So I was teaching a demo lesson today and the topic was the beginning of U.S. Expansion under Jefferson. To get the students into the lesson I showed them the "Elbow Room" Song from School House Rocks.
This particular song from the uber-patriotic America Rock volume is actually quite disturbing. It essentially explains that the reason why the U.S needed to expand was so everybody(white folks that is) could have some space to shake their elbows up and down like a chicken. A nice simplification of history and yet that is not the songs fatal and disturbing flaw. Elbow Room.... Elbow Room. What does that remind me of???? Oh I don't know... Germany 1930's Adolph Hitler "We need Breathing Room" The German idea of Lebensraum or Living Space(available only to Aryans) seems a little to similar to America Rock's Elbow Room(only for "white Americans"). You would think that in the 1970's Americans would notice this comparison and not indoctrinate the youth of America in regards to Elbow Room.
4 comments:
Wow! Could I take American History with you? Sounds like a great lesson!
yeah. too bad you stole the lebensraum idea from me, you thief...
Bah. I hereby release the concept of equating schoolhouse rocks to national socialism to the public domain.
Safer, nothing if not generous... :)
That's funny; I was a kid in the 70s and I don't ever remember SchoolHouse Rock indoctrinating me into the Aryan brotherhood or telling me to obliterate millions of non-whites.
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