Historical Thoughts and Interpretations

In this episode we look at the ethics from Ancient Greek philosopher Plato and the 18th-century Prussian thinker Emmanuel Kant.  How did they differ in how they defined right vs. wrong action?  What categories do their ethics fall into?

It is the 50th episode!  In this much shorter, much more "shot out of the cannon" episode, I give my personal impressions of President Yoon Seok Yeol's attempt at a coup in South Korea, as well as the recent fall of the Assad government in Syria.  For the latter, I focus on some of the implications for Russia.

Here are some other sources that may give more background information:

South Korea:

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-korea-politics-live-lawmakers-set-vote-president-yoons-impeachment-2024-12-07/

Syria:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5t4AoMuBiE

In this episode, we will look at the educational changes in British Columbia, which launched a new curriculum in September 2016.  We will look at what changed, the rationales for such changes, criticisms, and how politics can affect education.

Sources:

“A Framework for Classroom Assessment.” British Columbia Ministry of Education. Accessed November 21, 2023. https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/sites/curriculum.gov.bc.ca/files/pdf/assessment/a-framework-for-classroom-assessment.pdf.

“All about the Foundation Skills Assessment.” British Columbia Ministry of Education.  Online brochure.  Accessed November 21, 2023.  https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/sites/curriculum.gov.bc.ca/files/pdf/assessment/fsa/en-foundation-skills-assessment-for-parents-and-caregivers.pdf.

“B.C. First Peoples 12.” British Columbia Ministry of Education.  Accessed November 21, 2023.  https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/social-studies/12/bc-first-peoples

“BC’s Redesigned Curriculum: An Orientation Guide.” British Columbia Ministry of Education. Online brochure. https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/sites/curriculum.gov.bc.ca/files/pdf/supports/curriculum_brochure.pdf.

“Core Competencies.” Government of British Columbia.  Accessed November 21, 2023. https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/competencies.

“First Peoples Principles of Learning. First Nations Education Steering Committee.  Accessed November 21, 2023.  https://www.fnesc.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/PUB-LFP-POSTER-Principles-of-Learning-First-Peoples-poster-11x17.pdf.

“Foundation Skills Assessment.” BC Teachers’ Federation.  Accessed November 21, 2023. https://www.bctf.ca/topics/services-information/research-and-education-issues/fsa.

“Indigenous Languages of British Columbia.” British Columbia Ministry of Education.  Accessed November 21, 2023. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/education-training/k-12/teach/resources-for-teachers/curriculum/indigenous-languages.

“Introduction to Social Studies.” British Columbia Ministry of Education.  Accessed November 21, 2023. https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/social-studies/introduction.

“Program for International Student Assessment (PISA).” National Center for Education Statistics.  Accessed November 21, 2023. https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/.

“Request that your child be excused from the FSA.” BC Teachers’ Federation.  Printable form. Revised August 2023. https://www.bctf.ca/docs/default-source/advocacy-and-issues/withdraw-your-child-from-the-fsa.pdf.

“Social Studies.” British Columbia Ministry of Education.  Accessed November 21, 2023. https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/social-studies.

Fu, Hong, Tim Hopper, and Kathy Sanford. “New BC Curriculum and Communicating Student Learning in an Age of Assessment for Learning.” Alberta Journal of Educational Research 64-3, (Fall 2018): 264-86.  https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/ajer/article/view/56425/pdf. 

Kachur, Jerrold L. and Trevor W. Harrison. “Introduction: Public Education, Globalization, and Democracy: Whither Alberta?” In Contested Classrooms: Education, Globalization, and Democracy in Alberta.  Edited by Trevor W. Harrison and Jerrold L. Kachur, xiii-xxxv.  Edmonton: The University of Alberta Press, 1999.

MacPherson, Paige and Joel Emes.  “Worrying Trends in BC’s Testing of Grade 10 Students.” Fraser Institute (January 2022).  https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/worrying-trends-in-bcs-testing-of-grade-10-students.pdf.

Peterson, Amelia. “Education Transformation in British Columbia.” Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution (February 2023). https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED626332.pdf.

