USA Today reports that teens are losing touch with common historical and cultural references like Big Brother, McCarthyism, and “the patience of Job.”
This is news? Educational standards continue to decline in spite of a variety of efforts to prop them up. I could recount horror stories about my children’s education, but you don’t need my horror stories because there is little doubt that you have your own.
And, on the spur of the moment, I could make a long list of factors contributing to the decline of our cultural heritage. The problem goes well beyond the public school system, although secondary education is a key player.
“If you think it matters whether or not kids have common historical touchstones and whether, at some level, we feel like members of a common culture, then familiarity with this knowledge matters a lot,” says American Enterprise Institute researcher Rick Hess, who wrote the study.
I have no argument with that, but if the adults also lack knowledge of those historical touchstones, then who will teach the kids? Culture is what we transmit from one generation to the next. When the chain is broken, you have to fix all of the links.
The findings probably won’t sit well with educators, who say record numbers of students are taking college-level Advanced Placement history, literature and other courses in high school.
Yes, and what passes for “college-level” is also on the decline. Higher education is another link in the chain that frequently gets a pass in this debate. We still seem to think that getting into college is the goal, as though once there a good education is assured.
On that subject, I suggest you read last year’s article by Annie Karni in The New York Sun, “Students Know Less after 4 College Years.”
