Why We MUST Study History

[RBInMaine]

As people involved in politics, we hopefully all know why we must study history. But the levels of historical illiteracy in the general public are staggering, and it bodes badly for our society. Preparing our younger generations for the economy of the future is important, but it must also be about preparing them for life and helping them to achieve more meaningful lives. We need a healthy society too. This is why we must have history, the other liberal arts, and the humanities. Below is my essay on the necessity of history education.


Why We Must Learn History

Native Americans help devastated English pilgrims grow food on American soil. Africans survive the most horrendous conditions imaginable to arrive on our shores in chains. A group of visionary patriots risk hanging for treason as they declare their right to self-government. Captured American soldiers die in the sweltering, rat-infested bellies of British prison ships. Young men from Maine charge down a Gettysburg hill in some of the nastiest fighting of that epic battle. Ragged children toil in dangerous mines and factories. Women are spit-on, kicked, cursed, and jailed, merely for wanting to vote.

It is unsettling that too many know too little about these and other important past events. Noted historian David McCullough speaks of a college student who told him she didn’t realize that the original 13 colonies were all in the east. Recent National Assessment of Educational Progress results show just 12% of U.S. high school seniors scoring proficiently in history. Most, for example, did not know that China was North Korea’s ally in the Korean War or that Brown v. Board of Education is the landmark Supreme Court decision that ended school segregation (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/education/15history.html). We must confront this national crisis of historical illiteracy.

It is said that history isn’t “was” but “is.” It explains why we are what we are today. How can we hope to understand our ideals of rugged individualism and collective responsibility without understanding early American settlement, university land-granting, or the suffering of the Great Depression? We can’t understand our economic system and sprawling geography without understanding the Industrial Revolution, Westward Expansion, and Manifest Destiny. Ignorant of our history, we become a society of incomplete individuals. We must learn the many lessons of the past, and those who have shaped our history stand as role models whose stories compel us to determine how we might shape our own communities, state, and nation.

Academic history learning fosters many important skills. Students read, write, and visualize. They think critically as they interpret primary source documents and artifacts. They apply technology as they produce multi-media presentations, and more.

What can families do? Tell old family stories. Do genealogy projects using old family photographs, letters, and other primary source items. Interview and video elderly relatives as they relate their own histories. Read quality historical fiction, biographies, and the histories of personal interests such as art, music, cars, or sports. Visit museums and attractions which bring history to life. There are countless possibilities.

Above all, we must all agree that learning our history is essential and that we are all “natural historians” who love to reminisce on our pasts and make greater meaning of our present lives through this reflection. Once people get a taste, they yearn for more. We need our history, and it needs us. We must respect the past. We owe it to ourselves, to our children, and, most of all, to those who did so much, sacrificed so much, and left so much for us. We just can’t fail them.

[Squinch]

1. This is another of the devastations of the Common Core.

Social studies and history classes are all but gone in primary schools. Which means that children don't learn a fascination with the stories of history, and don't get a basis on which to build so they can understand the significance of the experiences of the past.

[RBInMaine]

2. I assume the Common Core will have to be modified. It is an over-reach. It is out of level.

[Squinch]

3. Let's hope.

ETA: I think there is another casualty to the loss of history as a major subject in primary school: when we learn the stories about those who came before us, we begin to identify with them, and we learn how to empathize with and admire people who are different from us.

Losing that will have dire implications.

[Scootaloo]

5. It's been an ongoing loss for some time

A lot of it has to do with the weight Texas and California carry with the textbook industry.

[abelenkpe]

27. textbooks?

Everything is moving to iPad or similar devices. That should open the door to more varied content, but I'm sure someone will figure out how to monopolize that.

[TheKentuckian]

60. Format doesn't matter, the content and the gravity that pulls it in a certain direction doesn't

alter much.

[Android3.14]

32. It is short-sighted to put this at the feet of Common Core

The problems with a lack of real learning in our schools are widespread, cross all curricula, and have been building up for at least 50 years. The two primary groups who hate Common Core are conservatives who see it as a conspiracy of ideology and freaked out folks on the far left who are horrified at the idea that anyone anywhere is going to make any money on anything.
There are problems and solutions with Common Core, but the result will be the same. The structure of public schools and the advanced undermining of real achievement in a culture that celebrates mediocrity means the positive and negative impacts will amount to nothing, because in five years the next pile of educational feces will come plopping down on our students and our teachers, already exhausted from dealing with all the other shit.
We, as a culture, are ignorant of history, math, literature, science, and rhetoric because we, as a culture, believe learning has little value.

[Squinch]

34. Thanks for your concern about my vision.

The other groups that hate the common core are teachers and parents, and those who would like children to be educated.

