"The Genius Of America" Should Be In Every Classroom

Zanesville TimesRecorder.com:

"Consider," [Lynne Cheney] wrote then, "how little history is required of our students. Once it was taught every year kindergarten through 12th grade; now many states require but one year." If that, these days.

Today, in a contemporary book that should be in every school, and certainly within reach of members of Congress and the Obama administration, "The Genius of America: How the Constitution Saved Our Country and Why It Can Again" (Bloomsbury USA, New York) -- Eric Lane and Michael Oreskes write: "We are not burdened by a sense of history, our own or anyone ... Our sense of our own past, to put it politely, is thin and growing thinner. The evidence for this is all around us."

Read the whole story: Zanesville TimesRecorder.com

Comments

[RollaLoneRanger]

I teach survey U.S. history classes for some local private 4 year schools and have made a concerted effort to bring in primary sources into my classes. My problem is that most of the students lack the fundamental reading skills to comprehend the documents and I have to spend time in my history class to teach essay writing skills, which limits my ability to spend time on documents. I agree with the sentiment of the article and I have heard my own graduate professors complain about current graduate students and their lack of knowledge on primary sources. The graduate programs have become obsessed with focusing on the secondary sources and not on having students understand the original documents.

[JohnSawyer]

Here's a version of the US Constitution, with helpful notes:

http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html

[JohnSawyer]

Anybody got a good link to the complete Federalist Papers?

[CoconutLime]

I am becoming a secondary Social Science teacher because I care about U.S. History, etc.

[Wendy Johnson]

Good luck to you, that's a tough field to get a job in (at least it is here in CA. I tested to teach Social Studies and English, but I've seen way more English openings since I started looking).

[amdezurik]

but but but teaching kids history instead of to the "test" might give them ideas and stuff, why do you think NCLB has been inposed on schools?

[Tulka2]

History and CIVICS should be taught all through middle school as it used to be.

Lynn Cheney will not tell us it was Ronald Reagan who began the trend that took both these subject of of public schools because he championed the illusion that liberal (read "educated") teachers could not be trusted to put the proper authoritarian spin on these subjects.