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    Social Criticism-The Liberation of Rome

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    Jordan Tothill
    1) The document discusses a story where a history teacher, Dr. Radlisch, is confronted by his student Amy Buleric, a Vandal, about inaccuracies in the Roman history curriculum. Amy asserts that the Roman accounts are biased and amount to lies about the Vandals. 2) Amy exercises power over the teacher through her extensive knowledge of history, which causes him to rethink his lessons and allow her to skip an assignment. The school system also wields power in determining what is taught. 3) The author argues that the history taught in schools may present a one-sided view and not represent the whole truth. Institutions shape what people are taught to think in a standardized way that

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    Social Criticism-The Liberation of Rome

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    Jordan Tothill
    9 views2 pages
    1) The document discusses a story where a history teacher, Dr. Radlisch, is confronted by his student Amy Buleric, a Vandal, about inaccuracies in the Roman history curriculum. Amy asserts that the Roman accounts are biased and amount to lies about the Vandals. 2) Amy exercises power over the teacher through her extensive knowledge of history, which causes him to rethink his lessons and allow her to skip an assignment. The school system also wields power in determining what is taught. 3) The author argues that the history taught in schools may present a one-sided view and not represent the whole truth. Institutions shape what people are taught to think in a standardized way that

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    1) The document discusses a story where a history teacher, Dr. Radlisch, is confronted by his student Amy Buleric, a Vandal, about inaccuracies in the Roman history curriculum. Amy asserts that the Roman accounts are biased and amount to lies about the Vandals. 2) Amy exercises power over the teacher through her extensive knowledge of history, which causes him to rethink his lessons and allow her to skip an assignment. The school system also wields power in determining what is taught. 3) The author argues that the history taught in schools may present a one-sided view and not represent the whole truth. Institutions shape what people are taught to think in a standardized way that

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    9 views2 pages

    Social Criticism-The Liberation of Rome

    Uploaded by

    Jordan Tothill
    1) The document discusses a story where a history teacher, Dr. Radlisch, is confronted by his student Amy Buleric, a Vandal, about inaccuracies in the Roman history curriculum. Amy asserts that the Roman accounts are biased and amount to lies about the Vandals. 2) Amy exercises power over the teacher through her extensive knowledge of history, which causes him to rethink his lessons and allow her to skip an assignment. The school system also wields power in determining what is taught. 3) The author argues that the history taught in schools may present a one-sided view and not represent the whole truth. Institutions shape what people are taught to think in a standardized way that

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    of 2

    Wednesday, October 1, 2014

    ENG-3U1
    Social Criticism: The Liberation of Rome

    1) In this story, I believe that there is more than one thing in power. One of the people in
    power would be Dr. Radlisch’s student, Amy Buleric. She is in power over the professor
    because she is her knowledge of history and her being a Vandal is making the professor
    wary of her a bit. It also got him to allow her to not write a paper that she was supposed
    to. Amy being a Vandal, knowing her history and confronting the teacher about telling lies
    made the teacher rethink about his teaching and how he should properly teach history.
    Another thing in power, I believe, is history itself. Dr. Radlisch teaches Roman history,
    and Roman history was most likely written by the Romans, defaming the Vandals. Since
    the Roman “history” is technically lies to the Vandals, this is what makes Amy confront
    Dr. Radlisch and since it’s most likely the only type of Roman history known, that’s why
    Dr. Radlisch teaches it. The “higher-ups” in the school system would have power as well.
    History is in power over everyone.
    2) Amy is in power because she doesn’t like what Dr. Radlisch is teaching. To her, the
    Roman “history” is lies, because what is written is in favor of Rome, and the Vandals are
    taught to be worse than they are. Because of this, she confronts Dr. Radlisch about it and
    her extensive knowledge makes him allow her to not write a paper because of her
    traditions and he still gives her a decent mark even though she skipped the rest of the
    classes because of her knowledge of history. The “higher-ups” in the school system is in
    power because they would create the basis of what has to be taught to students. The
    system is what is making Dr. Radlisch teach the “facts” in Roman history to students.
    History itself is also in power because it made Dr. Radlisch teach the way he is teaching
    and Amy think the way she does.
    3) The way Amy exercised her power is to try and get Dr. Radlisch from teaching lies as
    Roman history, and to get him to understand the Vandals and the Vandal tradition. The
    way that history exercised power over Dr. Radlisch was to get him to teach the way he
    did before Amy told him that the “history” he was teaching were all lies. The way that
    history exercised power over Amy is that the fact that Dr. Radlisch was teaching lies was
    what brought her to tell him so. Also, we’re not fully aware if the history that Amy learned
    was truly accurate as well.
    4) In this case, the system of authority in this story mirrors ours similarly. The school system
    is similar because they tell teachers what has to be taught every year, for example, in
    music, rather than just playing music, music theory has to be taught as well. Or that in
    math, math has to be taught a certain way when there is probably more than one way to
    teach it. In the story, the school system probably tells Dr. Radlisch that he has to teach
    from a certain textbook or something, and that has the lies that Amy mentioned. It is also
    similar because history influences what we learn about as well. Just like in the story, the
    type of history that was written influences Dr. Radlisch’s teaching, which influenced
    Amy’s idea to tell him the truth, and because of the history that was written, that
    influenced the Vandals to somewhat go into hiding.
    5) If I was a part of this society, I would probably believe what the teacher was teaching, if I
    weren’t a Vandal. However, if I were a Vandal in that society, I would probably do what
    Amy did, and confront him about it, especially if it went against Vandal traditions.
    6) I think that the author’s message regarding the system of power is that all history taught
    may not be true, as the history we learn can be all one-sided towards a certain “side”,
    especially depending on the type of history being taught. For example, since we learn
    Canadian History, the history we learn, based on the wars Canada participated in may be
    different from another country’s history based on the same wars they participated in
    because it can be biased towards that country, without knowing the other “sides’”
    thoughts or reasons for doing certain things. After all, “History is written by the winners.”
    7) I think the only institution given importance in this story is school. It is given importance
    because that is where history is taught. It is also what started the conflict in this story.
    8) I think the author’s attitude toward the school system is negative, based on how Amy was
    acting in this story. She confronted the teacher about teaching lies, which may mean that
    the author thought that teachers only teach what they are told to teach, and telling them
    to teach it in a certain way, without letting them think that what they teach might be
    wrong.
    9) I feel that the author is thinking that society may be improved if perhaps, we find the
    “truth” to what we teach and making sure we teach the truth, rather than some biased
    version of the truth that we think is correct.
    10) Society is divided based on what people think, and what the institutions are making
    people think. I think that institutions are making people think a certain way, making them
    think that what they learn is the “truth”, and that they should learn a certain way. I think
    that some people may think differently, and some may definitely feel differently. Some
    may feel that the institution’s way of teaching doesn’t work for them and that they want to
    be taught differently, but they can’t fully be taught a different way without getting extra
    help because that’s not how the teachers are taught to teach.
    11) I think that the author does make valid points in this story. I agree with the author in terms
    of the history we have been taught may be in bias towards the country that is being
    taught. For example, in Canadian history, it can be biased towards Canadians, just like in
    this story; Roman history was biased towards the Romans. Also, I agree with the thought
    that the schooling institution makes teachers only do and teach things a certain way,
    which may not work on others, meaning that some have to be taught differently but aren’t
    because of the institution.

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