Posted on 06/21/2011 4:54:41 AM PDT by chickadee
'We're raising young people who are, by and large, historically illiterate," David McCullough tells me on a recent afternoon in a quiet meeting room at the Boston Public Library. Having lectured at more than 100 colleges and universities over the past 25 years, he says, "I know how much these young people—even at the most esteemed institutions of higher learning—don't know." Slowly, he shakes his head in dismay. "It's shocking."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
So what's the point?
Our esteemed Leaders of today who already know History and should know better are making the same mistakes of the past.
They are continuing the process of developing a "Centralized all Powerful Government". So when an "Adolf Hitler" does indeed come along he can sweep into a Dictators position with little effort.
“We’re too concentrated on having our children learn the answers,” he summarizes. “I would teach them how to ask questions—because that’s how you learn.”
Nonsense. It is precisely because we don’t have children learn the answers that they know nothing.
It's the second half where I think this goes off the rails. McCullough starts making recommendations that seem to me to perpetuate much of what he just complained about. Example:
"We're too concentrated on having our children learn the answers," he summarizes. "I would teach them how to ask questions—because that's how you learn."
No. History is composed of facts. Teach the facts. Give people the answers. If all you do is ask questions, then you inevitably steer people toward open-ended mushy thinking that will promote an ideological agenda. There are no answers. There are simply opinions and emotional reactions toward vague events in the murky past.
Today? They just ask questions of the students. They want 13-year-olds to "rediscover" geometry all on their own. "Hey, kid, I bet you are every bit as smart as Euclid himself. I'm not going to teach you what he knew, I'll just let you find it all out on your own. Now -- Go!"
Students need to be given the information. They can supply the questions. Teachers should supply the answers. If the teachers think they are in the business of doing nothing more than asking questions, then we have a problem.
Outside of my particular professional field, I've found that most of what I've learned in other fields has come through autodidacty - high school, and even my "liberal arts" university education were basically not worth the price paid for them.
“Teach the facts.”
You’ll get a fight from Liberals over this. They do not want to teach ‘facts’ because ‘facts’ expose the Liberal lies and are inconsistent with the Liberal agenda.
They will challenge ‘facts’ as being too absolute. (Of course, Liberals slammed the door on the concept of an ‘absolute’ long ago-so for them, absolute ‘facts’ CANNOT exist.) For them, everything is relative… so your absolute facts are irrelevant!
See how we got here?
Rote memorization is hardly utilized anymore because “it’s boring.” I taught all six of our kids the multiplication and division tables. Otherwise, they would not have learned them.
Your points are good ones. However, I read his comment to mean that the students are being taught the “answers” or want the “answers” for the tests. His point about taking pages from a book, removing the page numbers, and telling the students to put them in order was a good one.
And I never understand that complaint.
The test makers decide that students should know that WWI started in 1914. They think that's important. So, the teachers make a point of telling students that WWI started in 1914. Is that bad? Are the children being shortchanged because the teacher is "teaching to the test"?
I admit that a charismatic, energetic teacher who has innovative ways of making students fall in love with history would be wonderful. But those folks seem to be in short supply. So, some robot at the head of the class who is teaching the cold facts that some test maker thinks is important, does not strike me as such a bad thing -- if the alternartive is some airhead at the front of the class saying "How do you feel about what we did to native americans?"
If the children are being taught the answers to the test, out of context and absent the skill of critical thinking (and they are), this isn’t “education”. It’s fact stuffing so they will pass the test and the school may meet the standards (ha ha ha) of “no child left behind” .
Here is my problem with this argument.
The kids are failing the standardized tests!
If a teacher can't get the "fact stuffing" right, how are they supposed to teach anything more?
If "teaching to the test" is so beneath them, then how come they can't "teach to the test"?
However, here is what I see right now (and I think this is what McCollough is saying:
Students are not being taught context.
Students are not being taught critical thinking.
Students are not being taught facts.
Since I see no quick, easy and foolproof solution to the overall problem, if I can at least see a teacher engaged in "fact stuffing" I will cheer because at least something is being done.
And, in my experience, teaching "critical thinking" always means teaching Marxism. And you cannot begin to work on context if you don't have any facts. Therefore, "fact stuffing" is for me a good thing, a crucial first step, and the very thing that is really missing from education.
Several years ago, I was trapped down in Florida by a northern winter storm and wound up attending a lecture by David McCullough. This wasn't his topic that day, but he wound up talking about it anyway. I don't really remember now what he said but I distinctly came away with the impression that he is one of the good guys.
You need to find out how many answers were spoon fed to Benjamin Franklin. Little kids are always asking, "Why?" at least until they begin going to school. Then they are told to listen and not speak out of turn. The lucky ones are interested in what is being said. For others like myself, school is mostly a 16 year interruption in their education which Mr. Franklin never suffered.
ML/NJ
“Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”
George Orwell, “1984”
Thanks for posting this - we get the WSJ and I read the interview.
All these comments on education are interesting so I thought I’d put in my two cents...
I taught Third Grade for four yrs in a little Catholic school without a teaching credential and as a History BofArts holder. This experience brought me to some conclusions that I’d like to throw out including, 1)teachers should not come straight from school into the classroom - they need to work in the “private sector” before they teach kids, 2) rote memory work MUST be exercised in the classroom - no escaping it - but can be done cleverly, enjoyably and successfully, 3) not everyone who wants to be a teacher should be a teacher - I saw many in the classroom who just didn’t like kids and shouldn’t have been around them at all - this is a failure of the school admin which typically is afraid to cull the faculty - even without unions.
Finally, I had a successful run during my four years, went back to school to get my credential, was called a “racist” because I didn’t agree with teaching “Ebonics” in the classroom and couldn’t get any position in Middle School social studies/history because it’s the “easiest” to teach...and our kids don’t know history????
I gave up....
I was fortunate having both state history and world history as a mandatory part of my grade school education. My own children were not so lucky and despite both having graduate degrees (law and MBA) neither have much interest in or knowledge of history. What made history come alive for me was tracing my own family genealogy. For example finding out that my great grandfather fought with Grant in the Wilderness Campaign during the Civil War or even finding photos of the sod house on the treeless prairies of South Dakota where my father was born.
I am hoping that the trend toward removing collective bargaining from teachers’ unions will result in a more productive method of educating our children.
The most important thing about teaching history IS that the facts must come before everything else. One must know what happened, when, and who was involved in order to perceive why. Of course, in order to do that, a certain amount of literacy is required, for as John Keegan noted, history is a literary subject. So the ability to read has to come before the facts....
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