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It is little wonder that our country is in the dire situation we find ourselves.
After all, how can we know where we are going without knowing where we have been?
In another glaring example of how our educational system has failed us, a study performed by NAEP states that only 12% of High School Seniors are proficient in history.
Most are incapable of answering even basic questions of American History.
Thank You to the Teachers and Administrators who have failed us all.
It is little wonder that our country is in the dire situation we find ourselves.
After all, how can we know where we are going without knowing where we have been?
In another glaring example of how our educational system has failed us, a study performed by NAEP states that only 12% of High School Seniors are proficient in history.
Most are incapable of answering even basic questions of American History.
Thank You to the Teachers and Administrators who have failed us all.
I read that article in the local newspaper also. School districts around the United States are more concerned with math and science scores compared to history scores. History isn't even on the radar for school districts.
If you want to place blame on someone, place it on the bureaucratic people in your local state and federal government who are comparing their country's standarized test scores to other country's test scores. The U.S. is more concerned with math and science than history, which is why teachers are making it their top priority to teach students more science and math.
For example, my mother who works at an elementary school has told me the 5th grade teachers barely even cover history. They're more concerned with science, math, reading, and writing. Who's to blame for that? Go blame it on your local state government because they're the ones who are placing the emphasis on higher test scores in math and science. Administrators of school districts feel the pressure from the state government and pass that pressure down to principals who then pass it down on teachers. That's why come test time teachers get all worked up about math and science scores.
I read that article in the local newspaper also. School districts around the United States are more concerned with math and science scores compared to history scores. History isn't even on the radar for school districts.
If you want to place blame on someone, place it on the bureaucratic people in your local state and federal government who are comparing their country's standarized test scores to other country's test scores. The U.S. is more concerned with math and science than history, which is why teachers are making it their top priority to teach students more science and math.
For example, my mother who works at an elementary school has told me the 5th grade teachers barely even cover history. They're more concerned with science, math, reading, and writing. Who's to blame for that? Go blame it on your local state government because they're the ones who are placing the emphasis on higher test scores in math and science. Administrators of school districts feel the pressure from the state government and pass that pressure down to principals who then pass it down on teachers. That's why come test time teachers get all worked up about math and science scores.
BS. The scores in math and science suck as well. When will the educational system begin to take responsibility for their own failure?
It’s the governments fault, It’s the scoring systems fault, It’s the parents fault, It’s the kids fault, it is everybody in the fricken world’s fault except the people who are being paid to do the damn job.
If they put half the effort into teaching as they do in shirking their responsibilities we would not be having this discussion.
The system is a failure and needs to be replaced with a voucher system.
BS. The scores in math and science suck as well. When will the educational system begin to take responsibility for their own failure?
It’s the governments fault, It’s the scoring systems fault, It’s the parents fault, It’s the kids fault, it is everybody in the fricken world’s fault except the people who are being paid to do the damn job.
If they put half the effort into teaching as they do in shirking their responsibilities we would not be having this discussion.
The system is a failure and needs to be replaced with a voucher system.
Are you a teacher? Do you even know how hard those teachers out there work when they're in the classroom? Do you know any teachers personally and what all they do? Do you even know if teachers are just slacking off on the job? If the answer is no then you lost your point with me.
I imagine that you are among the same group of people who also routinely squawk about how majoring in history is a waste of time.
LOL, I'm sure they are too. On the one hand, some folks on this board love to go on and on about how majoring in liberal arts or any major that isn't a hard science, nursing/health profession, business, or IT, is pointless and a waste of money. well, who do you think are the people teaching students in elementary and high school history? people want their kids to learn history, art, music, and languages, but at the same time, people who major in these fields in college are practically mocked and told they are wasting their time. Even people majoring in English and literature, despite the emphasis placed on reading and writing in elementary and high school. Sure, there are people who pick these majors b/c they assume they're easy, and you do have more people majoring in them then jobs available, but these majors are worthy and necessary, esp. if one hopes to teach.
as mentioned, there's no real push for high school students to learn history. it's a weird double edged sword: on one side, schools don't seem to bother w/ a subject unless it's necessary to test students on it; on the other side, once you start testing on a subject, you start teaching for the test, not for the sake of learning the subject.
frankly, unless things have changed since I last took history in high school, the way history is taught to kids is ridiculous. it's all memorization, not learning. more emphasis placed on matching up dates w/ important events and not really discussion those events. I despised history in high school yet have taken many awesome history classes at the college level. There's a stark difference in how they are taught. In my college level classes, I have yet to use a boring history text that the teacher merely skimmed over anyways.
frankly, unless things have changed since I last took history in high school, the way history is taught to kids is ridiculous. it's all memorization, not learning. more emphasis placed on matching up dates w/ important events and not really discussion those events. I despised history in high school yet have taken many awesome history classes at the college level. There's a stark difference in how they are taught. In my college level classes, I have yet to use a boring history text that the teacher merely skimmed over anyways.
Sounds like things have changed since I was in school.
K-8 was rote memorization of names, dates and places.
Once we got into high school though we dived more deeply into the history of both the US and Europe. We went into the "why" of some of the events.
The foundations were laid in K-8 and were a basis for the deeper discussions.
Part of me thinks that it's not really an "accident" that they don't teach history. What are the consequences of 12% of highschool seniors knowing history? That means 88% of kids don't know history. Hmmm..
-Politicans that can manipulate you. After all, you have nothing to judge them against! You don't even know who the old politicans are, let alone what they stood for, or the mistakes they made.Part of not knowing history is covering up past mistakes.
-It benefits banks, ceo's, global rich...i.e., people don't understand bailing you out.
-You don't understand other countries....and as such, you don't understand the decline of America. You just believe that China is "over there". If you don't have a sweeping overview of history, you won't understand how wealth gets transfered over generations. Hmmmmmm.
-It also makes you poor, in terms of judgement. I.e., look at the mortgage mess. If you don't understand the history of mortgages, or basic finance..maybe it makes it easier to sign a no income, no doc super A++ mortgage. LOL. The kind that were coming out in droves from 2001-2006.
-It divides the country. Gives more ammunition to the glenn becks of the world. Instead of uniting people (possibly making them powerful), you fracture people. Gives more ammunition to the sarah palins of the world (I can see russia from my house).
A good history teacher I've had online (and through amazon) is jim rogers, a financial commentator, world traveler, he tells it like it is, no bs. He went around the world a few times in a car and motorcycle. I found history boring in school, because it was names and dates. You've got to draw history to the present. Things repeat. People make the same mistakes.
*In government school. You would "study" the punic wars. 70% of the emphasis would be on names and dates. most kids eyes would glaze over.
*In a "real school", you'd study whats the point of a war? Who benefits? Have people always benefited from wars? And you'd see common threads between the punic war, and the gulf war or afghanistan. And it'd make you think. School has failed you if you don't understand that whats happening now has happened before.
Not knowing history means you don't know the past, and now you're much easier to manipulate. They should give a certificate to the 88% of highschoolers who don't know history....now you're easy to manipulate. Be careful.
I'd like to see the whole test. We don't have a national curriculum. Standards vary from state to state, so not all students are learning the same parts of history or their not learning it at the same grade levels. Some of the examples given in the article probably would not be answered correctly by the third or fourth grade students in my building because it hasn't been part of their studies since kindergarten. For example, they have not learned about WWI, but hey have studied ancient cultures, human migration, European explorers...
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