I went down to the sideline, and one of the coaches told me they were sitting him for a few plays as it was a helmet to helmet hit.
To make sure he was ok, I asked him 3 questions:
What happened on June 6, 1944? D-Day...check
What happened on March 6, 1836? Battle of the Alamo...check
What happened on Nov 22, 1963? I had to give him a hint, because we haven't spoken that much about JFK's assassination. I told him I was in 4th grade...click.
I told the coaches he was good to go. His teammates had a look of awe...I guess their dads aren't history buffs.
As to the Holocaust, I got all the teaching I needed from two trips each to Dachau and Flossenburg concentration camps. I could literally feel the evil that remains at these two sites.
When I was in school we learned about the camps and war but I’ve really only studied the thinking and social manipulation that led to it in the last few years.
I like to challenge the left to put the Occupy Wall Street manifesto next to the nazi party planks and compare. Its rather chilling how similar they are.
When I was young my dad would get his shirts for work cleaned and pressed at a local laundry. Two very nice men ran the business. One never spoke he could only grunt. And they both seemed to always wear long sleeve shirts that covered their arms. One day they both were working so hard that they had taken their shirts off. On both men’s forearms you could see numbers tattooed. We left the store and I asked my dad what that was. He explained to me that they were Jewish men who survived the Holocaust. He explained what that was and what a concentration camp was. I was amazed. Much later in life I did get to go to Dachau. And I agree the evil was palpable.
To tell you the truth I could care less if anyone knows exact date trivia. The knowledge is of no practical consequence except for Jeopardy-type games. Rote memorization of very few things beyond beginning multiplication tables holds much use for most people beyond passing exams and neither does it improve analytic ability nor critical thinking skills.
In terms of history, I want the kids to learn from it, basically. This means not trivia but an appreciation of historical themes, movements, processes and outcomes, all considered within a moral framework. This sounds abstract and it is, but when faced with situations in contemporary society which mirror history, I want them to have the benefit of someone's past experience in recognizing and dealing with them.