Trying tp explain HRE to co-workers

[Spoonist]

I feel sorry for the people you tutor in that case.
Giving them wrong data is not simplification - it will bite them in the ass later on.

Do you have any reasoning to back that up? I'm not the one that says "Italy" existed in the 16th century, I recognize there is only so much a person is willing to accept and learn and strategically feel the best course of action is to focus on "why" things are they were rather than "who/what/when".

Without mercantalism there's no fur trade, no fur trade means no Canada. Without understanding that your just memorizing the book and not getting anything substantial out of it.

Or I guess we can just be insulting.

If I have "any reasoning to back that up"?
Let's review shall we?
The Yosemite Bear asked how to explain HRE to his usually uninformed co-workers. In that post he shows that he has already covered most of the basics already.
You respond with a post which contains roughly one false tidbit per sentance. Either in that it is wrong or that it gives the wrong impression. In that response you said:
"Explaining history to those with neither knowledge nor a broader understanding of the forces at work is always a chore and akin to pulling teeth, I tutored a girl in my history of pre-Confederation Canada class and the hardest part has got to me the lack of a broad understanding of stuff like economics or politics."
Ignore the errors and that sentance alone has me feeling sorry for people you try to tutor or help. Because with such an attitude you probably suck at it. And even if you don't suck at it then that is bound to give off an impression of history=boring to those getting your 'help'.

But lets move on, when called upon that you respond with this:
"Isn't the goal how to explain it to people who know virtually nothing about the history? Some details are lost and many inaccuracies pop up during the simplification process."
Which was why I really felt sorry for people you tutor. No, inaccuracies does not pop up in the simplification process. Unless you insert them. A simpification process is to make things more SIMPLE not INACCURATE. This is not in "lies to children" territory...

Then you continue that with this:
"Are you trying to explain a list of facts they likely won't remember 5 minutes later or trying to get an semi accurate gist as to what the Holy Roman Empire was?"
Again an abyssmal attitude that wouldn't help when tutoring someone. But also "semi accurate" would usually equate to non-accurate as in false. What if the only thing they do remember was instead of something useful its your inaccurate simplifications? Which was why I said that if you give them wrong data that will usually bite them in the ass. As in giving your answer in a history test would have them score less than if you told them to read up on the HRE on wiki and just quiz them on it until something stuck.

Then this pops up:
"I personally focused on trying to get the mechanics of history across to the people I tutor, for example I prioritized making sure she understood mercantilism before proceeding to explaining the fur trade because one leads to the other; dates, people and events are less important than a conceptual understanding why the fur trade is important."
So you substitute the simple things that people usually can learn and recite easily with intricate and complex concepts? Way to build up people's self esteem there. Me I' d go for the approach of first having them make some small successes, like years and stuff. Congratulate them and encourage them to build up self-confidence. Then move on to more complex things.
But here I could be talking out of my ass since I don't know how your tests looked like. If it was a verbal test where one had to explain the mechanics then I'd be wrong. But if its like a normal written test with lots of simple multichoice questions followed with some more complex "explain X" then I wouldn't be wrong. If so those easy points you get from cram & recite are pretty important for struggling students.

"Which is why I suggested the above for the HRE, something accurate enough so they can understan"d it on a conceptual level and if they are still interested can go on their own to research it."
This just doesn't compute. You are ranting about someone who doesn't understand the missionaries in the context of pre-confederate canada, and you expect her to become so interested that she will research this on her own? Because you with your great attitude vs those who have a harder time following this kind of trivia have inspired her to such heights?

Nope, I'm sorry you find it insulting, but the more you talk about this the more I feel sorry for those that you have tutored or tried to infer history to.

Humble, responsive, encouraging and CORRECT goes a long way when you are trying to teach someone something.

[Blayne]

"ranting"?

There is I think a rather large misunderstanding here that comes from not seeing that there is a distinction between my argument which I gave in a very broad sense, and how I tutor someone where I only gave a few specific examples of material she had trouble with to fit in with the argument broadly speaking and then conflating the latter as being automatically how I suggested the former. This isn't true and I clarify further below.

But here I could be talking out of my ass since I don't know how your tests looked like. If it was a verbal test where one had to explain the mechanics then I'd be wrong. But if its like a normal written test with lots of simple multichoice questions followed with some more complex "explain X" then I wouldn't be wrong. If so those easy points you get from cram & recite are pretty important for struggling students.

Why is there a difference? That's a very arbitrary standing but places, names and dates are only about 1 mark on 5 marks for long answer questions, you need about a full page for each question to get full marks which takes about roughly 10 minutes to write each. So 'mechanics' as I call them can get you at least 3.5 marks which is the bulk and presumably you grab flash cards and use SRS to work on memorizing rote names and dates on your own.

