History is on TRIAL!

I've been accused of being hateful on some things but nothing describes the amount of disdain I have for the way kids are NOT being taught history today.


Yes, I've joined the ranks of the likes of our grandparents who often said we weren't learning enough in school but what I'd like to throw out there is that I'm afraid it's not that kids aren't learning enough, they're learning a watered down, edited version of facts.

Recently I picked up a copy of a Hillsdale College newsletter called Imprimis.   History, American Democracy, and the AP Test Controversy was written by Wilfred M. McClay from the University of Oklahoma.  Being an Oklahoma State grad, I’ll just overlook this because this guy was spot on. 

McClay writes his understanding of high school education in American history is a way to teach students how to be connected to their political and cultural inheritance.  He calls it a membership in a common world.  He then goes on to remind us that Thomas Jefferson knew well that it took an educated group of folks to make government work as it is intended.  

McClay points out that historian Donald Kagan said, “Democracy requires a patriotic education.”  And elaborates there are two reasons for this.  First, its success depends on citizens being active in their own governance and secondly without this education, there would be no way to persuade free individuals of the need to make sacrifices.

This is all really stimulating my inner nerd, specifically my inner history nerd.  And well, because I am a nerd, I grabbed by orange highlighter at this point (OSU grad highlighter color of choice, of course).  

Stay with me because here is where it really gets interesting.  McClay explains that changes are partly due to the field of history itself and how it is viewed.  It used to be viewed as a science. Social sciences show what countries are doing and their interactions with others.  That has changed.  Now, McClay says it is viewed as a field where all interpretations are equally valid. (McClay, Wilfred, History, American Democracy, and the AP Test Controversy, Imprimis, vol. 44, number 7/9)

I’m going to just paraphrase the rest of this very fine and stimulating read.  History used to be something that we learned to bond and move forward as a nation.  We learned facts about battles, peoples, wars, economies, struggles, strife, challenges, heroic endeavors, etc.  Now, emphasis tends to be more on concerns of small groups.  No more commonality with your fellow man for he might be offended and might feel as though he needs to contact the ACLU.  Don’t get me started.

So historians have lost their audience or their audience is dying or perhaps no one cares as much as they once did.  Why?  I have no idea and if I did, I’d be wealthy.  Or seriously, I could come up with some possible reasons but darlings, that is another blog altogether.

Staying with the article, McClay points out that this country has lately had a very hard time constructing memorials and monuments.  These are places where folks come together to learn and honor something of importance to the culture and the people.  They are affirmations of past, present and maybe future.  Notice that lately, someone is always “offended” and the construction is nearly impossible.  Take anything honoring a Confederate soldier and you’ll find someone mentioning slavery.  So, we’re not even teaching history at the level at which self-proclaimed educated adults are not able to understand that the Civil War was not about slavery but about states' rights and control.  

While some historians feel we are losing our connection with the past with the elimination of memories (not allowing certain monuments and memorials) others are looking at the past with disdain.  This new way of teaching is a push for an agenda.  McClay mentions the agenda is a drive to get rid of the nation-state and bring about a radically new way of teaching history.  Gone are the loyalties, heroes, important events and sacrifices of former generations and so begins the construction of new memories. 

I’d hate to offend anyone.  (Please note sarcasm)

Finally we are getting to that piece in the title of the article, the controversy surrounding the new AP US History test.  McClay says the 134-page framework has an agenda.  It has more centralized control, downplays content knowledge, and downplays American greatness and citizenship while focusing on a global perspective. Compare that to the 2010 version in which American exceptionalism was the main theme. 

My, how quickly it changes!

Take into consideration the shift from national identity to subcultural identities.  Now, folks, I’m not suggesting that your Irish, English, Scottish, Norwegian, German, Cherokee culture isn’t important as it is but the shift indicates that we are not as patriotic as we used to be.  Why would this matter?  Well, if you come together in thought with like-minded fellow countrymen, you are naturally a stronger country.  You all have the same feelings of love of country and pride and want to protect it the way our founding fathers envisioned.  When you connect with your sub-group, you’re basically just an English, Irish, German, and Scottish American living here.  There’s no sense of belonging and patriotism!

Back to McClay’s thoughts, he mentions the phrase global citizenship as something you hear a lot of these days.  He says that actual citizenship is a connection, a membership into a society.  Education is failing to welcome students with equipping them with membership. 

I don’t want to live in a country where students are not proud.  I don’t want to hear apologies made for the “way our country behaves,” It is insulting to the blood shed for the freedom of this beautiful nation when students are not being taught what really happened.  Little Christine has a right to know and appreciate the fact that her fifth great grandpa fought the British in the Revolutionary War.  She needs to know that it wasn’t pretty and it was gruesome.  These are called sacrifices and we had brave men willing to make them for the sake of freedom.  They fought for the right for me to write these feelings down and openly share them with the World Wide Web and beyond.  They fought for the right to raise their families with the religion of their choice.  They fought so that they not be made to house soldiers in their homes in times of war.  They fought to keep their Remingtons and Rugers.  They fought to have a right to privacy and against governmental searches and seizures.  They fought tyranny and knew that a free nation would need to be an armed nation.  They also should be educated about the true and correct events in history.  

“Freedom is never more than a generation away from extinction…”  Ronald Reagan.