Students Lack of Historical Knowledge is an Outrage

When I was in high school, I was concerned about how much history students knew, so I created a test that I felt would measure historical knowledge. It probably wasn't scientific or perfect- I was a young kid with no training on developing tests- but it was 20 multiple-choice questions. Every student in the high school took this test- I gave it out at lunch with free candy that I bought. The results were startling- my fellow students knew very little about history. The average score was 20% correct- they only knew 1 in 5 answers.

Flash forward to today. I read an interesting story over at Education Watch International called "Trendy British teaching is 'producing a generation of history numbskulls'". Professor Derek Matthews, an economics lecturer at Cardiff University, was also curious about his students' historical knowledge that he decided to investigate by having them take a simple test- five simple questions on British history. Over three years, 284 students took the test- like me, a sample probably too small to count as scientific but providing enough data to draw a conclusion. And the conclusion Matthews drew was the same as mine- that another entire generation of teenagers know almost nothing about the history of Britain.

It's not that that students know little- they know next to nothing! When I asked who the United States fought in the War of 1812, only 20% knew. When Matthews asked who led the British to victory at the Battle of Waterloo, only 17% knew. When I asked who the British defeated at Waterloo, only 20% knew. When Matthews asked students to name a single British Prime Minister from 1800-1900, only 1 in 10 could. An entire generation of students in America and Britain do not know anything about the basics of their country's history.

But don't students have to take history classes in high school and in college? Yes, they do- every year they are taking some sort of history class. But what exactly are they learning in these classes? Open up your son or daughters history book and really look at what is in there. Massive amounts of information with no theme or purpose. Trendy topics. Long sections on women and minorities, small sections on battles and economics. Generic skill training, like how to read a map or read primary text, after which students can recall nothing from the map or the text. Yes, students take history classes, but they aren't learning history.

In a later report on the 'death' of school history teaching, Professor Matthews said levels of ignorance among the young were an 'outrage' that 'should be intolerable'. Should be intolerable- but aren't. These levels of ignorance are tolerated in our society- many feel that it isn't fair to punish a student and not let him or her graduate just because they don't know useless information about our past.

Society puts pressure on students to learn how to Twitter or design a Facebook page more so than learn what policies worked and didn't work. Students spend more time reading Harry Potter than reading a single word of literature written before they were alive. In students' minds, the world did not exist before they were born, contributing to an increasingly egotistical and self-centered society that votes for politicians who pretend to be The One.

So, what is the solution? I'd be happy to hear your thoughts- please email me how you think history could be better taught in our public schools. Next year I am teaching a couple sections of World History, and am looking for some ideas. I'll only be teaching them for a year or two, and then going back to all government classes. I'm thinking something revolutionary and daring- having the students spend time reading history from the textbook, discussing in class the 'holes' like battles, biographies, economics, and principles, and then discussing the lessons learned from it. A real focus on learning history, not simply flipping pages and doing reports on women and minorities. What do you think?