Schools are increasingly reducing the amount of history taught to today’s children. A while back I noted in one of my newsletters that in North Carolina schools, there’s a proposal to stop teaching events in U.S. history that occurred before 1877. Meanwhile, in England they’re reducing and sometimes even eliminating the study of history in schools.
This is tragic. Are 21st century citizens so self-centered that they think they’re too sophisticated and technologically advanced to learn anything by studying the past? It’s starting to look that way. I guess the educrats who make these decisions have chosen to ignore George Santayana’s warning that “(T)hose who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Thank goodness homeschooling families have the freedom to choose to study history. I like to think that many of our homeschool grads will use the wisdom they’ve acquired from studying history to help straighten out our country when they become adults. We’ll certainly need their help, the way things are going these days.
My 17 yo daughter is taking a history class at community college this year & has commented several times “I can’t believe that I was the only one who knew that.” Cutting out history in public schools will definitely make things harder for them in the college. (I’m assuming that they won’t eliminate college history departments.)
I also like this quote by Robert Heinlein, “A generation which ignores history has no past and no future.”
My kids have made the same comment, Janet.
Jill, that’s a good one!
Thanks for stopping by, ladies 🙂