Posted on 06/24/2011 6:48:51 AM PDT by Kaslin
First, the good news: The nation's eighth-graders are doing better in history class. Now, the bad news: They're not doing much better. Gains in test scores are small, made by the lowest performers, and only 17 percent of those tested are "proficient," or competent.
It gets worse. Only 12 percent of high-school seniors, who are getting ready to vote for the first time, have a proficient knowledge of history. If you're looking for a tinsel lining, you could point to 20 percent of fourth-graders who are described as proficient, but that means eight of 10 haven't learned very much during their tender years in the classroom
The standardized test results known as the "nation's report card," issued by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, are based on tests taken by thousands of schoolchildren in both private and public schools. Such dismal percentages once sounded alarms for parents and teachers, but now mostly get a bored yawn. What else is new?
"We're raising young people who are, by and large, historically illiterate," says historian David McCullough in The Wall Street Journal. "I know how much these young people -- even at the most esteemed institutions of higher learning -- don't know. It's shocking." McCullough, who has lectured on more than a hundred college campuses, tells of a young women who came up to him after a lecture at a renowned university in the Midwest. "Until I heard your talk this morning, I never realized the original 13 colonies were all on the East Coast."
McCullough has learned first-hand how formidable the obstacles have become. Emotional appeals in politically correct courses -- women's history, African history, environmental history -- take the place of chronological and conceptual study across the educational arc from tiny tots to graduate students.
From the early grades, our children learn how horrible slavery was, but spend little time studying the how, why and when we righted that wrong and the wrongs that followed. Who we are comes from what we reject as much as from what we embrace.
The problems with our schools run deep, not only affecting how the next generation is learning to make reasoned choices in determining public policy, but how ignorance undercuts pride and patriotism, the sense of America's core identity. It's not merely academic. When seniors were asked about Brown v. Board of Education and what social problem it was supposed to correct, only 2 percent knew it was the Supreme Court decision that declared laws compelling segregation in the public schools as unconstitutional.
The recent report card in history was issued just as I attended a conference sponsored by the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank, to discuss the American identity, to talk about the changing sense of "we the people." We heard concern for the way we're losing the moral tissue that connects the first principles established by the Founding Fathers. Intellectual trends like multiculturalism, globalism and a sneering skepticism of America have diminished the shared memories and common values that have held the nation together through war, Depression and social upheaval.
Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, for example, but that shouldn't blind us to his ideals. Yet impressionistic young people are taught to belittle the whole man. The author of the Declaration of Independence is trivialized with simplistic moral condescension. When our history is reduced to our flaws, celebrating fragmentation in hyphenated Americans, the young can't understand the cohesive principles on which our liberty is based.
This becomes especially dangerous as younger generations fail to learn about the separation of powers, checks and balances of government and why Congress enacted the Bill of Rights. There's no appreciation for democracy, which after all originated here.
Best-selling books on atheism testify to the strength of American pluralism, but when our schoolchildren lack the knowledge to make intellectual discrimination as taught by history, they fail to appreciate how American ideas are rooted in such self-evident truths, that "all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights," and become insecure in what it means to be an American.
"In God we trust, yes," observes the theological scholar Michael Novak. "But for all men there must be checks and balances." American citizens need not profess a faith in the Creator to be a good citizen, any more than they must attend a church or synagogue, but our children should be taught where the roots of American identity come from. The "nation's report card" sounds the alarm that the lessons of history are threatened when those lessons are never learned.
But, on the bright side I suspect their proficiency in civil rights, sex education and social networking will blow the top off the scale.
“There’s no appreciation for democracy, which after all originated here. “
No, Democracy was an idea which we borrowed from the Greeks.
However, America was founded as a Republic; republicanism being a a notion we borrowed from the Romans.
You think history is bad? Try geography.
Who is at fault? The students? I don’t think so
Wow. She's writing about an ignorance of history, and then demonstrates multiple flawed views in one sentence.
Isn't Irony Ironic?
Yep, though hopefully other people will catch on to this and realize that this is a multi-generational problem.
Those who don’t learn from their history class are destined to repeat their history class.
No, this is intentional, The goal of the schools is to dumb down these future voters so they have no appreciation for liberty and for classic high Western moral values, which will make them much more willing to accept the hard socialism they will be duped into voting for.
It was known back in the 1980s that there was a better way to teach elementary and secondary history.
In elementary school, children need to start with a broad framework of world history, basically empires and kingdoms from the ancient world forward, with all sorts of pictures and images of the people’s and their ways back then. If they can get a general framework, with a lot of ‘ooo’ and ‘aah’ trivia and look pretty stuff, history will be much more enjoyable for them in the long run, because it will have context and mnemonic devices to build on.
It’s also critical that they are introduced to maps from the very start.
Then they do the same with US history, looking out at the framework of the world at the time and how America was built from within. Lots of illustrated short *biographic* sketches of famous and infamous people.
Next is the unexpected. More traditional history, but taught in *reverse*, from present to past. Expert history teachers realized even back then that children need intellectual bridges from current event to the past, and if they get them, history not only suddenly makes sense to many more, but becomes far more interesting.
Junior and senior high school history is the most challenging of all, because good teachers must introduce controversy, and what can be called “not-nice truth”.
History as taught today has been intentionally purged of both conflict and even the mention of evil, because some parents believe that if their children never hear of conflict or evil, they will never experience it. But the truth is that if they are not taught such things, they both know that they are being lied to out of omission, and that a threat that has truly unknown parameters is far more menacing than one with parameters.
To be blunt, unless you teach them about Nazis, and why Nazism is bad, they will become fascinated with it. Which is very, very bad.
I started working with my grandchildren, when I first saw they were not getting a “healthy” education-—like by third grade. It’s a lot of work, but I taught them American History as well as Civics-—and I also made sure they knew every state on the map, as well as their capitals. I was an Aide to 5 different teachers, and the biggest problem is TEACHERS DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH “TIME” TO STAY ON ONE THING-—they HAVE to move from one concept to another-—RAPIDLY. They also “assume” parents are helping their children at home! It’s the STATES who make up the curriculum for each class level, and the time spent on each!
And THAT means the 'plan' is working!
I like the college grads that show up during Jaywalking on Leno!
I believe the author is talking about a recent report on eighth grade students
It’s definitely intentional when history is not being taught. It’s more important to know how to put a condom on a cucumber, then to know who wrote the declaration of independence
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