Which was why I really felt sorry for people you tutor. No, inaccuracies does not pop up in the simplification process. Unless you insert them. A simpification process is to make things more SIMPLE not INACCURATE. This is not in "lies to children" territory...

By inaccuracies I don't mean "Columbus sailed the ocean in the wrong date", but statements that while generally true may not be absolutely true. For example I was fairly sure that the HRE political system works as I described but may not have worked that way throughout it's entire history. Maybe it's my fault for dealing with heuristics but it isn't "lying to children".

For example when someone asks "Who is Julius Caesar" you would generally answer "A roman politician..." and then your answer from there would be somewhat biased by what aspects you found more important right for casual conversation?

Which brings us back to my original objection, I made an suggestion as to how to best teach someone in a casual setting, you are not teaching someone to pass an exam or write a paper and who may not have any real historical background. So I gave a broad argument suggesting it is better to focus on a conceptual approach because literal names and dates are less useful in context.

I then gave some anecdotal examples from someone I tutor, but how I tutor someone isn't the same as how I suggested talking to someone about the HRE over coffee; for the people I tutor the course, the lectures, the notes serve a very solid foundation as to how I go about tutoring; you just assumed.

Which is why I felt you were being unnecessarily insulting, because you were objecting to a method of tutoring that I wasn't actually using for the purposes of tutoring.

I hope this clarifies our misunderstanding.

[Spoonist]

"ranting"?

Yes, ranting!
You degrade people who doesn't understand history in pretty much every post so far and you are giving the "ordinary people are idiots and doesn't understand anyway" speach over and over again. I quoted most of it in my post to you...

There is I think a rather large misunderstanding here that comes from not seeing that there is a distinction between my argument which I gave in a very broad sense, and how I tutor someone where I only gave a few specific examples of material she had trouble with to fit in with the argument broadly speaking and then conflating the latter as being automatically how I suggested the former. This isn't true and I clarify further below.

This is bullshit.
You are the one who brought it up in this context, not us, and you did so in your very first post. Of course we are going to draw parallells between the two. The only misunderstanding here is that you thought that you would get brownie points for saying that you tutor people in history and thus you know how to "simplify" and dumb it down so that even them could understand.
But you see from how you butchered HRE we drew a different conclusion...

But here I could be talking out of my ass since I don't know how your tests looked like. If it was a verbal test where one had to explain the mechanics then I'd be wrong. But if its like a normal written test with lots of simple multichoice questions followed with some more complex "explain X" then I wouldn't be wrong. If so those easy points you get from cram & recite are pretty important for struggling students.

Why is there a difference? That's a very arbitrary standing but places, names and dates are only about 1 mark on 5 marks for long answer questions, you need about a full page for each question to get full marks which takes about roughly 10 minutes to write each. So 'mechanics' as I call them can get you at least 3.5 marks which is the bulk and presumably you grab flash cards and use SRS to work on memorizing rote names and dates on your own.

Why there is a difference between verbal and written tests? I don't get what you are asking for there...
But that does sound like a pretty standard test.

Which was why I really felt sorry for people you tutor. No, inaccuracies does not pop up in the simplification process. Unless you insert them. A simpification process is to make things more SIMPLE not INACCURATE. This is not in "lies to children" territory...

By inaccuracies I don't mean "Columbus sailed the ocean in the wrong date", but statements that while generally true may not be absolutely true. For example I was fairly sure that the HRE political system works as I described but may not have worked that way throughout it's entire history. Maybe it's my fault for dealing with heuristics but it isn't "lying to children".

Here is the reference you are missing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie-to-children
Heuristics usually does come down to lies to children. But such lies are built up to be useful steps on the ladder.
Which was why I said that this isn't in lies to children territory. As in you are not creating useful steps.

Which brings us back to my original objection, I made an suggestion as to how to best teach someone in a casual setting, you are not teaching someone to pass an exam or write a paper and who may not have any real historical background.

Nope, that is a historical revisionism. You tried to get brownie points from YBear by "simplifyin" a topic you clearly didn't have enough knowledge of to simplify in a productive manner. Only when called upon that did you start your rant about approach etc.

I then gave some anecdotal examples from someone I tutor, but how I tutor someone isn't the same as how I suggested talking to someone about the HRE over coffee; for the people I tutor the course, the lectures, the notes serve a very solid foundation as to how I go about tutoring; you just assumed.

