World History

Time was, the study of world history was essentially the study of war. Kings and the men they led were always marching somewhere or other in armor. Historians never seemed to get that an army moves on its stomach; the quest to capture and cook food was largely ignored. "For mainstream historians, the focus always seemed to be on history through war and kings, " says Amy Bentley, a professor of food history at New York University. "No one was too concerned about something as domestic as cooking.

Joan Arno, a social studies teacher at Oak Lane's Cooke Junior High School, has an infectious enthusiasm for sharing knowledge with her students. But in her world history courses, Arno says, another emotion surfaces: frustration. "I have a day and a half to do Napoleon," she said. "I covered Socrates, Aristotle and Plato in one period. I have to cover Greece in a week, the Middle Ages in three days. What can you possibly tell kids about Greece in so short a time that they will remember or understand, or that will excite them?"

When the students walked into James Culbertson's world history class at Benjamin Franklin High School one Monday last month, he handed each of them a penny. He asked them to look at the pennies as if they'd never seen one before, as if they'd just landed from Mars, and try to figure out something about the culture and people who made them. While that simple action may not seem to be the herald of a revolution - not even a particularly startling teaching technique - a revolution it is. Culbertson is one of 28 social studies teachers in 10 city high schools who are now testing the first part of a new world history curriculum that Philadelphia teachers themselves have been developing for two years.

DAN ROONEY'S letter on a slavery museum was on point. As an African-American man, I see no need of one. It's a spectacle that will bring more discord than harmony. What we do need is a movement to correct the wrongs of slavery. Open discussion about the biggest atrocity in American history (possibly world history) that has never been rectified. Slavery did take place all over the world in many countries, but I live in America. American slavery is what has and does affect my people, so that's what I am interested in. The state of black folk in America today is tied to slavery and is perpetuated by America's continued denial of this problem.

It's about time we did something about the teaching of history in our schools. As a nation, we have often debated and improved science, math and technical education. For too long, history has remained a poor orphan, a useless study (remember how Henry Ford informed us that "history is bunk"). Yet without it, we, individually and collectively, cannot easily survive. (Just try imagining that you know nothing about your past or that of your community; see how you feel.) So the flap over the recently published two volumes of National Standards for United States and World History is welcome.

Most of the students were bent over a textbook, trying to learn what they could about the life of early hominids so they could write about it. But one youth sat in a corner of Room 207 in Benjamin Franklin High School, wedged between the radiator and the back wall, his head flung back, his coat still on. Occasionally, he rubbed his side. He made no effort to do the work, and no effort to hide that he wasn't. His teacher, James Culbertson, made no effort to force him. "I don't feel good," said the youth, who added that he "didn't want his name in the paper.

New York history professor Leonard Jeffries Jr. told an audience at Temple University last night that he has been vilified for telling the truth. "As far as I'm concerned, I'm gone. They've lynched me," said Jeffries, chairman of African American Studies at City College of New York and a protest target since remarks he made in July were widely interpreted as anti-white and anti-Semitic. New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, as well as members of the Jewish and minority communities, have called for his removal from the City College faculty.

Brian Boitano was not the answer. Joyce Koh from Radnor High School knew that as soon she heard ". . . in 1948 and 1952" at the end of the question. She hit her buzzer and exclaimed: "Dick Button!" Button, the former Olympic skater and a television commentator, was the answer, not Boitano, as a student from Haverford High School had thought. From that point on, the eight-member team from Radnor never looked back, winning its sixth championship in 10 years at the Kimberly-Clark Hi-Q competition yesterday.

MARCOS HAD A BETTER SCAM THAN JIM BAKKER The death of Ferdinand E. Marcos brings to a close the long fall of the Jim and Tammy Bakker of international politics. Like the Bakkers, Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos imagined themselves to be worthy of an imperial life never dreamed of by those who willingly or not financed their opulent existence. Unlike the Bakkers, however, they were not dependent on the naivete of little old ladies willing to open their checkbooks in hopes of buying a little corner of heaven (or of Heritage USA)

Martin C. Noonan Jr., 67, a Salem educator and musician remembered for his unfailing willingness to "jump right in and help," died Tuesday at Memorial Hospital of Salem County in Mannington Township. A Salem native, Mr. Noonan graduated in 1949 from St. Joseph's University and received his master's degree from Temple University in the 1960s. He began his career in 1956, when he was hired to teach world history at Woodstown High School. Six years later, he became a guidance counselor for the district's middle and high schools, retiring from the Woodstown-Pilesgrove Regional School District in 1984 after 28 years.

