Is Student’s lack of History Knowledge a Reflection of Today’s Society?

It was announced after a study that “surely a grade of 33 in 100 on the simplest and most obvious facts of American history is not a record in which any high school can take pride in.”

There’s been some discussion on Dimitri’s blog that I think is a bit misguided. Dimitri asks, “what has happened to the student body culturally and sociologically.”

As a public school social studies teacher I run into a plethora of different kinds of students, and I feel that, generally, today’s students are as ready for learning as they were when I was in school. I also feel that social studies teachers are doing a vastly better job teaching history than they were 20 years ago.

It is a fallacy that students have progressively “lost” their knowledge or concern for history or that there is some kind of decline in our culture. It is also a fallacy that today’s liberal dominated universities, or inept high school teachers, are to blame.

The above quote did not come from any recent study. The 1990s? No. 1970s? No. 1950s? No, it came from a 1917 study by J. Carleton Bell and David F. McCollum, “A Study of the Attainments of Pupils in United States History,” Journal of Educational Psychology 8 (1917), 257-74.

Studies that bemoaned the ignorance of students also took place during WWII (New York Times, 1942), and again in 1976 (New York Times).

So, I argue that it is not a reflection of our society today or teachers, but simply a trend that is both exasperating and frustrating, especially for me as a history teacher.

I have started to spend time in class addressing student’s lack of interest in history. Having an open discussion with my students. It’s not that they do not care (some indeed do not), but that it does not seem to apply to life nor their current social environment.

I think the issue is about maturity. I was one of those students in high school who did not like history, and to this day I cannot even recall who my history teacher was. Apparently he was so bad I have had to suppress all memory of that class.

So we can argue that it is bland and boring books, poor history teachers, and the decadence and decay of society. But I suspect the answer too complex for a simple causation.

Other sources: Sam Wineburg’s “Historical Thinking and other Unnatural Acts.” (2001)

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3 Responses to Is Student’s lack of History Knowledge a Reflection of Today’s Society?

  1. Glenn Cheney says:

    You are absolutely right that students are losing interest in and track of history. No doubt bout it, and it means troiuble. God forbid we should repeat what we’ve been through!

    It was in hopes of correcting just a bit of this problem by writing a book about the ppilgrims’ first year in America. I wrote it at a 7th grade reading level, though it is intended for anyone of high school level and up. I think that first year of the Pilgrinm experience explains much of what our contemporary cuilture is, or at least what we hold as valuable even if we don’t practice it.

    The title of my book is “Thanksgiving: The Pilgrims’ First Year in America.” You can read an excerpt at “NLLibrarium.com.”

    Glenn “No Relation” Cheney

  2. Anon E. Mus says:

    I came across this post while looking for information on grad studies in history. But I have to say that in my secondary education I was the poster child for disinterested student–from skipping class to sleeping in the back. That changed, though, after a visit to Europe as a teenager. Seeing the places I had learned about helped me realize that history was living, and that the contemporary world I’m living in would one day be studied like the Victorians. When it comes to students I think the problem is often a lack of connection. While I was still ambivalent about school, my perception changed and I was able to appreciated some of my history classes.

  3. I have always been fascinated by history from almost any era and almost any country.

    While I’ve never been bored in any history class I’ve taken, I can easily understand why so many students are. It’s a combination of the students’ lack of interest and the boring facts that too many teachers insist on dispensing. I’ve found that a lot of the history teachers and professors I had wanted to make us learn only dates and places, instead of the important ramifications of the events which had taken place.

    I believe teachers need to do a better job of relating historical events with today’s world. As an example, how the lingering effects of the First World War still affect Europe and the U.S. even today. In other words, Iraq being created from the remnants of the Ottoman Empire, etc.

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