We need to hold on to American history : Stltoday

We need to hold on to American history : Stltoday

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Over the past few months, I have had three experiences that have stirred my concern about the baby boomers’ children, and grandchildren, not having a well-developed sense of American history.

Oh, yea, I have seen some academic studies on the low percentage of current U.S. students who can correctly locate World War I on a timeline and the few who can correctly name a current Supreme Court justice, but my recent realization came more like a bolt of lightning telling me “historical time has moved on … and it is going to make a difference.”

My first jolt was students in my senior political science class last March and their reaction to a book titled "Government's Greatest Achievements" that is a ranking by academic political scientists and historians of the importance of 50 national endeavors between World War II and 2000. My current students were surprised, and somewhat dismissive, of the No. 1 ranking —“U.S. rebuilding Europe after World War II.” My surprise was not only the quickness that students were ready to overlook this national achievement, but their willingness to dismiss it as “not being important

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note:  what else is new

many, if not most schools in the metro area are baby sitting institutions.  education is not the top priority and teachers are the lessor of the problems. 

true when I went to school and very true now