Posted on 07/15/2003 10:17:37 AM PDT by DeFault User
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be." -- Thomas Jefferson
Bruce Cole, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, enjoys a nice view of the Capitol dome from his office window. He is less satisfied with what he sees of America's common culture.
Cole, who taught Renaissance art for many years before undertaking a stint in government, thinks the United States is in danger of losing its national identity through a loss of historical memory. If the words Yorktown, bleeding Kansas, reconstruction, Ellis Island, Marbury vs. Madison, "Remember the Maine," the Spirit of St. Louis, Midway, "I shall return," the Battle of the Bulge, the Hiss/Chambers case and "Ich bin ein Berliner" mean no more to most Americans than to the average Malaysian, what is it that makes us Americans?
Part of what makes America unique is that nationality arises from this shared history and from shared values and beliefs. It is not possible to become a Frenchman, a Swiss or a Russian by moving to those countries and adopting their beliefs. Nationality there is too bound up in blood, ethnicity and land. But every immigrant who arrives in the United States can become an American by adopting our beliefs.
There was a time when we had so much confidence in the superiority of our way of life that we aggressively taught our values to new immigrants and insisted that they master the basics of American history, the English language and civics before being eligible for citizenship. Today, we're not even teaching history to our own schoolchildren. And we are in the grip of a truly frightening collective ignorance. As Cole warns, when you don't know your history, you're more inclined to believe the kooky versions of it served up by everyone from Oliver Stone to Michael Moore. That is why the National Endowment for the Humanities is sponsoring a "We the People" initiative to improve the teaching of American history.
If you doubt the scope of the problem, consider a poll commissioned by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. David McCullough, author of John Adams and other wonderful works of history, said, "Anyone who doubts that we are raising a generation of young Americans who are historically illiterate needs only to read this truly alarming report."
Testing only seniors at the top 55 liberal arts colleges, the poll consisted of questions from a high-school-level exam (or what used to be high-school-level work). Eight-one percent received a grade of D or F. Only one student got every question right.
Thirty five percent thought that "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" (the Marxist nostrum) was in the Constitution. Thirty-four percent didn't know. More than half thought Germany, Italy or Japan was a U.S. ally during World War II. Only 29 percent knew that Reconstruction referred to post-Civil War political arrangements. Thirty percent believe that the president may suspend the Bill of Rights in wartime. (They didn't ask how many knew what the Bill of Rights was.)
Only 29 percent could correctly place the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in the context of the War in Vietnam. Forty percent could not place the Civil War in the correct half-century. (Ken Burns, call your office.) Only 42 percent knew to whom the words "first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen" referred (George Washington). Fewer than one quarter could identify James Madison as the "father of the Constitution," and only 22 percent recognized the words "Government of the people, by the people and for the people" as belonging to the Gettysburg Address. (Here's a question for buffs: Who was the keynote speaker at Gettysburg that day? Answer: Edward Everett.)
Cole hopes the NEH grant to improve the teaching of American history will spur colleges to reinstate history requirements. Among the 55 leading schools in the survey, none requires a course in American history. In grades K-12, history has been replaced by "social studies," which is like replacing beef stew with Gatorade.
Standards in many areas of education have declined. But as Cole stresses, this is unlike the slide in math or science (important as those are). If we lose our history, we could lose our nation.
The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn by Diane Ravitch
Amazon.com The impulse in the 1960s and ‘70s to achieve fairness and a balanced perspective in our nation’s textbooks and standardized exams was undeniably necessary and commendable. Then how could it have gone so terribly wrong? Acclaimed education historian Diane Ravitch answers this question in her informative and alarming book, The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn. Author of 7 books, Ravitch served as the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education from 1991 to 1993. Her expertise and her 30-year commitment to education lend authority and urgency to this important book, which describes in copious detail how pressure groups from the political right and left have wrested control of the language and content of textbooks and standardized exams, often at the expense of the truth (in the case of history), of literary quality (in the case of literature), and of education in general. Like most people involved in education, Ravitch did not realize "that educational materials are now governed by an intricate set of rules to screen out language and topics that might be considered controversial or offensive." In this clear-eyed critique, she is an unapologetic challenger of the ridiculous and damaging extremes to which bias guidelines and sensitivity training have been taken by the federal government, the states, and textbook publishers.