Pocklington, Tom.  “The Marketing of the University.” In Contested Classrooms: Education, Globalization, and Democracy in Alberta.  Edited by Trevor W. Harrison and Jerrold L. Kachur, 45-55.  Edmonton: The University of Alberta Press, 1999.

Zwaagstra, Michael. “The Decline of Standardized Testing in Canada.” Fraser Institute.  March 29, 2022. https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/decline-of-standardized-testing-in-canada.

In this episode, we look at some of the factors and effects of centralization in pre-modern European states such as England, Spain, and the Ottoman Empire.  We also briefly analyze why the German-centered Holy Roman Empire failed to centralize effectively.

This episode is a little different in that I just introduce a series that I am planning to develop.  In this series, I will look at, compare, and contrast different types of communism.  Communism, like so many other broad topics in history, is not a monolith.  There is variation and change, and there are many different manifestations of communist ideology, with the most well-known ones being Soviet Stalinism and Chinese Maoism.  There are other forms of communism as well, such as Ho Chi Minh Thought, Juche, and the forms of communism that governed Yugoslavia, Cambodia, and Albania.  There are even communist parties in Canada and the United States.

I want to look deeper into these ideologies.  While I won't promise to look at all these variations of communist thought, I certainly plan to look into them and see how they were similar to and different from each other.  What were their impacts on history?  What framework should I use to analyze them?  Take a listen to this episode to find out!

In this episode, I interview Professor Natalia Telepneva.  She is a Lecturer in International History at the University of Strathclyde.  Her specialty is the Cold War-era Soviet Union and socialism, with a specific focus on Africa.  And today we will discuss her first book, "Cold War Liberation: The Soviet Union and the Collapse of the Portuguese Empire in Africa, 1961-1975," in which she details the roles of Soviet and even Czechoslovak bureaucrats and spies in the anti-colonialist wars in Portugal's African colonies of Guinea-Bissau, Angola, and Mozambique.  We will talk about what connected the Soviet Union with the local independence movements, how the Communist Soviet government supported Marxism-inspired leaders in Portuguese Africa, and how the anti-colonial wars played out.  You may download Professor Telepneva's book as a free e-book at this link.

Image: Portion of a 1987 Soviet stamp remembering the 10th anniversary of a Friendship and Cooperation agreement between the Soviet Union and Mozambique.  The time of this stamp is outside the scope of this podcast, but I thought it was an appropriate image. Credit: Wikipedia.

Note: We did experience some connection issues during the interview, so I apologize for that.  Between timestamps 11:49-55, Prof. Telepneva meant to mention the Central Committee (of the USSR's Communist Party) and its International Department.

In this episode we will take a very brief look into the lives of British Empire Loyalists after they moved to what remained of British North America after the Thirteen Colonies won the American Revolutionary War.  What prompted Loyalists to leave the Thirteen Colonies?  What issues did they face in what is modern Canada?  How did the British government respond?

Please note: at about 13:13 I said "hypothetical." It should be "hypocritical."

In this episode I give a short review of Catherine Merridale's excellent book "Ivan's War: The Red Army 1939-45."  The book brought the Soviet WWII experience to light in the Western market, which has usually been filled with war stories from Western Allied sides or even the Germans.

[Re-uploaded October 24, 2022]: In this episode, I go a little bit beyond what I discussed in the last entry.  Last time, I used Hayden White's literary framework to try and categorize an old Russian history textbook.  Today I critique White's framework a bit further.  I also talk more broadly about two types of historical works - historical research and historical fiction.  I argue that, contrary to White's position, historians are different from novelists.  I also give some cautions that must be considered when crafting or reading historical fiction.

I re-uploaded this episode because in my first upload, I made a mistake at about 26:00-27:00.  I had mentioned a film that I believed was making an anachronism, but I later found out it wasn't.  Hence, I decided to change that part and put the episode up again to correct my mistake.

And apologies for another mistake at about timestamp 16:14, where I called a history book "A History of Europe Under Roman Rule." It should have been "A History of Egypt Under Roman Rule."

Today I analyze one of my old Russian history textbooks, A History of Russia, the Soviet Union, and Beyond: Sixth Edition, 2002, written by David MacKenzie and Michael W. Curran.  I use the literary framework of Hayden White to categorize the textbook, and I give some of my thoughts on it.