But nice job trying to make it all about "crazy righties and crazy lefties."

[Android3.14]

37. "It" was about why we must study history

You made "it" about Common Core.
I had nothing to do with making the resistance to Common Core about fringe elements. That's just the way it is.
Political Rivals Find Common Ground Over Common Core
What to Make of the Debate Over Common Core

[Squinch]

38. In the first article you link, the only description of those who oppose the common core

from the left is that they are liberal: "liberal reformists have joined conservatives, agreeing on some of the key criticisms." In the second article, the only description about those on the left who oppose the common core is that they are progressive: "In one of those strange-bedfellows phenomena, progressives on the other side of the political spectrum are opposed to the standards on similar grounds"

If "progressive" and "liberal" represent the fringe to you, I guess those would seem like descriptions of a fringe.

And I was pointing out one of the reasons we are seeing a disappearance of history lessons from classrooms. You seem to have decided argue about the common core.

[RBInMaine]

53. It is good to have standards, but they need to balanced and reasonable. Most adults can not pass

Common Core tests. They need to be modified. They've created a monster with it. Hopefully it'll be modified.

[Squinch]

54. I agree. And they shouldn't be devised by the companies and groups whose

goals are to make scads of money while eliminating public schools. Which is who devised these standards.

If they allowed for actual teaching, especially if they allowed teachers to bring back history, literature and science to the grade schools, that would be good, too.

[RBInMaine]

57. School is not just to prepare people for corporate life. It is about the WHOLE human being.

[RBInMaine]

42. You make a very good point about the CULTURAL PROBLEM, which is why we can't just foist "higher

standards" and massive standardized tests down on top of the education system and think that will just solve everything. Make no mistake. I don't have a problem with a set of reasonably challenging standards (as states DID have before the Common Core), but the Common Core in its present form is a massive over-reach and ANY adult in the country can find that out anytime. Just go online and take sample tests. It's too much. They've created a monster with it. It is out of balance. And it is no wonder why 22 states have legislation pending to modify it or get out of it as Indiana just did. New York gave the test, and only 31% passed. And we also MUST teach the arts and humanities.

Societies like Finland, Singapore, and South Korea place a very high value on education in their broader society and at the family unit level. In some of these societies, like Finland, they invest massively to eliminate poverty, have lifelong healthcare, have universal pre-K education, etc. all in support of their education system and those social values. As long as we have massive poverty and a society that places more value on crap like Duck Dynasty, Survivor, video games, and Monday Night Football, then we are going to struggle academically. Don't get me wrong. Many individuals and families do care and are hard workers, and we have many great schools, teachers, and students. But way too many have misplaced values, and we need to invest much more heavily in anti-poverty, universal quality Pre-K, etc. etc. if we are REALLY going to "reform" education. We do need to place a much higher VALUE on education.

[treestar]

58. How does the culture celebrate mediocrity?

I see a lot of people who get silver medals describe that as "losing." It seems too far the other way, too much emphasis on winning without emphasis on content. Thus you get cheaters, who just want to win, no matter what they actually accomplished. The shallowness of the culture seems more to blame.

[merrily]

4. I have faith (no pun intended_ that many charter schools are doing a fine job of teaching

history, especially the history of this exceptional Christian nation.

[eShirl]

6. And which Christian nation would that be?

[merrily]

7. Armenia?

It was the first Christian nation, so, in my book, that makes it an exceptional Christian nation.

Should I have added to my prior post?

I always assume that I am being obvious

[eShirl]

8. lol

I can't tell on DU anymore whether someone's kidding or slipping in talking points

[merrily]

9. I admit that my posts are chock full of

my own posting points and no one else's talking points.

And I oppose charter schools. Hence, the post. Also, because it's true.

[a la izquierda]

10. Thank you, from a history professor.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

29. Thank you X2 from a history and geography teacher and a history PhD Candidate.

[RBInMaine]

43. Thanks for all you do.

[pampango]

11. Understanding history is like understanding science - it helps you figure out what will happen.

The right is just as good at ignoring history as they are at ignoring science in order to believe what they 'just know to be true.' We all know countless examples of that. Indeed, it is rare to find instances where science and history back up a conservative policy.

The left is much less guilty of that but occasionally you will hear here that history (particularly if certain history is not consistent with a certain current policy belief) is irrelevant because 'things are different now'.

[jwirr]

24. What we learn from history is really learning about human nature. It shows us how we have reacted

in crisis and how we come together in victory. Those who ignore the lessons of history turn into faux newsmen and clivens.

[RBInMaine]

44. Good points.

[mckara]

12. BRAVO!!!

I couldn't agree more!

