Why Education in History is So Important

What students learn matters.

For some people, they ought to learn certain ideas: that the United States is "exceptional," that its leaders are generally motivated by a desire to liberate the world, that its economic system of free enterprise promotes innovation and freedom, and the like. These people, many of whom protested a revision of the College Board Advanced Placement Exam in US History, understand that students' experiences in school help frame their view of the world, and they want kids to share their particular view.

To an extent, that's not only right, it's unavoidable. I want my students to believe that dictatorship causes suffering (most of the time), that freedom of expression is as productive as it is morally preferable (most of the time), that the rule of law is essential to political effectiveness.

The reaction to the AP curriculum therefore was not totally unreasonable, but it was badly skewed. There is nothing wrong, for example, with promoting the idea that Americans in the south were proud of slavery. They were. They defended the institution with the very last of their blood and treasure, and there was very limited dissent from this view of things. These facts are unfortunate and maybe even embarrassing, but they are true, and people need to understand them if they are to know US history. (They also probably need to know those facts to understand the defense of the Confederate flag and the Black Lives Matter movement.)

That the College Board could revise the test in the face of political pressure reveals the bureaucratic nature of that organization, but it also highlights the urgency of teaching kids to think for themselves, and to ask questions about the facts.

I would rather that they learn to ask: was the United States really exceptional? How? Was it exceptional in the way many leaders said it was? Is that good? Has the United States, by and large, promoted freedom in the world? How? Why? Is our economic system truly based on the market? Do we want it to be? Why?

Questions are much better than answers.

Why Grade Inflation is Bad Teaching

To teach is to help someone do something he could not do before. By definition, then, the student comes in unable to perform well at the tasks being taught. In order to help him improve, the teacher needs to give him frequent, accurate feedback on where he stands relative to the goal.

That's why grade inflation is such terrible teaching. If I, as a teacher, tell my student that she is doing very well at a task when she is not, in fact, doing very well at the task I may make her feel better in the short term, I may ingratiate myself to her, and I may reduce conflict between her (and her family) and me, but I have failed in my essential function as a professional.

Once again, college admission offices can help secondary school teachers in this regard by choosing mot to reward students with GPA's of 120 on a 100-point scale over those with lower averages. They can make clear that rigor is more important than scores.

No matter what colleges do, though -- and colleges will never act with the interests of high school student at the top of their priorities -- secondary teachers need to buck up and hold their students to the highest standards possible.

I went into teaching, in part, with this objective in mind. I went to a public high school in a fairly wealthy Connecticut town. My graduating class was a bit larger than Millbrook School as a whole – so, we’re talking a middle sized public school.

All the classes there were “tracked;” Level One was considered honors, Level Two was college bound, Level Three was remedial.  For two years, I skated. I did as little work as possible, considered my teachers to be foolish or incompetent or both (and in retrospect I think I was right a lot of the time) and thought much more about how I fit in than what I should be doing myself. When I was a junior, though, I started to take myself a little more seriously, and invested more of my energy in school work. I did well, especially in history and English, and most of my classmates were pretty serious students.

In fact, most of the people who graduated in the top 20 in our class went to the most competitive colleges, many of them Ivies. I remember my US History class, in particular, being very demanding and very engaging. The kids were more talented than I was, and I had to work hard to keep up.

But in my senior year, in addition to the full-year European history class, I requested to take other history courses – what were called electives. These were all Level Two courses, and Level One students usually did not go into them, but I asked to do it, and got in to two or three.  When I arrived, I was shocked. These courses were holding bins, waiting rooms for kids ready to go home. I could do next to no work and get the highest possible grades. Kids literally could sit around throwing spit balls. The homework consisted of copying definitions into a notebook and turning the notebook in. Tests were even easier than that, and there was no writing at all.

I went into teaching because I never wanted that to happen to anyone if I could help it. It made me angry, and still does. People should never be ignored or condescended to, and the failure to challenge a student is both neglectful and condescending. My mistakes as a teacher, then, tend to go the other way, and that’s why. 

Best High School Reform? Change College Admissions

Not long ago, Andrew Delbanco, from Columbia University, visited our school to talk about his book, College: What it Was, Is, and Should Be. His argument is that American colleges have lost sight of their most important goal, which he sees as teaching young people to think for themselves and understand the world in its broadest moral and personal senses.

I agree with his priorities, and appreciated his talk, but his book seemed more like a faculty room rant than a systematic treatment of the subject.

And while it may be flip, I have an answer that does not require a book to explain. If you want to fix American secondary and university education, abolish early admission programs. Early admission robs students of one quarter of their high school careers. The perceived need to get high grades in September makes them risk-averse, they spend the first few weeks worrying (or feeling they ought to worry) about applying, and then the feel they ought to be "done" as soon as they are admitted. It takes a lot of energy, attention and sympathy to talk them out of these warped -- but understandable attitudes.

It steams me to hear college professors talk about what high school graduates can't do when they arrive as freshmen because it is the professors' employees who contribute most to that failure.