"Is Civil War history doomed? " Topic

Interesting article here…

"We had this understanding in our family (growing up in a medical community) that American doctors (high achievers) had gained just enough culture to get through school beyond which they might only glean this or that odd bit from TV or newspapers. So we might tell David Gelertner that his complaint is not new:

I'm a teacher of college students. I'm lucky to be at one of the best colleges in the world, at Yale. Our students are as smart as any in the world. They work very hard to get here. They are eager, they're likable. My generation … we always thought we knew everything about every topic, our professors were morons…"
Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

That guy is a real pessimist.. Things are not as good as he'd like them, probably the same thing his professors said about him when he was a student.

That was the start of an interesting article, but it seems to stop once it has laid out it's premise. It doesn't actually SAY anything at all.

A friend from England, a computer systems guy who worked in the American branch of his company for a few years observed that the twenty-something people he worked with there were incredibly bright, educated at good colleges, and knew all about their field. But they seemed to know almost nothing else. If it wasn't computing or general mainstream popular culture, it was outside their interest.

This was almost thirty years ago. It's possible those people have broadened their life experience since then.

Similar sentiments have been expresed by writers through the ages. Heck the Romans had old men screaming at kids to get off their lawn.

I'd love to comment but I'd have to mention and that would land me back in the Dog House again. So, I have no comment;-)

Best, Lowell

My ten year old already knows who FDR and Lincoln and MLK were, and the (very) basic reasons they were important.
And he got this in public school. I have some influence on him, but mostly its me saying "X", then him saying "I know that already" (wise guy).
I find it near impossible to believe that Yalies are that ignorant. I wonder what subject the author taught?

I, for one, have never been that impressed with Ivy League *undergrads.* One you start talking to grad school students and graduates, then you meet some really sharp cookies.

Also, there are some undergraduate majors that prime you for curiosity outside your immediate discipline, and some that in effect, discourage it. One of my High School friends went into the biological sciences and pretty quickly found he had no time to read anything but the current literature. We layabout History/Anthro double majors had wider fields.

….. A proper liberal arts education teaches one how to think and judge. Such an ability does not go out of style. It has nothing to do with the intelligence of the students. It is what the educational establishment chooses to teach ….. and not teach.

B

What civil war?

When No. 1 son was in school I had the same worry but due to a lot of advocacy history – notably Canadian history – has been stressed more in school, so I didn't have to teach No. 3 son who the two sides were in WWII

The Little Prince is getting a lot of history in elementary school

'….. A proper liberal arts education teaches one how to think and judge.'

Indeed. This is the key difference between 'education', and 'job training'.

Mexican Jack if anything it has gotten worse. This latest 20something group is the most spoiled self absorbed group we have seen in a while. God help us…

My kids have pretty good general knowledge, at least in comparison with their peers. I actually suspect that parts of their education are much better than the corresponding parts of the education that I received. So, it is not all bad. What truly shocks me, however, is people who don't want to know about history or the world around them and wear their ignorance of a badge of honour.

Even when I was in college -- back in the stone age -- I knew people who didn't know the difference between Austria and Australia, or the Crimean War and the Korean War.

Teachers have been complaining about that problem since they were called paedagoges and were bought in Greece by wealthy Roman families.

My children have a strong knowledge of a broad base of subjects and many with some degree of depth depending on where they are in the educational process.

Oh yeah, mine are homeschooled.

When they cut minimal requirements for humanity classes (theater, history, reading, languages, social sciences, writing, etc.) from most colleges back in the late 1970s, students were allowed to specialize in a narrow field of their choice.

Why is anyone surprised by the results?

"The Pew Research Center reported last week that nearly a quarter of American adults had not read a single book in the past year. As in, they hadn't cracked a paperback, fired up a Kindle, or even hit play on an audiobook while in the car. The number of non-book-readers has nearly tripled since 1978."
link

When one dives into the research, one finds that even those that do read, focus on their fields to the exclusion of others.

Dan

In my History department we made up a test of basic US history knowledge. Nothing super hard or deep just the basic things we felt that an American student who has gotten into college should know. The average overall grade was a D.
Many knew virtually nothing about our history. They couldn't even say who we fought in the American Revolution to gain our freedom.

