When you're in the hospital, you're at the mercy of the TV gods. I'm kind of surprised I didn't get any M*A*S*H in. I almost always do. And no Gunsmoke, either. Very odd. But thankfully the hospital gets a few good channels: TVLand, Comedy Central, AMC and FX. I was usually stuck with The Office, which I've seen a million times and is somehow still good, but not even Comedy Central can show it 24/7.
So I lucked out with some Andy on TVLand. It may come as a surprise to a lot of people, but I like The Andy Griffith Show. Well, let me rephrase. I like all but the final season of tAGS, the one without Don Knotts. For some reason unfathomable to me, that last season focused on all the morality lessons everyone remembers the show for. Before that season, the morals were kind of fucked. Like, never tell anyone the truth if it's going to hurt their feelings. That's a major theme with those early seasons. Maybe they needed to lean on something else since Barney was no longer in Mayberry. I give Don Knotts a lot of grief, but he really was good as Barney. Better than good, supreme. He did such a good job that I'm sure there are people to this day who think he wasn't acting, that he really is like that, Mr. Furley not withstanding.
Anyway, one of my favorite episodes came on while I was in the hospital, the one where the kids have a new teacher. She does things a little different from the old teacher, and it's driving Opie crazy. At breakfast he tells his dad that history homework is too hard for him, and Andy makes the mistake of saying that he never had a head for history. He says that as long as Opie does the best he can honestly do, then he'd be proud of his son regardless of the outcome.
At this point Barney can't wait to tell everyone that he was an A++++++ history student. When Andy tests him on the Emancipation Proclamation, Barney does everything he can do to get out of answering the question EXCEPT answering it.
Regardless, Opie ignores the part about doing his best and misinterprets what Andy actually told him. When he's called on by the teacher the next day, he digs in his heels and tells her that his dad said he didn't have to do his history homework. A few other boys in class join his cause, which understandably angers the teacher. She then goes to visit Andy at his office and reads him the Riot Act.
Andy doesn't even attempt to try to explain what actually happened. Instead he feels lower than whale shit and then tricks the boys into becoming avid history fans.
I'm sure by now you've figured out why this episode appeals to me so much. Unlike Barney I'm not going to tell you I was an A+++++ history student. I got Bs and Cs in school. But I love the fuck out of history. So much crazy shit has happened over the course of known history (to say nothing of delicious speculation as to what happened during the time when history is lost to us!) I find it impossible to believe that people don't think history is interesting. Why isn't the entire country made up of people like Andy's Mayberry Minutemen?
The fault is with school, unfortunately. Teachers do a difficult enough job without me piling more shit on them, but the way history is taught is atrocious. Historical figures are just that. They're not people. They never lived and breathed because we're not supposed to understand them as people. But before they were a bunch of words in stolid history books, they *were* people. People who picked their noses. Who didn't know everything. Who sometimes did the best they could and sometimes did the worst they could on purpose.
I remember I was in college reading a Graham Swift novel for a postmodernism class when I saw him do the history/his story thing. That was the first time I'd seen that, and it opened up the world to me. History should be taught like a STORY, not a series of names and dates and acts to be memorized. When Andy convinces the kids that history is actually fun, he describes it as a story with characters and plot. That gets the kids' engines running, and the next thing their teacher knows, they're fighting each other over who gets to explain the founding of Jamestown.
There's another thing teachers do that gets in the way, but I'm not going to get too much into it. I already said my piece, but the other thing is that American institutions want history to be taught ideally. What I mean is, they want America's kids to grow up to be productive members of society, and it's helpful if they just believe a bunch of comfortable lies instead of learning what may have actually happened. You already know my opinion of that kind of thing. The most common example being, hey, Thomas Jefferson! What a genius! Can you imagine what this country would be like without his guidance? And he was the third president of the country! Completely ignoring that the man who said all men are created equal owned slaves and fathered at least one child with a slave. Just knowing that is enough to fuck a lot of people up. So perhaps we shouldn't introduce the idea that the sex might not have been consensual, at least until they get their head around that first part.
Most of what I learned about history is stuff I had to unlearn because it was bullshit stuffed into my head in an attempt to make me into an obedient taxpayer. If you want to see an example of how history *should* be taught, check out Hardcore History. But you knew I'd say that. You've been reading these things for quite a while.
Goodnight, you lovely fuckers.
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