In a multi-page sampling of rejected test passages, we discover that "in the new meaning of bias, it its considered biased to acknowledge that lack of sight is a disability," that children who live in urban areas cannot understand passages about the country, that the Aesop fable about a vain (female) fox and a flattering (male) crow promotes gender bias. As outrageous as many of the examples are, they do not appear particularly dangerous. However, as the illustrations of abridgment, expurgation, and bowdlerization mount, the reader begins to understand that our educational system is indeed facing a monumental crisis of distortion and censorship. Ravtich ends her book with three suggestions of how to counter this disturbing tendency. Sadly, however, in the face of the overwhelming tide of misinformation that has already been entrenched in the system, her suggestions provide cold comfort. --Silvana Tropea
Could you elaborate a bit? I am a young-earth creationist - and am interested in a reasoned dialogue on the subject (as opposed to the constant ad hominem diatribe that often passes as "debate").
I hate to be a cynic, but I would say that, in most of the ways that really matter, we have already lost it. When large portions of the population have totally abdicated their own personal responsibility in favor of victim status and the leech-like goals of trial lawyers, the underlying character that enables a republic is moribund, if not smelly dead already.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be." -- Thomas Jefferson
Considering the sweep of history and covering 200+ years of material in one course, a full week on Vietnam is probably too much for a HS American History class. I'd be more concerned if you had spent less than a week on the Revolution or the Civil War and the series of events that lead to both. IMHO, they are each far more complex and difficult to quickly grasp and each far more important in determining what this nation is about than Vietnam in the overall story of our country.
It is a major part of my faith because I have discovered that all of the doctrines of the New Testament are grounded in the first 11 chapters of Genesis, worship in the Book of the Revelation centers on God's creative act (Rev 4:11), God's counsel to Job, in the midst of his misery, was a question and answer session with 77 questions about creation (Job 38-42), and failure to hold to Biblical creation position was instrumental in the transformation of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Templeton, and Welhausen, all of whom were raised in homes with one degree or another of Christian influence, but all of whom rejected Christ after reading Darwin's Origin of the Species. And, additionally, Jesus references the early chapters of Genesis repeatedly.
Please read Why the Church must emphasize Creation."
But, then again, that is just me. And, BTW, I am not casting any stones. I am just relating some of what I have discovered after much study. It is certainly up to each one of us to make up our own minds about what is important, and what is incidental.
High School isn't really intended to 'educate' you. It exists to make you educable – to assure you know the functional basics of writing, science, mathematics, literature, history, language, music and art.
Today we see an incredibly high percentage of HS graduates forced to take “remedial” courses their first year in college just to get the basics that they should already have. They graduate from HS, with good grades, and are simply not prepared. That is a clear indication that the public education system is failing miserably.
That's a worthy endeavor. There is so much to explore in history and any other cultural activity to give kids as broad (dare I say "liberal") education as possible. I believe that it not only gives them a better foundation as citizens but a much richer experience in life.
Ed School Follies by Rita Kramer is an eye-witness account of what goes on in schools of education across the country. Once you understand the silly fads with which future educators are indoctrinated, it becomes easier to understand why the education provided in our schools leaves our children so far behind those in other countries.
I took one education class in college and came to the same conclusion now voiced by Walter Williams. Education Departments are the ghettos of universities.
Oh come on. It can't be all that bad.
(Here's a question for buffs: Who was the keynote speaker at Gettysburg that day? Answer: Edward Everett.)
THE Edward Everett Horton? I LOVED him in all his movies! Particularly as Fred Astiare's sidekick on all those Ginger Rogers/Fred Astaire films! :-)
And who could forget him as Medicine Man "Roaring Chicken" in the tv series F-Troop?
Seee? Some of us DO know something about history!
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