A lot of schools in the U.S. are named after people with problematic pasts. This is prompting districts all over to propose school name changes, which in turn causes big debates in these communities. What do you think - when is it the right call to cancel a school's name, and when should we just leave "well enough alone"?

Whenever we are tackling a big project at work, we typically start with the "low hanging fruit" and then tackle the more difficult problems. I see this as no different: we, as a society, are working on the things that have the least impact to our culture before gearing up to take on the "big" stuff. Small discomforts acclimate us to be able to handle big discomforts.

@AboveTheNoise

2 жыл бұрын

Also, if student voices were a part of the decision-making process for renaming a school (and students rarely do have a big say on this issue), it could be a great starting point for learning about how to wrestle with thorny issues.

My HS’s name was the result of a two schools merging and the students were miraculously given the choice of which name to keep, and which mascot to adopt. I like the idea of having the students choose the mascots that reflect themselves rather than their parents.

@AboveTheNoise

2 жыл бұрын

Yep, we heard that same sentiment from a lot of students we talked to.

@lanebatts26

Жыл бұрын

and then change it every 50 years so you have no connection to history. yay, sounds... idiotic

My HS used to be the Demons…. It was later changed to the Golden Knights lol…

Myles, great points in tackling a current but very controversial topic. One of the challenges with looking into our heroes is that no one is perfect and confirmation bias always affects how be judge people so I am not sure how to get it right. I was trying to think of someone that people would consider objectively good and I thought of Martin Luthur King Jr. but then I considered he was a Southern Baptist Minister so I am pretty sure there are some people would not agree with what he said from the pulpit. Since most of those are probably on record and I am sure there are a lot of the, so to I think that someone that was passionate enough about it would be able to find a lot to cite - and they would probably do it after they found out about the name change.

4:13 changing the name will mean something to the people it directly affected at the time, but little else to the people to follow. Often times, the namesake of the school doesn't even come up as an issue for attending students unless it's made one.

@AboveTheNoise

2 жыл бұрын

That's interesting. Many of the students we spoke to for this episode were actually pretty involved in the school name debates happening here in San Francisco. And in researching the episode, students themselves were often at the frontlines of the efforts to change the name of schools named after confederate figures.

I think that naming schools after like scientific theories would be pretty kickass imo. "What school did you go to" "I went to Doppler Effect" A good chance to keep a fact with you your whole life (the definition of your school). The only downside of course is that science gets proven wrong pretty regularly, so we would come back to the problem of having to rename things after they're outdated. Suggestion number 2? We name schools with the same names we give people, but it's not after anyone, it's just a name. "I went to Clarissa high school" Other than that I know there's a lot of schools already named after things that aren't historical figures, actually there's only one in my city that's named after a person as far as I know. Others are named after the city or street the school is on, or it's a phrase from another language, or just absolute nonsense to me.

@AboveTheNoise

2 жыл бұрын

Love the idea of naming after scientific theories. If they get disproven, imagine the learning moment for students - especially if they are responsible for coming up with a new theoretical namesake!

Everywhere I turn I see the names of English Colonialism sprinkled with a little French, Scottish and so forth but the school I attended for my first two years of primary was named for its town which was given an aboriginal name in 1884. I prefer the idea of naming schools for street names like Maple, Elm or 5th Avenue, or even things like P.S. #17 etc.

@AboveTheNoise

2 жыл бұрын

Good ideas! Myles came up with his own idea for what/whom schools should be named after towards the end of the video...check it out!

@lanebatts26

Жыл бұрын

you need to leave then

Unfortunately Canceling Jefferson, will mean canceling the good he did too. Always remember, there is no perfect human. I will say the bad he did was horrific.

Celebrations of the losers? First name that popped to mind: Guy Fawkes Day. There is a celebration and icon with a weird and complicated history and radically different interpretations by the celebrants themselves.

@AboveTheNoise

2 жыл бұрын

Oh wow, explain more!

