Blog Post Two

Question: To what extent is the teaching of history and the perception indoctrinated on our youth affecting their perception of cultural ideologies and differences long term? I would locate primary sources for this question by interviewing teachers in K-12th grade on the curriculum they teach their students and identifying if said curriculum is truthful, or a watered down version of what happened. I would also like to interview the students as to what they have learned and how their view of topics such as the discovery of America, The founding fathers and slavey, different economic theories such as socialism, and communism, as well as their perception of capitalism. Obviously the intricacies of modern economics would be lost upon a kinder-gardener but my point still stands. From there i would identify any outstanding biases provided by family members to accurately identify the correlation between the teaching of a certain subject and how those people view those same subjects today. I would gather historical sources more to prove my case to those whom i would interview, such as documents citing the origin of communism and the primary ambitions of it, the true history of things and phrases deemed to be racist by todays standards, such as the confederate flag and the term “slave”. My findings may suggest that outside sources such as the internet or familial influences had more to do with someones perception of cultural scenarios than the educational aspect of it; which would change my question to one regarding the influences of familial bias and heritage’s influence on the perception of cultural aspects and neglect the educational side more or less. With the materials available the only struggle i would have is the interviewing process amidst a global pandemic, but a good place to start would be social justice protests such as that of the Black Lives Matter movement, but in the spirit of fairness i would also have to see what the opposition had to say as to avoid any unwanted biases. I have not yet started looking for sources to further my research, but i would imagine the vast majority of what i would look for would be digitized, i’m sure that some pictures that could help me build my case for those I choose to interview have been lost in time, but none that i can think of right now. My next steps would be to draw up questions to ask my interviewees, then in an unbiased and strictly factual way answer my own questions while documenting the process. Then set up my interviews and ask them the questions, provide them with the facts, and ask their view on both historical and modern topics of cultural differences while documenting the progress.