In a new book by Susan Jacoby, she describes an encounter she had in a bar on 9-11.
Walking home to her Upper East Side apartment, she said, overwhelmed and confused, she stopped at a bar. As she sipped her bloody mary, she quietly listened to two men, neatly dressed in suits. For a second she thought they were going to compare that day’s horrifying attack to the Japanese bombing in 1941 that blew America into World War II:
“This is just like Pearl Harbor,” one of the men said.
The other asked, “What is Pearl Harbor?”
“That was when the Vietnamese dropped bombs in a harbor, and it started the Vietnam War,” the first man replied.
At that moment, Ms. Jacoby said, “I decided to write this book.”
Why is it that Americans have so little knowledge of history, current events and in general, a disinterest in politics? This year may be the exception to interest in politics, but why are so many Americans walking around with a few bee-bees rattling around in their heads where a vast store of knowledge about American history should be?
I blame it on a couple of factors. The first is American culture in general, which values entertainment over substance, and video games and violence over reading. The second is "No Child Left Behind," which places memorization over the love of learning for learning's sake.
Children are no longer immersed in American history over the course of their academic lives, instead government and history are segregated into two separate semesters in middle school and high school. Classes called "current events" and "American government" and "American history" take a backseat to English, math and science. Tragically, these subjects could be infused into all coursework with a little planning and imagination on the part of school districts. But instead of teaching big picture, teachers are forced to teach to an arbitrary test that does not teach critical thinking and does not value American social and political history.
Most Americans went along with the invasion of Iraq, swallowing the Bush administration's shallow explanation of the events leading up to 9-11. Only after the 9-11 Commission made it painfully clear that Iraq had virtually no terrorism before 9-11, and debunked other popular myths, did the American people start waking up to the fact that we had been lied to. Unfortunately, with a populace who spends more time playing Guitar Hero than watching the news, we have sealed our fate.
How do you make it through school and not know what Pearl Harbor is? Seems lazy to me...In which case the answer to your question would probably be yes.
I agree that the NCLB legislation has affected how the youth experience education. Often teachers find themselves teaching to a standardized test and feel stifled and hopeless to engage their students in new and creative ways.
You don't know how many times I have heard students in inner city schools say they don't pay attention to history because it is not relevant to them. They want something less Euro-centric and more multicultural. It is extremely frustrating to grow up feeling as though the only history that matters is European, especially when you consider that so many students in economically disadvantaged areas are people of color.
Posted by: Kimberlee Morrison | February 21, 2008 5:29 PM | Permalink to Comment