IN RECENT MONTHS I've suggested in a new book that we may have become a "nation of wusses. " The reference comes, of course, from my criticism of a decision by the National Football League to cancel an Eagles game in 2010 because of the threat of some heavy snow.   In its larger ramification, the criticism applies to us and to what our lack of courage has done to us as a nation — and the dangers we will face because of it. Fortunately, we will soon have a place in Philadelphia where we can easily draw inspiration from a time when that criticism could not have been further from the truth.

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. - President Obama on Friday privately thanked some of the special military operators who killed Osama bin Laden. "Job well done," he said of their daring raid. In a series of closed-door meetings, Obama and Vice President Biden met with some of the special-operations forces who went on Monday's early-morning raid in Pakistan and with members of the broader assault force that supported the mission. "I came here for a simple reason: to say thank you on behalf of America," Obama told soldiers at Fort Campbell, the home of the 101st Airborne Division, after his private meetings.

Mattei Ion Radu, 28, of Radnor, a legal scholar, died of complications from asthma and heart disease Friday, May 7, in New York City after dining with friends. Mr. Radu was to receive a master's degree in law from New York University later this month. He earned a bachelor's degree and a law degree from Villanova University and a master's degree in international history from the London School of Economics. From 2007 to 2009, he taught history and jurisprudence at Villanova.

Mattei Ion Radu, 28, of Radnor, a legal scholar, died of complications from asthma and heart disease Friday, May 7, in New York City after dining with friends. Mr. Radu was to receive a master's degree in law from New York University later this month. He earned a bachelor's degree and a law degree from Villanova University and a master's degree in international history from the London School of Economics. From 2007 to 2009, he taught history and jurisprudence at Villanova. He wrote articles on topics including the Soviet Union, the Cold War, and post-World War II German constitutional law, and they were published in the Villanova Law Review, the Southern University Law Review, the Campbell Law Review, and the University of St. Thomas Journal of Law & Public Policy.

I have long valued the rich tales of American history I have heard throughout my life. From my childhood, when my father would drive hundreds of miles out of the way on family trips to see famed historic sites, to my time studying history in graduate school at Villanova University, it is the remarkable stories that have always drawn me to connect with the events in America's past. Now that I am a father, I have sought to pass along that same love of history to my children. One tale in particular that I have always enjoyed sharing with them is told in the poem "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere," by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

DAN ROONEY'S letter on a slavery museum was on point. As an African-American man, I see no need of one. It's a spectacle that will bring more discord than harmony. What we do need is a movement to correct the wrongs of slavery. Open discussion about the biggest atrocity in American history (possibly world history) that has never been rectified. Slavery did take place all over the world in many countries, but I live in America. American slavery is what has and does affect my people, so that's what I am interested in. The state of black folk in America today is tied to slavery and is perpetuated by America's continued denial of this problem.

Time was, the study of world history was essentially the study of war. Kings and the men they led were always marching somewhere or other in armor. Historians never seemed to get that an army moves on its stomach; the quest to capture and cook food was largely ignored. "For mainstream historians, the focus always seemed to be on history through war and kings, " says Amy Bentley, a professor of food history at New York University. "No one was too concerned about something as domestic as cooking.

Philadelphia's decision to require an African American history course for graduation has unleashed a debate among historians and again highlighted how controversial it is for schools to decide what to teach about the past and how to teach it. Some support the move - a national first - and say the long-neglected subject is integral to understanding U.S. and world history. And, they say, it's a subject important to emphasize in a school system in which two-thirds of the students are African American.

African history will benefit student majority Kudos to the School Reform Commission for its mandate requiring high school students to study African and African American history in order to graduate ("Phila. school mandate: African history," June 9). This is a very positive and progressive step that will be very beneficial to the students, the schools, and the community as a whole. Since the district's student body is two-thirds African American, it is obvious that learning the history of their people will be a positive thing for these kids.

Here's the deal. You've gone to Act II Playhouse in Ambler to see a show called The Big Bang, but find that you are in a swank New York apartment attending a backers audition for a proposed Broadway musical that, surprise, has the same title as the show you've come to see. And what an ambitious musical it is! It aims to cover the history of the world from the origins of the universe until almost yesterday; will cost $83.5 million; will have a cast of 318. But since the two guys who hope to put on the show don't have money to hire actors to preview it for potential backers, they announce that they, with only the help of a piano player, are going to perform a sampling of numbers themselves.