An interesting collection of horror stories from American public schools. The lead horror story focuses on history. Excerpts:
American students learn how World War II affected Japanese-Americans, blacks and women, but not much about the actual war, writes Jay Mathews in the Washington Post. Students tend to learn social history but not military history.
Tiffany Charles got a B in history last year at her Montgomery County high school, but she is not sure what year World War II ended. She cannot name a single general or battle, or the man who was president during the most dramatic hours of the 20th century.
Yet the 16-year-old does remember in some detail that many Japanese American families on the West Coast were sent to internment camps. “We talked a lot about those concentration camps,” she said.
The Post interviewed 76 teenagers. Two-thirds knew Japanese Americans had been interned during World War II. Only one-third could name a single World War II general; half could name a World War II battle.
On her blog, one teacher is frank about why history gets taught as it does:
I have much more time pressure and concern about teaching the curriculum since my kids have to take a standardized test. For my Advanced Placement kids, we do almost zilch on military history for any war we study. That is not part of the AP curriculum. . . . But the social history….that’s another story. They better know how every single war impacted women and families, blacks and other minorities, civil rights, the economy, the role of the federal government, and politics. Every single AP test will probably have a social history question. And, as I tell my kids, when you see “social” on an AP test, think women and blacks, and you’ll be able to come up with a good answer. And for World War II, throw in Japanese internment and the Zoot Suit riots, and you’re doing great. But for military history, they’ll need to take my elective on the Revolution and the Civil War to get some real military history other than a brief skimming of the surface.
Just more reason to homeschool.
Pretty Sad.
Wau. Dat wur prity weerd. Wuta lota kraizi peepul, hoo doen’t no dat Aibreham Lincon wur Presidant four Wurld War Too.
I agree that schools should teach the social consequences of war. Think about it, if children were raised knowiong the pain and suffering that war causes society, in the future people these children who are now our leaders will seek peaceful solutions.
This is frightening. We’re creating ‘educated’ citizens who will be unable to carry on an intelligent conversation about world history. No wonder we keep repeating the same mistakes. Thanks for the post, Jimmy. And don’t worry, I’m homeschooling.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for homeschooling and plan to do it myself. But is the argument here that social history is a bad thing, or just that public schools are giving a one-sided view to their students by ignoring military history? From my perspective, social history is still history. The question is, who decides what is more important to teach teenagers about.