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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