Mike's blog

I found throughtout my schooling experience, there were a few key time periods that history classes seemed to get "stuck" in.... I think I may have studied the ancient Greeks, the Roman Empire, the American Revolutionary War and the American Civil War multiple times... (Granted, these subjects were touched upon for me in middle school, high school and college so they were studied in varying degrees of depth due to age appropriateness).

I'm ashamed to admit that I have no idea what World War 1 was about short of the fact that it happened and that The Treaty of Versailles officially ended the war.

World War 2 was discussed in school... Sort of. World War 2 studies seemed to be heavily centered on the Holocaust and there seemed to be very little recognition that anything outside of the Holocaust happened during WW2.

Anything more recent that WW2 was never covered in any history class I've ever taken.

I admit that upon hearing of Ken Burns's new project, I groaned. I fear a lot of "Greatest Generation" claptrap; I fear flag-waving and "fighting the good fight" cliches; I fear caricatured images of the homefront a la Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan"; I fear the kind of "battles & leaders" approach to the war that turns conflict into a kind of game; I fear hero-worship at the expense of a more honest depiction of combat (a la Spielberg's "Band of Brothers"); and I fear all of this in light of how World War II has been coopted in the Iraq propaganda war.

But then I think that fearing these things is a good thing. It suggests that the climate is right for a major World War II documentary, if for no other reason than World War II is culturally & politically relevant. Go ahead and disagree with all the political views implied above, and in the discussion that follows, we'll both (with luck) learn some history.

James Loewen, author of "Lies My Teacher Told Me" (1994), describes high school history as "Bor-r-ring." The present day is never used to illuminate the past and the past is never used to illuminate the present. Instead, students are beaten over the head with "Key Terms" and "Review Identifications" so that by the end, weak and glassy-eyed, through no fault of their own, they can't even remember in which century the Civil War was fought. (Or what happened in World War II besides the Holocaust.)

Loewen concludes that “history is the only field in which the more courses students take, the stupider they become.”

The real villain, he argues, is the history textbook, which he says actually prevents students from thinking coherently about the subject. No controversy allowed. Upbeat titles like "Land of Promise" preferred. In my job, I actually write textbooks and I can tell you that the pressure not to hurt anyone's feelings is enormous. Should fifth-graders be allowed to know that slaves in the South were whipped? This is the stuff of heated discussion in our office. Should fifth-graders be subjected to the word "pipe" in a slave narrative lest they be tempted to smoke? This gets brought up!

It's tough to teach history. But we have to start allowing kids to think for themselves. To see history not as a set of facts we all agree on, but a set of facts we all disagree about. Is it really the land of promise? Are all men really created equal? That's where you start. By the time you get to World War II, perhaps you'll be ready to consider how it changed the world: how the word "genocide" was coined, how the United Nations was formed, how our nation's worldview, for the first time, turned truly outward. Does it matter? It matters if you pay attention to the news. The world is changing again, and we can't begin to understand how until we understand World War II.

If kids begin to consider the right questions instead of memorize the right dates, they'll begin to connect with history. The politics of their answers isn't important -- and they're certainly more than welcome to take issue with my conclusions -- but I'll bet you that when they're done, they will know the difference between Hitler & Churchill.

Tom Brokaw wrote the definitive book on WW II only because he opened the eyes of America to those men & women he so aptly described as THE GREATEST GENERATION. When will our school systems open "their eyes" to the need to tell our history so that current and future generations will never forget the tyranny that ran rampart in European and Asian theaters and the huge sacrifices made by our mothers and fathers during those incredible years. They are almost all gone.

I studied world and American history quite a bit in the high school I attended many years ago in the Chicago suburb of Hinsdale.
I also study American history as something of a hobby. I own the Ken Burns' Civil War series. And I collect historic (truly historic) newspapers. I have a 1766 Boston Gazette that bears a stamp from the library of Hannibal Hamlin -- Lincoln's first vice president. And I own a 1795 Oracle of the Day from Portsmouth that was delivered to Josiah Bartlett. And there are many others that I have collected, including papers about the beginning and end of the Revolutionary and Civil wars.
Which brings me to the point at hand.
I don't believe we as a people can understand -- and plan -- where we're headed if we don't know from where we've come.
I say this with a wince because I now live in South Florida -- a soul-bereft place if ever there was one. No sense of community, tradition and history. A building that is 50 years old is ancient and generally is torn down for condos or shopping centers. Community leaders and residents come and go so frequently that there is no sense of belonging and unity.
I believe these are key reasons why the area in which I live is struggling so mightily with planning its future.
Ironically, that's one of many reasons that will drive me from here to, I hope, New Hampshire.
I will tell you as an outsider who visits your state frequently one of the first things that struck me about New Hampshire is its seeming everyday acceptance of its history that is incorporated into daily life.
Bridges, former homes and stores, any number of buildings are in use today.
And your historic sites appear to be honored for just that, not as places deserving only a cursory site marker crammed among new buildings.
Consider the alternative: I have written recently about the biggest finding known in South Florida -- perhaps anywhere in Florida -- of a Tequesta Native American cemetery. This is in downtown Miami.
What do you suppose one of the biggest issues has been? Where to place the remains so as to least disturb the giant developments being built on these sites.
If Bunker Hill or Gettysburg were in South Florida, they would've been paved over by now.
Knowledge and honor of world, U.S., state and local history arm us to better direct our communities.
And that gives us a collective soul.

Even worse than the current teaching of history is the teaching of government structure. It is indeed sad when more Americans can name the five people in the Simpson cartoon show on TV than the basic human rights guaranteed by our Bill of Rights. No wonder that our elected Government is run by a bunch of people that only care about their own interests.

The lack of knowledge teens - and many adults - have about American and World History is appalling. I'm surprised many people even know in which century it was fought. From your cited posting, it appears even situating WWII in video games doesn't help. But we can't expect kids to learn history from video games. We need to ensure history teachers actually teach history. Many have the feeling that "teaching by rote" (i.e. all those complicated old dates and figures) "turns off" kids, and instead, they turn to a purely social history ala Howard Zinn.

So students leave school with the idea that America has always "oppressed" people, but they don't really know WHEN it happened, and don't care. This is, of course, a grave disservice to kids, and very dangerous, since it creates a generation of ignorant cynics.

I was struck by the story of the teacher who recently was caught ramming Leftist politics down kids throats, saying how we were so "oppressive" to Columbia and Peru. It's too bad he didn't teach the kids about the history of those nations, rather than giving them a political rant. Then again, do his students even know where those countries are? (Oops, geography is another topic kids know very little about. Save that for next time.)