Jul 23, 2020

Teaching History: The Ideal, the Currently Real, and Prospects in the Context of the K-12 Revolution


Fundamentals of an excellent liberal arts education include teaching with breadth and depth the subjects of mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, government, American history, world history, economics, psychology, English and world literature, English usage, music, and visual art.  In---  count’em---  fourteen---  that’s fourteen, years in the currently typical preK-12 scheme, there is an abundance of time to convey a great bevy of information in all of these subjects, with plenty of time also for physical education and health and an array of vocational subjects (carpentry, plumbing, auto mechanics).


 

At grades PreK-5 (elementary school in most locally centralized schools districts as now structured), students should have detailed, knowledge-intensive, information-heavy introductions to all of the key subjects in the liberal arts.  At grades 6-8 (middle school), impartation of knowledge and skill sets in the liberal arts should continue at ever higher levels, and students should have increasing access to courses in the vocational and technological arts.  With this approach to curriculum, students will arrive in high school ready to take Advanced Placement (AP) courses in calculus, biology, chemistry, physics, world history, United States history, government, and economics.  They will also have opportunities to take specialized courses in those fields, explore vocational interests, and conduct formal research with a resulting 20-page paper.

 

In the context of such a knowledge-intensive education is the approach to the study of history to be considered.

 

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At preK-5, students should gain introduction to the evolution of life on earth, the origins of humanity in East Africa, the first human hunting-gathering and agricultural societies, and the development of civilization in key river valleys, on Crete, and in Mesoamerica.  Students should then gain fundamental understanding of developments across the centuries in the key geographical areas of Africa, West Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, East Asia, North and South America, Europe, and the Eurasian expanses of Russia.

 

American and United States history should be considered in the context of world history, then students should study the details of American and United States history.  Great allotment of time should be given to the arrival of humanity across the Bering Strait, with consideration of possible other locations of arrival, and the development of Native American cultures in the key regions of the Canadian First Nations;  the Northeast, Southeast, Woodland, Mississippian, Plains, Southwest, and Northwest regions of what became the United States;  the development of Native American cultures in Mexico, Central America, and Peru;  and the defining characteristics of the Aztecs, Mayas, and Incas.

 

Motivations for the exploration and conquest activities of Columbus, Cortez, and Pizarro;  and for the subsequent arrival of Spaniards, French, Dutch, and English explorers and settlers should be considered in the context of world history;  with objective consideration of the impact on Native American cultures.

 

With increasing focus on what became the United States, students should learn about colonial life, the slave trade (including participation of such West African slave trading states as the Ashanti and Dahomey), conditions on the Middle Passage, and the importance of slavery to the tobacco, rice, sugar, and cotton economies of the American South.  Students should learn about the reasons for the tensions between the leadership of England and the colonies, the precise colonial sectors that agitated for revolution, and how various economic and ethnic groups calculated their interests in the American Revolution.  Students should then gain information pertinent to the progression from the Articles of Confederation to the United States Constitution, the issues of contention for the Federalists and the Jeffersonian Republicans, the impact of the Westward expansion for those of Native American and European provenance, North-South tensions leading to Civil War, the Reconstruction amendments and period, the Compromise of 1877 and the development of Jim Crow society, the Northern Migration, capitalist and industrial development of the late 19th and early 20th  centuries, all ideological aspects of the populist and progressive movements, the Northern Migration, World War I, the Harlem Renaissance, implications of urbanization, Great Depression, World War II, postwar United States, the Civil Rights Movement, and the major events of the 1970-2020 period, including the Women’s Movement, Vietnam War, Watergate, oil crises, the Reagan era, the Clinton presidency, the 9-11 bombings and impact, and the presidencies of Obama and Trump.

 

Students in grades 6-8 (middle school) should continue to review these subjects and to study key topics at an increasing level of sophistication;  students in grades 9-12 will be ready to take pertinent AP history courses and to opt for electives of driving interest.

 

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Readers should now comprehend certain realities and prospects:

 

>>>>>    The gravest problem at present is not that history is mistaught but that it is not taught at all;  unless students take AP classes, they graduate from high school with no appreciable knowledge of world or American history.       

 

>>>>>    Teachers must be trained by independent and university scholars of history, because  

 

>>>       preK- 5 teachers as a rule have no knowledge of history;

 

>>>       most middle school and high school history teachers have woefully inadequate

knowledge bases;  and

 

             >>>     at present, landing in a class with an adequately trained AP teacher is just the
                            luck of the draw.


>>>>>    Taught correctly in the predominant format of whole-class lecture-discussion, students will have vigorous discussions and write critically analytical papers with abundant opportunity to express personal views on the basis of facts presented by the teacher at the highest possible level of objectivity.  The teacher will be ever attentive to the perspectives of a wide range of economic and ethnic groups, stimulating student debate that takes cue from those perspectives.

 

>>>>>    Impartation of objective facts is paramount in preK-12 education. 

 

>>>>>    Expression of both student and teacher opinion will follow, as expressed and defended on the basis of factual information.  If taught correctly, the motivations, fates, and agency of all major historical actors will be a given.

 

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Concluding Comments

 

We must first realize the historical and general ignorance that currently pervades United States society.  

 

Then we must set about teaching the facts of history with keen striving for objective understanding before proceeding to judgment and personal expression.

 

We should not assume that students or the public have much historical knowledge at all;  we should in fact in any given case first assume ignorance while listening for the occasional exception;  and then we must with great fortitude move forward to the herculean task of replacing abysmal ignorance with abundant knowledge and the development of critical capacity exercised upon factual information.     

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