The Most Important School Subject? How About History

Schools should recognize their purpose is not solely to turn out good, little “workers;” their mission is to give young people the knowledge and wisdom to thrive as humans.

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Yesterday, I wrote about the imperative facing us as a country, to rethink the purpose of public education.

Today, I’d like to offer one possibility for what a new approach might include.

For starters, I’m going to suggest something radical:

We’ve been neglecting the most important of the four core subjects: History.

Yes, I recognize that from a practical, “career-readiness” perspective, it is difficult to imagine what sort of employer would require a synopsis of the Norman Invasion or ask who won the Battle of Little Big Horn

But I take issue with this, dare I say… Communistic mindset we’re entertaining. This utilitarian idea that schools, or more properly, Education itself, exist simply to churn out good little workers.

I have a real problem with that. Because we don’t just want to produce nice and compliant economic machine parts and cogs.

We want a thoughtful, engaged, and knowledgeable population.

And in order to get that, we need to do two things. One, remember that students are humans, and humans are much more than workers/employees.

And two, refocus on History.

The rise of Bernie Sanders is interesting for a spate of reasons, but one that has become glaringly obvious is that most of his voters – and even several prominent Democrats in his own party – cannot define the difference between Democracy and Socialism.

That deficiency all but proves a widespread, substandard History education.

If Americans do not even understand how their own government and economic system function, they cannot be accurately called “informed” voters. And if, beyond that, they do not have both a deep and broad understanding of how this country came to be, and why democracy itself is revolutionary, and highly susceptible to demise (witness Donald Trump), then we cannot hope to keep and improve upon our own country.

These are abstract problems, but their consequences are, and will be, keenly felt in the material world. Though it seems impossible, Donald Trump could manipulate enough people into sending him to the White House.

That would be an unprecedented step towards fascism, American-style. We don’t know exactly what it would look like, but based on Trump’s own proclamations, we can guess it would include:

• Mass, and often illegal, deportations
• Criminal cases against newspapers, journalists, and bloggers, for the “crime” of reporting negatively against Trump
• Sexual harassment ignored at the federal level (it’s hard to prosecute lesser beings, when the POTUS regularly spews misogyny)
• A celebration of ignorance, and the institutionalization of double-speak, wherein facts simply do not matter. Whatever Trump, or his mouthpieces say, is the truth, empirical evidence be damned.

All governments are prone to one or more of these abuses of power.

But to date, our government has done a fairly consistent job of policing itself.

Far too many American citizens probably have no idea about our brilliant separation of powers, and would therefore not object to a Trump takeover of Executive Action to the point of tyranny.

This is the result of a failure to properly emphasize and teach History.

There has been the right and justified impulse in our country, to teach not just the rosy parts of our past, but the dark and haunted parts as well.

Students learn the brutal evil of slavery. They learn of the horrific treatment of Native Americans. They learn about the Civil Rights Movement, the Feminist Movement, the ongoing fight for equality in a flawed, and sometimes murderous, set of laws and government officials.

And so they should.

But I fear what has been lost is the careful outlining of how much better life is (in general) in America than, say, Venezuela. Or how much freedom we enjoy compared to China, or North Korea, or even a fellow “democracy” like India.

American young people, en masse, probably have no idea what life in a country with no rule of law actually looks like. What life in Libya, or Syria, or even Mexico, is often like for an average citizen.

We are so quick to criticize ourselves that sometimes these distinctions are lost.

As a woman, there are precious few other places on earth I could live and be the person I am today.

I’m not saying America is perfect.

I am saying it is immeasurably better than most of what else is available, both geographically today, and throughout history.

And if students are only taught all the ways America falls short, then there is little incentive for them to fight to preserve its (our) better angels. The next generation(s) will be ripe for manipulation and propaganda from fringe and extreme characters who parrot the lessons of America’s sins, and know none of its proud achievements.

This is something that we need to begin focusing on, because our country is on the precipice of throwing away many of the gains we’ve made towards civility and equality in seriously considering a Donald Trump presidency.

History matters. We need to rethink how we teach it.

Photo: Flickr/Zach Dischner