Now, I can't say if this would have been any different twenty or thirty years ago but it still makes me sad.

High school class of 72. One of my fellow student said to the teacher:

"So WWI was against the Germans and WWII was against the Japanese."

Those who want the knowledge will find a way to get it. Those who don't want it… nothing is going to help them.

I'm quite tired of middling-educated fellows, such as the author of the attached article, looking down their noses and lamenting the poorly educated youth fluttering about them.

As a boarded and licensed medical practitioner I work side by side with youngsters, who, quite frankly, and liberal arts or historical knowledge notwithstanding, would without a doubt mentally snuff the author of the linked article, both in speed of thought and sheer volume of retained data.

A lack of shared passion or interest in history, or any other subject for that matter, as oneself, does not equate to poor intellect. You may as well be a mathematician and complain about the sparcity of students who can spew out the quadratic, or Pythagorean formula, and use this as a basis for the decline of our youth. Indeed I'd submit the author would be hard pressed to substantially relate the Laws of Thermodynamics on demand, sans 'google'; a scientifically humble and fundamental set of notions akin in relative subjective ubiquity to the 'basic' history trivia he mentions. But then again, I would not carry the expectation that someone without a passion or shared interest in the field would either.

Cheers,
Bob

I don't disagree with most of what you are saying Inkbiz, but I still think that a well rounded person should have a basic knowledge of history and the world around them. Both of my parents left school at 15, but they have that knowledge, so it is not simply a question of education. Where it all starts to get tricky is in determining what knowledge it is important to have. While I recognise that the whole concept of a western cultural canon is now regarded as politically incorrect, that was the tradition I was educated in and I still think that it has a lot of value. The fruits of the Enlightenment are our birthright and we reject them at our peril.

As I mentioned in an earlier post – "It is what the educational establishment chooses to teach ….. and not teach." One cannot effectively function as a citizen if his education has denied him any understanding of the conferred rights, responsibilities, organization, history and fundamental underpinnings of the polity within which he dwells.

There is an influential faction among the "intelligentsia", going back to the Industrial Age of the 19th century, who view public education as a means of producing a well-trained but politically "pliant" workforce.

I will leave it at that.

B

Youth equals Narcissism. All the young have is their bodies, themselves, and raging hormones, and expectations. All they are interested in is themselves and one cannot blame them. Historical perspective can come only when you have some history of your own life to reflect on, that things are not "always what they seemed" and "If I knew then what I knew now I wouldn't have done that."

Second, we live, for better or worse, in a free society where people are able to chose to form their lives as they wish and do what they wish beyond certain minimal requirements. Education therefore has moved into the market. Most youth today don't care about anything that will not feed the Narcissim above, and that means vocational training which will get them access to salaries and jobs and grant them resources for self gratification is primary. "Pondering the verities" is for latter in life when you find out the mistakes you have made, and realize that you wished you knew then what you knew now. Then you begin to learn so as to avoid that in the future.

Thus is it now, thus has it been thus it shall always be.

To rope it back to Civil War History, one of the great bemoanings is the "greying of the hobby (re-enacting)." In an analogous case there are "young guys" going into the hobby, but they want a different style of re-enacting than the older ones, the twenty- early thirty somethings like "campaigns" extreme re-enacting, and things that are more "realistic." For example, if in real life the troops marched 20 miles to get tot he battlefield, they want to march 20 miles to the re-enactment, and sleep on the ground, no tents, cots, hidden ice collers for them. Obviously the 40-50 somethings are desirous of their creature comforts. At the same time the older re-enactors complain of the lack of knowledge of Civil War History of these newer guys.

Sound familiar?

There's no point in forcing history, or philosophy, or anything of this on the young. If they want to study it, they will. If they don't-- they won't.

Oh noes, we're doomed…again :-)

We'll be fine.

Gents;

I have been a high-school teacher of Mathematics and Computer Programming for 20 years sandwiched around ten years in the computer field. I am a military historian on the side and have a library with 3,000 books.

75% of today's high-school students are hopeless in mathematics, and 95% are hopeless in history – they have no clue what the names of our 50 states and their capitals are let alone how our government works. Maybe – MAYBE – 5% can identify the waring sides in the War of Northern Aggression, WWI, and WWII. None have a clue that South Korea was saved as a country and that the South Korea is still our ally.

