Why are we burying history?

[RealityChik]

4. Sadly, the average college student...

Still can't name the 3 branches of the US Government and have no clue when the US Civil War was. Most cannot name their representatives in Congress or their state governor. Nor the name of their own state capitol. Few adults know that Hawaii is a state in the US, and still ask residents if the hotels have hot and cold running water!!! I can only imagine how many adults don't know there are 50 states, much less name them!

Thing of it is, if we don't know our own history, we are doomed to repeat our most devastating mistakes, over and over and over.

Civics as a formal course was already gone in the late 1950s. All we got were a few daily articles during a 20 minute homeroom period first thing in the morning. By the time my kids were in high school in the 1990s, American Government was no longer a requirement, only an elective, often for the Advanced/Gifted program or not offered at all.

Even in my day, American History textbooks were so thick with frivolous innuendo, (or in my case Catholic propaganda) students were lucky to get to the 19th century much less the 2 world wars, Korean War and Vietnam. And forget about current events!

Nowadays, degrees in History have almost zero value to graduates in search of a productive career, but that's where abstract thinking and global perspective come from.