I have a legitimate problem with professors who have PhD’s or JD’s but truly don’t know how to teach. You can be the smartest person in the world, but sometimes, your place in the world isn’t always in the classroom.
There is a certain professor of mine teaching a history course that supposedly consists of the entirety of the 20th century in Europe. Now, I’m not sure what you think about this general topic but I find it hard to teach a course about 20th century Europe while pretending things like D-Day, the Somme, French occupation of the Rhineland, and the Battle of the Bulge never happened. Apparently, what tickles my professor’s fancy is women’s rights and the “modern woman” and the Holocaust. I will agree with her and whoever is reading my blog- these things are extremely important. But how can you ignore the deaths of soldiers during the war? How can you ignore the colossal battles that reshaped the entire war? You simply can’t.
I also despise history classes that turn into book report fun-time classes. Apparently, in the eyes of my professor, reading historical fiction is the academic masturbation equivalent to Sam Huntington making love with George W. Bush.
The Holocaust was a terrible thing. No one can deny that. But there is no reason why a class should surround lessons on World War II precisely around it. There were a lot of other things that happened during the war. I can name a few off the top of my head that I think are just as important, if not far more important than women’s rights and the harping upon 6 million dead Jews versus the other 5 million Catholics, homosexuals, gypsies, and priests that were killed as well. For some reason, everyone forgets the latter. Alas, I digress.
Keynesian Economics – This was the time period where Mr. John Maynard Keynes had a fucking ball. The next time I hear that Keynes was a free market advocate, I’m going to light a dollar bill on fire in commemoration of Thomas Jefferson. Keynes saw the collapse of the old Republics as the prime opportunity to show Europe why socialism is amazing and free markets are crap. But we all know the truth. Socialism is for pansies and free markets are for the truly intelligent. But why is this important? BECAUSE WE ARE STILL PRACTICING THE “SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC” BEHAVIOR OF WORLD WAR II. BUT IS THIS MENTIONED IN CLASS? NO, OF COURSE NOT.
D-Day was a great time. No, not really. after 150,000 American, Canadian, and British forced stormed the shores of Normandy, my professor decides to pretend it never happened. No, instead, looking at pictures of Germans line up for fresh meat rationing is far more important than 10,000 maimed soldiers lying dead or dying on, of all places, a French beach.
There’s nothing better than watching a bunch of Soviets prancing around German countryside realizing that Berlin is just a few miles away. Although my professor would rather talk about how German women were raped, I still think that the Battle of Berlin was just a tad more important in the grander scheme of things. Oh that’s right, it’s because the battle gave us the Cold War, WHICH HAPPENED IN EUROPE.
