Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.” True enough. Depicting history is, and always has been, a collective enterprise. But our modern, relativistic culture has made separating fact from fancy increasingly difficult, as political correctness often trumps truth. As a result, we are rewriting history.
Nowhere is this more evident than in American classrooms, where our children’s history lessons change with the political winds. Anti-bias guidelines and fears of offending special-interest groups permeate history textbooks, smudging out historical accuracy.
Our Founding Fathers are now referred to as androgynous “framers.” According to a 2004 Washington Times report, word such as “man,” “mankind,” “aged,” and “suffragette” are now banned from textbooks. In 2003, reviewers found 533 factual or interpretive errors in social studies texts submitted for adoption to the Texas State Board of Education. While publishers agreed to 351 revisions, they stated the remaining errors were simply a “misunderstanding” of the textbook.
However, nothing changed to ensure students would not fall victim to the misunderstandings. The result is that millions of American schoolchildren are misinformed about important historical events and documents. In 2002-03, only 55 percent of North Carolina high school students were considered proficient in U.S. history. This is no surprise, given the widespread deficiencies in our history curriculum: The Fordham Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based education organization, gave North Carolina’s Social Studies Curriculum an “F” in a 2002-03 evaluation of state history standards.
Our teachers are unschooled in the fundamentals of American history. Chester Finn, president of the Fordham Foundation, said that only 31 percent of middle school history teachers and 41 percent of high school history teachers actually majored in history as undergraduates. Just like the character in Sam Cooke’s song, “Wonderful World,” our teachers “don’t know much about history.”
So, why does it matter whether students (and teachers) understand American history? For starters, the success of a representative government is predicated upon having informed citizens.
Past generations have understood this: One reason for beginning mandatory “common” schools in the early 1800s was to teach children the specifics of American democracy. Children learned answers to the questions, “Why does the government have three branches? What is the Electoral College? Why are federal judges appointed?” Without a foundation in political, economic and social history, our newest citizens enter adulthood ill-equipped to vote, serve on a jury, lobby Congress, or model civic values.
What can be done? First, we need to take a hard look at our history courses, and push back against the rising tide of political correctness. Alexis de Tocqueville’s view of history was one of a “gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.” We need to ensure that our historical copies, or textbooks, closely resemble the originals. Students ought to study the original documents providing the infrastructure for our government, legal, and judicial systems — documents such as the Constitution of the United States, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence.
Second, parents (and citizens) need to be willing to supplement school programs at home. For those fed up with “revisionist” history, the Bill of Rights Institute (www.BillofRightsinstitute.org) offers a reasoned, accurate alternative. This Virginia-based nonprofit organization, founded in 1999, offers programs that teach students about America’s Founding principles and their importance to a free society. Their program, The Bill of Rights for Real Life, a 10-unit teacher’s guide and DVD set, provides valuable lessons about citizenship, the roots of our fundamental freedoms, and the role of civic values, the law, and the courts in daily life.
In sum, we do a disservice to our children when we tamper with historical fact. America has a rich and colorful past, marked by victory and struggle on the road to freedom. If our children are to grow into citizens devoted to the protection of America’s fundamental liberties and ideals, they must first understand what they are.
Kakadelis, a former schoolteacher, is director of the North Carolina Education Alliance. Visit NCEducationAlliance.org for more information about its programs.