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Doomed To Repeat It, or Who The Fuck Is Franklin Pierce?

posted by Carl Newman at 12:28 pm.

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I spent a good portion of this weekend researching and writing 3rd grade level history questions as a part of my internship. It was kind of awesome in the, taking-home-work-is-so-adult kind of way. It also sucked because writing 3rd grade history questions for three hours can make you feel like an idiot and hate America and children all at once.

See, third grade kids don’t know that much about history. So when they only know like, thirty things, but you have to write 300 different questions, it becomes very difficult. Also, since the questions are for an electronic trivia game, I had character restrictions on how long the questions and answers had to be. For the matching type of question, where the kid pairs things from two lists (like “America at the turn of the 20th century” with “Imperialist fuckfaces”), everything on the left hand list must be seven characters or less, and the right hand side must be nine characters or less. Pop quiz: How many history questions can you write for 8 year olds if none of the questions can reference George “Ten Letters In His Last Name” Washington?

There were also some serious content restrictions, because they’re 3rd graders. So it wouldn’t be appropriate to ask a question like: “How many dipshits does it take to think Indian reservations make sense?” (Answer: I’m looking at you, Andrew Jackson). You can’t ask questions about casualties of war, because God forbid 8 year olds start to grasp that world history is often really a timeline of body counts.

I was actually drafted to edit and rewrite existing questions, mostly because they didn’t fit the appropriate format, but every now and then there were questions with wrong answers. Or just questions that made me lose my God damn liberal educational-elitist mind, which I replaced with questions that didn’t make me want to gouge out my eyes.

Here’s what I mean:

Fill in the blank: ______ was the cause of the civil war. (Answer: Slavery)

NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

I hate that simplification for many reasons, not the least of which being that it’s wrong. I hate it mostly because it teaches children that the south, being morally inferior to the north, started it, as though the most destructive war fought on U.S. soil was all their fault and the educated, industrialized north was some sort of knight of the fucking round table. That shit drives me nuts, and every time a child is taught it, Robert E. Lee rolls over in his grave. Lee, who, though misguided, was one of the greatest Americans that ever lived, and who honored and loved his troops more than perhaps any American general ever has or ever will. Lee, who became the model for how American leaders ought to behave when after the Battle of Gettysburg he said, “This is all my fault,” referring not to defeat, but rather the mass of death that his decisions had caused. All that is swept away when we teach the simplified version of history that lacks the nuances of reality. So I had to delete the question and replace it with something about Franklin Pierce.

Wait, do you know who Franklin Pierce is? I sure as shit didn’t remember.

The “Why the Fuck Not?” President

Pierce was the 14th president of the United States, and currently places second in the “Worst President” race after Warren G. Harding (although G. W. is about to make Harding look like the next Big Brown). So maybe we shouldn’t remember him. Here’s what I learned about him: He should never have been president. He was elected as the party nominee on the 49th fucking ballot. This is why both the electoral college and the party system are ri-god-damn-diculous. He wasn’t even considered until the 35th ballot. That’s right. They voted 34 times, deadlocked, and then said, “Fuck it, let’s put a private attorney from New Hampshire with no real accomplishments on the ballot, even though he hasn’t held an elected office in ten years.” And then he became president. Franklin Pierce became president because people got bored with re-votes.

Actually, much as I complain, the whole experience of writing all these questions was fascinating because I forgot how much fun learning was (it’s easy to forget learning is fun when you spend too much time in school). And as much as I hate the over-simplification, there is one charming thing about the G-rated, 3rd grade version of history. As much as I hate how they gloss over the truly horrible parts of the past (a.k.a. “history”), I do love the way history is presented as the study of individuals and not events. Kids don’t so much learn about the Battle of Camden as they do about George Washington, the man. And I like thinking of history that way, as a collection of dead people who did stuff, and now I’m here looking back and judging them. Because I can’t really imagine what winter must have been like in Valley Forge, but I can imagine what it must have been like for a man to watch his troops get sick, starved, and disconsolate.

Also, I learned that “Caligula” means “Little Boots.” That was pretty funny.

Carl Newman: appreciates when you don't feel like commenting, but still want to tell him what an asshole he is at warriorpoetresponds@gmail.com