At Black Rock)
>
> Nancy
>
> -------
> I was never lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.
>
> --Daniel Boone
>
>
>
> On Feb 12, 2007, at 8:51 PM, Clara Callahan wrote:
>
>> What's age got to do with it? They are children, not imbeciles.
>> And they deserve the truth.
>> I read Howard Carter's book on the excavation of Tutankhamen's
>> tomb when I was in third grade and I was enthralled. If I found
>> out that guy had sprinkled his book with inaccuracies to make my
>> reading more entertaining, I'd personally dig up his skull, slap a
>> handle on it and use it as a coffee cup.
>>
>>
>>
>> Linda Threadgill <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Clara, For one reason, their age
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Clara Callahan"
>> To:
>> Sent: Monday, February 12, 2007 3:09 AM
>> Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] Native American Culture
>>
>>
>>> If you're trying to get children to read and learn, why on earth
>>> would you
>>> run the risk of losing credibility by teaching them something
>>> that is 10%
>>> inaccurate? Why not 20% or even 50%? I would think that the goal
>>> should
>>> be to get it right, not just get it published. Perfect example is
>>> Eckert's description of how Blue Jacket killed his white brother in
>>> battle. That inaccuracy has tainted ALL of his work.
>>
>> Clara,
>> Some reasons could be the ages of the children and their
>> comprehension
>> level. AND seems to me, you might be forgetting for a moment that
>> all races
>> have some brutality against other ethnic groups and their own
>> ethnic group
>> in their history. Those same Europeans who were being killed by these
>> "savages" were the ones who brought slavey to American. Who fought
>> and
>> killed their country men in the name of independence. Who killed
>> each other
>> for supposedly practicing witchcraft. Who and what determines who
>> was more
>> brutal and savage?
>>
>> Linda,
>>
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>
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