@thomasr.jackson2940

2 жыл бұрын

@@AboveTheNoise about Guy Fawkes? Failed in a plot to blow up the English parliament, and was executed with the rest of the conspiracy. Celebrations over his defeat with bonfires. A new Catholic King made that problematic, overthrowing a Catholic king made it fashionable, then people started thinking a guy wanting to blow up the government can’t be all bad. Folks started wearing his masks (V for Vendetta uses this). Now Guy Fawkes haters and Guy Fawkes admirers celebrate the same holiday, often at the same places. It is just a weird, and very British, thing. Folks love rebels. It resonates. The most famous of rebels against the US were pretty “problematic” though, and harder for moderns to relate to, or even want to relate to.

@AboveTheNoise

2 жыл бұрын

@@thomasr.jackson2940 thanks for that recap - gotta learn more now! Fascinating to think about the cultural differences between countries when it comes to whom they celebrate, and why and how they celebrate them.

My high school was just named after the town it was in. Easy and drama free.

@AboveTheNoise

2 жыл бұрын

Unless...your town is named after a figure with a problematic past!

@TrekkieBrie

2 жыл бұрын

@@AboveTheNoise very true! Thankfully my town was named after a direction. We were very plain haha.

We have a similar debate in the UK too. Good Video!

As non-american I don't get why schools have to be named after historical figures. Why can't they just be named by their location? Much more practical for everyone involved. If you hear the name of the school you know where it is (or at least general area).

My high school is a mash of the three cities in our district Nordonia Hills (northfield, macedonia, Sagamore hills). Mascot was a knight. Idk it worked though lol

If you want to name schools after perfect human beings you are going to run out of candidates very soon.

Those who went to PS-138 probably have a different perspective. Every historical figure I looked up to growing up have been found to have done terrible things. You wouldn't name a school after Ned Ludd or Zaphod Beeblebrox although I might. Maybe a question to consider is who should be naming schools? Towns? Streets?

@AboveTheNoise

2 жыл бұрын

Good point. We suggest towards the end of the video another alternative option for naming schools...check it out!

I have a simple metric for if a school name/ statue/ whatever should be changed. What do we honor them for? is that something we honor today? If the second question is yes, then it should stay

@AboveTheNoise

2 жыл бұрын

Ah, if only it were so simple! Unfortunately, most historical figures (like all humans) have done SOME things we honor today, and SOME things we abhor today. Seems like humans have had inconsistent integrity throughout time.

@ryanmcfall1127

2 жыл бұрын

@@AboveTheNoise What do people honor about the confederate generals?

@AboveTheNoise

2 жыл бұрын

@@ryanmcfall1127 good question. In our research, some people DO feel that the confederacy was about states' rights and they value that. Now, whether or not that is an accurate opinion is a whole other topic.

@ryanmcfall1127

2 жыл бұрын

@@AboveTheNoise But you wouldn't agree with that (from what i can tell) so using my metric, you'd probably agree what confederate stuff should not be on schools. But for someone like George Washington, who we honor for leading America to a representative republic and not being power hungry (as he's the one who started the trend of only being president for 8 years when he could have easily stayed longer) should not be canceled despite the abhorrent things he did (like own slaves). My point with this metric is to account for how we typically perceive those who are honored, we remember them and teach about them to show the next generation what they did right and what they should strive to do. Every public figure has some skeletons in their closet, so only keeping historical figures that have done no wrong would lead to having no role models at all

My high school wasn’t (past tense because I’m in college now) named after a person, so never

@AboveTheNoise

2 жыл бұрын

That was definitely one way around this controversy.

Why say cancel? They're trying to change the names, not erase or silence dead people?

What is the issue with Ben Franklin?

We Americans do like naming things for people with no connection to a place. It is odd. As you say, why people at all? In the US a lot of it came from a conscious effort to build national myths and heroes. A very questionable endeavor. On the other hand I think we can do better than, say, PS47 or the like.

@AboveTheNoise

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah, what SHOULD we name schools after? Let's get creative! Myles came up with one idea towards the end of the video...check it out!

Nah ppl will still find a way to make animal schools a race or gender issue. Why did you choose the brown bear over the black bear!? How dare you assume the gender of the schools mascot!