99% could not correctly identify the Northern and Southern States at the time of the "Civil" War or name the thirteen colonies and how the status of our country changed from 1775 to 1825 – let alone why. Considering the textbook my town uses for American History in Middle School does not include the name Thomas Jefferson in it even once and we are now going to erase from memory all the slave holding founding fathers anyway …

…if today's kids are good enough to qualify as hopeless they get on the honor roll.

And for the record, on another topic altogether from above, during my 20 years of active re-enacting of the War of Northern Aggression, I did walk 5 or so miles AND fight for half a battle for day afterwords twice and did the same doing WWII also … :)

That said, I see no hope of us being fine in 30 years let alone 200. Jesh, if something real big (massive earthquake – whatever hit the NE, 95% of the population would stave within 10 days of the stores running out of food and the gas stations running out of gasoline to drive because they have no ides how to cook unprepared food let alone find it or grow it.

Fortunately, being that I am 60, it will not be my concern Ms. Pedicaris … :)

Your parents said the same thing about your generation, and their parents said the same thing about them.

Somehow, we made it.

Every successive generation is dumber and lazier.. yet they always keep inventing things the previous generation could never have dreamed of :)

….. I wonder if that is what the Romans used to say to comfort themselves.

B

Yes due to the PC'ers getting a hold of it.

Oh and yes the young of today are learning how not to talk or think.

Just go outside and you will see them on their Smart Phones.

Too bad that the phones are smarter than they are.

Your parents said the same thing about your generation, and their parents said the same thing about them.

Somehow, we made it.

My experience was exactly the opposite. When I was a kid there were certain things that an "educated person" in my parents' generation seemed to be expected to know. This included not only certain facts from history, but also certain principals of writing style, literature, science and math. I don't believe people in my generation or younger are any less knowledgeable than prior generations were. However I think we have moved away from the notion of there being a common core of information that Americans should know.

I am not particularly worried that youngs don't know trivia about history or warfare. I am more worried that History is being treated, again, as a collection of facts. When someone believes that he or she knows about history because he/she can recite a list of dates and names, then is when I worry. It's like saying that you know about architecture because you know what a brick is and how it looks.

My problem is that by reducing History to lists of factoids all its complexity is lost. Then is when manipulation takes hold. I would rather prefer that kids wouldn't be sure if Gettysburg was fought in Pennsylvania or Maryland, but that they would understand why the war started and why it was fought; how slavery was fundamental on the beggining of the war and how it was interwoven in the discourse about States rights. Gettysburg is irrelevant per se; only in context it acquires relevance.

I have a friend who started a MS in history, writing on the Gallipoli campaign. His advisor insisted that he had to include the contributions of the India troops in that war. (There weren't any – it was almost all Austie/NZ). History and facts didn't matter – political correctness was paramount. End of MS. That is what is current in American academia.

….. Anyone confused about why this is the case should read

@ExtraCrispy:"Similar sentiments have been expresed by writers through the ages. Heck the Romans had old men screaming at kids to get off their lawn."

Defuerint partus mei!!!

When we try to broaden the scope of education, the cry is "Why are we spending money on this? Education should be about job skills strictly!"

When we cut it back in scope, it's "The kids don't know anything about the battle of Higgins boot! Education should be a broad knowledge of societal values!"

In the end, people just like to complain about it, because it makes them feel smarter or because it feeds their sense of tribal loyalism.

As far as civil war history itself, look at these discussions on here.
You can't even get people who DO study this stuff to agree on basic things like why the heck people were fighting to begin with.

If you can't figure it out, what hope does a 12 year old have?

Back in the 80s, I argued with a woman studying to be a history teacher that she actually should know something about history if she was going to teach it. She maintained that all she needed to know was the theory because she could look up the facts the night before. Yesterday a court ordered that she repay $1.4 USDm in stolen money to the trade union of which she was formerly the secretary. I am somewhat amused.

You think it's bad in the US, you should look at Scotland. Very few history teachers here have any real knowledge of their country's history and just churn out a load of old fairy tales. Those who do have that knowledge (and some of them are very well-informed indeed) are told that teaching the history of Scotland is 'parochial'. Sadly, things are really not that much better in England.