[RBInMaine]

45. Thanks.

[lovemydog]

13. As a history lover

I cheer and recommend this post. I have some random comments.

First, I'm hoping to get involved this next year in doing some videography history of my mom and dad. I want to get them on record, so to speak, with some of their wonderful stories and memories.

Second, the new books by Piketty and Warren (currently one and two on Amazon's bestseller list) point out that we are not helpless. We forge and define our own history. Taxing progressively and using that money to invest heavily in public education and repairing our infrastructure will have very positive effects at stimulating our economy to work better for the large majority of the middle class and working poor.

Third, history teaches us that things have never been easy. The majority of us are always struggling against oligarchic powers, warmongers, and ruthless plutocrats. I say this because I get kind of tired of seeing so many posts here at DU that say things like 'things have never been more divided than than they are now'. Um, try looking at Civil War, struggles over civil rights, The Vietnam War, labor battles, and so much else from history. Never give up, never give in to apathy.

Fourth, I love documentaries that show unique aspects of history. I highly recommend The Fog of War, Errol Morris' stunning documentary on Robert McNamara, who was Secretary of Defense during the escalation of the Vietnam War. That movie beautifully lays out ways we can learn from mistakes and forge a more peaceful and prosperous existence in our short time on this planet.

Thank you RBInMaine for the stimulating post!

[mia]

23. Third, history teaches us that things have never been easy.

Exploring family history has been an exciting trip for me. The physical hardships of earlier times make our modern day problems pale in comparison.

[lovemydog]

33. How have you explored your family history?

I'm interested in doing this, and any suggestions are helpful.

[RBInMaine]

56. Start with interviewing older relatives, maybe even recording them on video. Find out as much as

you can from them. Many towns and cities have old census records that can help locate and identify people. Libraries have great local history records collections and do a lot to help people doing geneology studies. I recommend compiling information, stories, etc. and sharing it with other relatives via the internet. People can make family history websites. Many families have old photos. Digitize them and put them on the family history website, or at least in collections on computer. Share them. You may be able to get some others in the family to help you. Make it a joint project. Two or more heads are always better than one. There are so many neat things you can discover about how and why ancestors came here, where from, what they did once here, what their movements were, state, local, and national events they were a part of, etc.

In my case, my Maine relatives on the maternal side came to Maine from the Boston area in the 1760's as part of land granting they were doing in Maine to increase the ocean fishing and lumbering industries in that area of Maine. And because of that, I now own some old family property in that original area, have many relatives there, and it has been like a wonderful second home all my life. What those have done in the past have shape our own lives all the time. This too is why we must study history.

[mia]

36. It all started when I first met my great-uncle at my grandfather's funeral.

Start by searching your family surnames with the term "genealogy".

Have fun!

[RBInMaine]

46. Videographies have become very popular. Good idea. Thanks for your other comments.

[northoftheborder]

14. Well said.

[FarCenter]

15. Even worse is the lack of instruction in geography

Schoolbook histories tend to be highly sanitized, self justifying versions of political history.

Geography, on the other hand, can be taught in a fairly factual way and is important for an integrated understanding of human, biological and physical systems around the world.

[randome]

19. In the Internet Age, I'd say that geography is less important than in the past.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."
Leonard Cohen, Anthem (1992)[/center][/font][hr]

[Skidmore]

22. Why? No matter how far we venture into the virtual world, we still are of necessity

bound to the land. To understand the physical world around us is even more important as we continue to use it for the resources it provides us. Understanding geography is essential to understanding the history of peoples, cultures, and events.

[randome]

30. I'm not sure the Internet Age is always for the best.

But it allows us to categorize...everything. I think more and more, the world is becoming 'streamlined'. Even culture can be seen as a list of attributes. Resources can be collated. Language can be translated. It's more than a different way of accessing the world.

Our minds created the Internet and the Internet is changing how our minds function. We only came into full consciousness about 3,000 years ago. Our brains are still evolving. I think the Internet represents another mental 'jump' in our evolution on par with the Bronze Age, the Agricultural Age and the Industrial Revolution.

No one knows where it will take us any more than the people of those prior ages understood what was happening to them.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]If you don't give yourself the same benefit of a doubt you'd give anyone else, you're cheating someone.[/center][/font][hr]

[RBInMaine]

48. I think most books have gotten better. They can't cover every possible detail. Geography, yes.

[malthaussen]

16. There's a long history of people demanding we study history.

And the way it has been taught in the past in lower-level educational institutions, where emphasis is on memorization of dates and names with little, if any, critical analysis, does not provide the victims with any real grasp of the subject.