3:25: ALL humans are imperfect. If you want to avoid this, schools should be named Smalltown High School #1, #2, etc. But what is you live in Washington DC? Washington owned slaves... Oy!

I don't really see the point to be honest. It doesn't do any good and just distracts us from tackling the real issues. But I guess if people really want to rename schools then why not? I guess it just seems like a waste of time to me. As the saying goes, a rose by a another name smells just as sweet.

Eh, if they are going to remove my school name they are kinda going to have to remove the name of my town and my county as well.

@AboveTheNoise

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah, it can go deep and get REALLY expensive. In Marin County, the Sir Francis Drake High School name change was a big controversy, but that also applied to the main thoroughfare also being named after the dude.

As a gen Xer who attended Thomas Jefferson H.S in Elizabeth NJ. I would 100% support its name getting changed to Melissa Viviane Jefferson Highschool (aka Lizzo HS). Infinitely better legacy, would save money on the change and how cool would that be?

Nah keep the names

Luckily my High School was named after a Methodist bishop

@AboveTheNoise

2 жыл бұрын

Oh, I'm sure there would be no issue then...? 😕

Forget single Confederate generals or KKK members, my high school mascot was (and unfortunately still is) the "Rebel". Why glorify only one when you can use a whole blanket term, right? There was some talk of changing the name a couple years ago, but the topic was shut down by administrators. It was only a few years ago that the school banned Confederate flags on campus.

@AboveTheNoise

2 жыл бұрын

Wow. Yeah, the school mascot for one of our show producers' high school was "The Orientals" (the school was named East High). Talk about being out of touch with the times. In fairness, the mascot was in reference to the direction "East" rather than any racial slur (West High school mascot was "The Occidentals"), but you can imagine how offensive this was taken out of context. They finally changed it to "Echo, the Eagle" last year. Not without a lot of protest and controversy, though.

Most of Your recent videos are usually so USA focused that they seem irrelevant to people from other country. Please try to make videos with global appeal with same frequency too. 😁

cant we just not name schools after people or widely upsetting things(I.E a spider mascot would be bad for anyone with arachnophobia)

At 5:35 you say that we shouldn't be judging people in the past by today's moral standards, it was a different time, different context, then you seem to waive your arms and take a tone as if this is a really weak point. It is not a weak point at all - if you try to read history without taking the context of the time into account, you will almost certainly misinterpret it. If you follow this method, you might find yourself arguing that there was no female president of the United States in the 9th century because of sexism. Furthermore, if you argue that it's not an issue to judge historical figures by the moral standards of today, then you, me and every other person living today will likely be condemned as a monster in a century or so, regardless of how virtuous our achievements are considered currently. If you're going to school named after someone who stopped people like you from going to school, smile and remind yourself that they failed but you will not.

@AboveTheNoise

2 жыл бұрын

Good points. Thanks for watching and sharing your perspective on this!

What in da indoctrination???!!! 😅 still love the channel tho 🥰

@AboveTheNoise

2 жыл бұрын

Um, can you elaborate, please? I'm glad you love the channel...but we tried to handle the topic with fairness and balance (except when it comes to naming schools after confederates...that sort of crosses our "neutral and objective" line!)

@JQ787

2 жыл бұрын

@@AboveTheNoise you right. Forgive me friend . Have a good Labor Day weekend! 🌵

Honestly, I feel like a good chunk of people who push back on this stuff, it isn't even about the details one way or another. It's just that they can't stand change, for any reason. Like, that's what they're whinging at more than anything, THEN they go hunting for excuses not to change. It's this weird cultural thing that's ingrained in huge parts of the American psyche, including where I grew up. I lack the nostalgia gene apparently, and am used to seeing things rebrand all the time, so its no big deal to me... but there are a lot of (often well-meaning) people who get get all huffy about things because they mentally live in a static universe. Of course, there's a bunch of racists that think stereotyping indigenous people or immortalizing Confederate leaders is something to keep doing, but yeah, those people just plain suck.

@AboveTheNoise

2 жыл бұрын

A lot of bad decisions are made in the name of nostalgia, honestly. Seems better to keep evolving as you learn new information about stuff...but maybe that's just our scientific bias talking!