That comment got me, too, but I don't think it invalidates the other arguments. History teachers need to teach students why history is important, and it's not so you won't be embarrassed when the press asks you about Pal Revere. History teaches us lessons that help us make better decisions today.
(In case its not clear, I'm mostly agreeing with you. :)
What caught my challenged attention was the juxtaposition of this:
“Mr. Khan stands exposed as possessing a historical perspective steeped in academia’s standard issue, postmodern, left-leaning narrative of cultural relativism, multiculturalism, and moral equivalence.”
And then this:
“In a sense, that’s what Internet personalization filters are already doing, creating an echo chamber where we only hear what we already believe. We can’t think about what we’ve never heard of.”
And here I thought coherence was always a fashionable accessory.
You're going to have to explain why you think this is incoherent if you want people to argue against your position.
Right now, it looks like you're saying that the first quote's adjectives describe a meta-viewpoint that need not be examined as a viewpoint in and of itself.
Sure enough. I think it is incoherent to stand against a viewpoint of multicultural interpretations of historical events while condemning Facebook's tailoring of news because it hampers multicultural interpretations of current events.
I might have read too much and falsely concluded that the author is against Khan’s “historical perspective steeped in academia’s standard issue, postmodern, left-leaning narrative of cultural relativism, multiculturalism, and moral equivalence.” The OP might be neutral about that, and simply exposing the necessity of balancing Khan’s against a different narrative¹. If so, either his articulation was obfuscated by the choice of words or I need to practice my English a lot.
¹. Never mind the fact that this rarely occurs in real classrooms.
It may not invalidate, but it puts them into perspective. Most of his rant seems to be about how in Khan's quick summary of WW2, the UHmericans aren't portrayed as the morally superior righteous warriors / soldiers that defeated the evil Hitler and stopped his wrongdoings. And the Bolsheviks shouldn't have been mentioned without the required nuances that would teach present-day students that communism is evil. Or maybe I'm just speculating, but that's how it got to me.
I think it's more complex than that; in his point of view, History of WWII shouldn't be taught this way, in large (huge?) brush strokes. He argues (IMO successfully) that you must go deeper in details to get at least a basic grasp of these important events, and give them some meaning.
Said differently, a simple list of loosely related facts simply doesn't constitute history; and to make the narrative compelling, understandable and memorable, you have to give at least one (and preferably several) explanation for the facts, else it's only kindergarten stories, not college-level material.
Now I didn't see this particular video; maybe it's just a quick overview of what's to come in a long list of upcoming courses.
The history section is sketchy and just a beginning. Instead of latching onto the fringe of the Academy, History (perhaps because the math was beyond him), the author might have constructively suggested how to beef it up, present multiple views, talk about morals vs perspective.
Instead he chose to bash a popular figure. Probably because it gets hits on his blog, but who knows, I'm cynical.
There are multiple and various reasons for studying history, whether this is articulated clearly in everyone's mind or not. Establish a baseline cultural past, instill moral values (ex. glorifying Person X's accomplishments), predict future results of actions, and entertainment are reasons that also spring to mind just off the top of the mind.
If history is being taught simply to teach decision-making skills, then using a case study format would be one possible way to improve the current teaching methods.
(In case its not clear, I'm mostly agreeing with you. :)