-- Mal

[mia]

17. Visit the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History online

Written in Bone
Unearthing the 17th-Century Chesapeake

Four centuries ago, a band of English adventurers built a fort on the James River near the Chesapeake Bay. In the decades after 1607, shipload after shipload of colonists sought new lives in North America. They began moving inland, settling along the coastal rivers of Virginia and Maryland.

These early immigrants left us dramatic evidence of their lives — in the traces of the structures they built, the foods they ate, and the objects they used. The most vivid evidence waits in their unmarked graves and skeletons.

Today, scientists are recovering these buried clues and investigating these most personal physical records. We are meeting the Chesapeake's earliest European and African settlers in entirely new ways. Their stories are written in their bones.


http://anthropology.si.edu/writteninbone/living_and_dying.html

[RBInMaine]

49. Very cool ! Thanks !

[randome]

18. Native Americans also sometimes ruthlessly slaughtered one another.

Something to keep in mind that doesn't excuse what our forebears did.

Studying history is important, yes, but studying it too closely may mean we become oblivious to the Present and the Future. Balance is necessary.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]A 90% chance of rain means the same as a 10% chance:
It might rain and it might not.[/center][/font][hr]

[giftedgirl77]

20. Well said, very well said...

[randome]

31. Thanks!

[hr][font color="blue"][center]If you don't give yourself the same benefit of a doubt you'd give anyone else, you're cheating someone.[/center][/font][hr]

[RBInMaine]

51. There is a lot of "inconvenient" history. We MUST study history to understand the present, and it

informs the future.

[randome]

55. I do agree that knowing history benefits us.

But we can sometimes be too wedded to history. As I pointed out upthread, our minds are evolving just as our bodies are.

We are already not the same creatures as our forebears in the Industrial Age. They were not the same creatures as their forebears in the Agricultural Age. And those in the Agricultural Age were not the same creatures as their forebears in the Bronze Age.

I think it's important to keep those distinctions in mind.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You have to play the game to find out why you're playing the game. -Existenz[/center][/font][hr]

[Democracyinkind]

21. Historcial illiteracy is more than a national phenomenon.

There's things I could tell you... I've read and heard the most astounding things, even from people that are actually rather smart.

Anyway... The article has some important things to say. We would all be better off if we were better aware of the past. Historical education is easily neglected, but it comes at a high cost. It's pretty clear that it isn't a high priority in today's curricula, inside and outside of the US.

[RBInMaine]

39. Many thanks for that great response.

[rrneck]

25. This is what education is currently designed to do...

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d11/figures/fig_16.asp?referrer=figures

More and more the only way to make a living in this country is by enriching the 1%.

[mia]

26. "How can we hope to understand our ideals of rugged individualism and collective responsibility...

...without understanding early American settlement, university land-granting, or the suffering of the Great Depression? We can’t understand our economic system and sprawling geography without understanding the Industrial Revolution, Westward Expansion, and Manifest Destiny. Ignorant of our history, we become a society of incomplete individuals. We must learn the many lessons of the past, and those who have shaped our history stand as role models whose stories compel us to determine how we might shape our own communities, state, and nation."

We are now a nation without the ability to work hard together for the common good. Those who came here and worked peacefully to carve out a living have a lot to teach us. Life was unimaginably had back then.

[RBInMaine]

40. Great response. Thanks.

[Brigid]

28. I'm a little sore . . .

As I get older and realize that most of what I know about history -- especially labor history -- I picked up piecemeal. I should not have had to hear about Blair Mountain, WV; Honea Path, SC; the Homestead Strike; and Henry Frick for the first time on the History Channel. References to Haymarket Square are all I can really recall hearing about in school in that regard. Mother Jones? The Knights of Labor? The Molly Maguires? Forget about it. And I still would never have heard of Ludlow, Co, if someone here on DU had not mentioned it, leading me to look it up on wikipedia. Can you imagine what it would mean for working-class high schoolers to learn about these things?

[RBInMaine]

41. Thanks.

[L0oniX]

35. Rocket scientists say that history is worthless without acting on it.

[RBInMaine]

52. It helps us UNDERSTAND the world today. We can act on it by doing positive things and making our

own histories in our families, communities, schools, workplaces, etc.

[boston bean]

47. I was just saying this to myself in regards to the new GA guns everywhere law.

Have people no sense of history to understand what can and will happen with guns being allowed everywhere?

Fuck, people are stupid, and repeat the same mistakes over and over and over again.

[RBInMaine]

50. Yes, we must learn the lessons of history.

[hfojvt]

59. unfortunately, some history books are kinda bunk

I am working on a book trying to debunk some of it.

Or rather, I am putzing around on DU instead of working on my book.