I made an assumption about your abilities yes, but if you go through my response again you will see that it is mostly about your attitude. An attitude which you confirm over and over again. Especially so by trying to continue to defend your actions in this topic.
You still don't even see what is wrong with answering out of your ass when you are not really sure about something like this?
But let me ask you this, if I'm so wrong and only after insulting you, then how come other posters get the same impression?
Maybe you are the best thing since sliced bread when it comes to tutoring, we couldn't possibly know, but what we do get we get from what you write here and how you handle yourself here and from what I've been reading it doesn't look good. So if you think that we are all wrong then you'd better go through your posts again and analyze WHY we come to these "insulting" conclusions.

Which is why I felt you were being unnecessarily insulting, because you were objecting to a method of tutoring that I wasn't actually using for the purposes of tutoring.

Nope. It's not me, it's not us, it's you.
1) You resond to Ybear.
2) Thanas says you are wrong on HRE.
3) You say its not wrong since you are simplifying things.
4) Stark point out that Ybear would be better of reading the wiki than listen to your simplifications.
5) You mix in how you tutor mechanics and not facts.
6) I feel sorry for those you tutor.

I hope this clarifies our misunderstanding.

Unfortunately it does but not the way you'd like it.
Now again, I don't know you apart from how you come across on this board, so I hope that I'm completely wrong in my assessment of you. But so far your explanations have not improved that assessment.

[Thanas]

Blayne, I'll be blunt. I've tutored a lot more people in history than you have and at higher levels to boot. You cannot just invent or misconstrue facts because it is easier. Doing so is a disservice and insulting to the people you are supposed to tutor.


Now, because your previous replies show little to no understanding of getting it, I shall explain word by word why you are wrong.

I would describe it as a loose confederation of sovereign of states

This is wrong. The HRE only was a loose confederation of sovereign states after the peace of westphalia. Before that, it was a feudal monarchy.

Traditionally the title was held by the head of the Hapsburgs dynasty

No, it wasn't. The main dynasties were the Ottones, Salians, Stauffer, Welfen and only then, after much squabbling, the Habsburger. For most of the history of the HRE, its head was not one of the Hapsburg dynasties.

The title of Holy Roman Emperor/Holy Roman Empire is only because Charlemagne was claiming as per tradition of many European Monarchs lineage/succession from the Roman Empire and was meant to cement legitimacy and enhance his majesty, due to the prevalence of Christianity the "Holy" was probably meant to invoke the Divine Right to rule.

This is bullcrap. First of all, the title Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation - Imperium Romanum Sacrum Nationis Germanicae - (funny how people skip the last part) was only official after the diet of Cologne in 1512. Before that, it was simply called Imperium Romanum, as per the translatio imperii it was considered the official successor to the Roman Empire of the west. This was somewhat legitimized by the marriage of the Western Emperor to the Eastern Princess Theophanu. For a Byzantine Princess to mary a foreign prince in that time and age was otherwise nearly unheard of.
Meanwhile, the term sacrum (Holy) was first used as title by Frederick I Barbarossa. The official title was Romanorum Imperator Augustus.

So pulling Carolus magnus into that is pretty stupid.

[Blayne]

@Spoonish I took "lying to children" literally I wasn't aware it was an actual term.

I concede that may posts had an issue with attitude though this had to do with my base assumptions going in and didn't mean it to be taken entirely in that respect but on the other hand on review I can see how it could be easily seen in that light and shouldn't known better. I was clearly not prepared well enough and will endeavor to correct my mistakes.

For Thanas; I also agree that inventing or misconstruing facts is not useful or counter productive to teaching people history, while I feel that misconstruing while a little harsh, I agree that it is a certainly arguable interpretation and concede the point but I do not believe I outright invented anything out of the blue.

But I would like to ask regarding the post you are responding to, to see if we're on the same page; do you agree that may statement is true in a general case for a significant portion (not to say that the portions in which it is not true are not significant) of the history of the HRE just not for all of it?

The problem for me here I think I see on reflection is that due to my background I'm biased towards the 16th century onwards which I personally feel is the more "interesting" period and when I think of the HRE I think of it in that context, which is why I mentioned the Hapsburgs when I shouldn't have.

Second paragraph I concede that I didn't go into enough detail and went into a context that I was predisposed to meander into for which I apologize.

Last part, I also agree with this completely but am still a little confused so please by all means help me understand why you feel there is a contradiction. My argument to clarify was motivational in nature; that it was the official successor and had every good reason to claim it was the legitimate successor I completely agree with. I was trying to state though that there were obvious motivations to do this beyond simply the legal reasons, that any connection to Rome however intangible or tangible enhanced the legitimacy of the Sovereign. Do you feel with this clarification that there is still a contradiction? I would appreciate knowing my mistakes.