"…A few decades ago, I began to notice that many of the recently minted college graduates I was working with had surprisingly wide gaps in essential cultural and historical knowledge. Casual conversations revealed no idea who Dante was, what William the Conqueror conquered or what happened at the Appomattox Courthouse, to cite just a few real examples. What made these revelations so surprising and even paradoxical was that these folks were generally very smart and had attended some of America's best universities. I have encountered this phenomenon so often since then that I'm no longer surprised when it occurs.
This is troubling on a number of levels, starting with the well-worn but valid notion that good citizenship and by extension democratic self-government hinge upon our population having an understanding of our common culture and history and the governing institutions that grew out of them. As Winston Churchill said, "A nation that forgets its past has no future."
But most of us no longer know much about our past. Even though more Americans are going to college than ever before, another recent survey showed that only 1 in 3 adults in the U.S. would pass a basic citizenship test. And as we've seen in recent weeks on campuses around the country, a knowledge vacuum can easily be filled with dangerous ideas…"
https://thehill.com/opinion/education/4297586-americans-are-very-well-schooled-well-educated-is-another-matter/View the article + more on Flipboard.
https://flip.it/l-mLK4
No comments:
Post a Comment