If CNN today reported a survey in which 1 out of every 4 Americans under 25 believed that John F. Kennedy never existed, would you be worried? What would worry you about the state of our educational system? What about the state of parenting in general? Would you even care? It would scare me shitless! Why? A youth with no sense of history is a youth with no sense of self and that is a dangerous youth…. That is a youth who walks into malls and schools not with a wallet or book but with an automatic weapon.
So what is almost as bad as 25 percent of our youth not believing J.F.K existed? 25 percent of England’s youth not believing that Winston Churchill existed! I am not kidding on this one. In a recent survey of London youth, 25 percent believed that Winston Churchill did not really exist and was a “mythical figure” Don’t they teach history over there? Are there that many children not going to school? Are London youth simply so disillusioned and disaffected about their present that they simply can not related to or believe in any strong figures in their past…..
While I am not an expert on English historical values, I would think that teaching their youth about a figure that played a large role in saving them from learning to “goose-step” would be a educational imperative
Anyway you cut it such a stat should scare the hell out of them. It sounds like the youth of London are certainly disconnected from their history. After disillusioned comes disconnected, after that comes disaffected. Then comes the most dangerous D of all to a nation (other than death), disenfranchised.
From the ranks of disenfranchised youth come home grown terrorists and those who have no qualms about turning on their own….
My children are going to live and breathe U.S. history. I’m not taking any chances……
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April 1st, 2008 at 12:46 am
Interesting article Brian.
I was a college recruiter for a couple of technical schools. I would go into high schools and do technical presentations to the predominately senior classes and to find out if the kids were interested in technical education after high school. I have gone into homes and talked to kids and their parents to determine their interest and motivation for wanting hands-on education as opposed to the liberal arts kind of education.
One of the things I re-learned about kids is they have to have interest and motivation to do anything. It’s the me, me, me generation. If a kid doesn’t have the interest and motivation to do something, forget it. Truly, the only kids I witnessed that were interested in history were future teachers. That’s not a negative towards them, I’m just stating what their interests usually were and why.
Sorry for rambling on here, but I think kids need to be enlisted in some way to help other people. That’s why I think scouting, or church groups that give back to the community are so important for kids. Teach them that cleaning up litter on a highway, helping senior citizens in some manner, give something back to the community is vital in taking the spotlight off of them, and giving them a greater sense and appreciation for people other than themselves. Then, they might have an interest in finding out the many stories in history before they were born. It’s just a theory. And finally, it’s kind of difficult to learn about the PT-109 with a cell phone stuck in your ear.
April 1st, 2008 at 6:41 am
Interesting theory, I must say. I agree that history is very important for everyone to have a grasp of, as they say, those who don’t understand the past are doomed to repeat it.
However, I think it’s a bit of a leap to suggest that not knowing that Winston Churchill was real (or that Sherlock Holmes was not, which incidentally was another of the questions from the same survey) begets home-grown terror. After all, the UK isn’t really known for it’s school children opening fire in their classrooms, unlike the US.
The biggest fear from not understanding ones history as well as global history is that it allows a people to be victimised and oppressed and allows them to victimise and oppress others. How many people understand that it took the Nazi state over a decade to go from a forced democratic republic that was somewhat functioning to a one party nation lead by a Fuhrer hell bent on claiming Europe as his own? I wasn’t overnight, but a step by step erosion of rights, more and more draconian laws being put in place and a slow brainwashing of a populace. How many people know about the Treaty of Versailles that left Germany a shadow of what it was after WWI and how that lead to a nation demanding someone stand up and save them?
I bring this up because in both the US and Iraq, as well as lots of other countries in the world, the conditions for a new Fuhrer are starting to take shape, but for a lack of understanding of the history surrounding WWII people say “It can’t happen here” or “It won’t happen there.”
American children who do not have a solid grasp of the Constitution, the Founding Fathers, the bill of rights and all of the things that has made America what it is are more likely to be brainwashed by a government who are willing to turn their backs on the Constitution in the name of “making the nation safer,” they’re more likely to accept being stripped of rights that the Founding Fathers considered necessary to make a great, free nation in the name of “protecting freedom” and they are more likely to stand by and watch their fellow countrymen brutilised by their own government than to stand up and fight for what they know to be right.
It can happen anywhere when the conditions are right.