The Failure To Teach U.S. History.
Full disclosure: the first part of my education career I was a high school government and history teacher. I remain to this day fascinated by stories from the past and how patterns of life repeat.
My concern is the degree to which we have learned from past failures, accomplishments, and achievements. Looking back over my four decades in public education, my reflections, and observations of mankind seem to indicate that in some ways we have grown and evolved, but in other instances we keep doing, or going back, to what we have always done. I continue to try to make sense out of this push forward and pull back.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana, The Life of Reason 1905
The conundrum of American Education and the teaching of United States History is that the facts remain the same, but the interpretation and presentation of the facts change with each generation as each generation’s context changes. The context for interpretation is impacted by the norms, beliefs, traditions, and political objectives of society at that time. What would be true, acceptable, and appropriate in 1955, would not necessarily be appropriate in 2023.
It seems Americans have a desire to focus on accomplishments and achievements and not necessarily on the shortcomings, misdeeds, mistakes, or failures. The tendency is to gloss over the negative and only lift the positive. This thinking is directed by the local, state, and federal government and is reflected in the textbooks used in our Nation’s schools.
Any deviation from the theme that “the United States is the greatest country on earth” is met with extreme pushback. The underlying thinking is, “How could we be the greatest country on Earth if we have made mistakes?”
My thinking is you learn as much or more from your mistakes and shortcomings as you do from your successes and achievements. Both need to be presented and learned from.
In the final pages of Muzzey’s book The American People, he lifts themes that happened then that we are still hearing today!
“The Foes of our Own Household. This rich and powerful Republic has no fear of foes from without. But there are dangers that threaten within. We are a wasteful people in the midst of our abundance, consuming the resources which we should be conserving for a future generation....
Strikes and lockouts, preventable illness and accidents, unregulated production, faulty distribution of our abundant wealth, have resulted in the unemployment of a large percentage of the manpower of our nation....
More than three million people a year are made sick by food adulterations; another million are drug addicts; and one knows how numerous are the dupes of patent medicines, cure-alls and beautifiers which have made us the victims of the gaudiest collection of quacks in the world’s history....
Our preoccupation with material success threatens to blind us to the values of patient, honest cultivation of mind and character... If we had the enviable record of leading the world in economic prosperity, we have also the unenviable record of leading the world in recklessness, instability, and crime....
The number of suicides mounts steadily (20,088 in 1932) ...
The number of divorces granted in the United States was 56,000 in 1900 and 191,591 in 1930 – or one divorce for every 5.9 marriages in the latter year.”
In 2023, in the United States, we hear of domestic terrorist and threats from within, the importance of our consumer society and Green New deal initiatives, supply chain failures and worker shortages, obesity, drug addiction, and weight loss gimmicks, and an uptick in suicides and divorce. Parallels between 1934 and 2023, separated by eighty-nine years, are evident.
It seems like we are repeating the past.
Going forward, it is crucial that students are presented with information that is historically accurate, and within the context of that time, not through the lens of today’s norms. Only by having a true and accurate picture of where we have been and what we have done can good decisions be made on where we are going to go and do. Providing the factual story of us in context to students, prepares them to chart and navigate our future.
"The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate thier own undertsanding of thier history"
George Orwell
A nation that forgets it past has no future.
Winston Churchhill