If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a million times: Young people today don’t know American history very well. They don’t appreciate why it’s important. They don’t understand it. Historical literacy in America is abysmal.

In July, I had the privilege to spend five days in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, at the American Battlefield Trust’s Teacher Institute. (Here's a recap of the dispatches I filed at ECW.) At the conference, I heard some things regarding history education in America that absolutely shocked me.

“The good news is that there’s not a single piece of data that shows students knowledge of history is in decline,” said Bruce Lesh, a former social studies teacher who now works in education policy at the state level in Maryland. In 2008, he was recognized as the pre-collegiate Teacher of the Year by the Organization of American Historians and in 2013 was named Maryland Secondary Social Studies Teacher of the Year.

The problem, Bruce said, is that students’ knowledge of history isn’t in decline because it’s always been consistently low. He cited dispiriting research done as early as 1917 that sounded like it could have been released last year.

“It’s become popular to bash teachers,” Bruce said. “Teachers get the blame.” But in fact, he suggested that students find history enjoyable and they love the historical process. They love to ask questions, interrogate sources, argue—the very things historians do in their professional work.

What they don’t love is rote memorization—they very skill overemphasized by standardized testing. “Memorization doesn’t lead to achievement or student engagement,” Bruce said, citing a century’s worth of research to back him up.

However, when teachers are able to put students “in a situation where they have to take a disciplinary approach to history instruction,” research shows excellent results. “They want to mimic, in the classroom, the things historians do,” Bruce explained. “They understand that history is about information, but they want to be able to explore that information.”

The main problem is that teachers’ hands are tied by an educational system that reinforces a century of poor practice. “That’s the way we’ve always done it” is the rule, even though research clearly shows “the way we’ve always done it” doesn’t work all that well.

Bruce’s talk was titled “It’s not what or how much we teach, but how we teach it that matters: Confronting the Legacy of History Instruction.” If I could, I would bottle him up and send him to every Civil War Roundtable in the country—and every school board and state Department of Education, too, for that matter. His message about history education is that compelling and vital.

Fortunately, a couple hundred teachers gave up part of their summer vacation to attend the Teacher Institute simply because those teachers love what they do. It offered an encouraging reminder that our kids, by and large, are in very good, very capable hands. Those teachers love what they do and love what they teach. We should support every effort that helps them better pass that love on to their students.

Chris Mackowski, Ph.D.

Editor-in-Chief

Decisions at Chickamauga: The Twenty-Four Critical Decisions that Defined the Battle  is David A. Powell ’s most recent book concerning the September 1863 battle. Chickamauga is not a new topic for Dave—he has authored five other books on this, the second-largest engagement of the Civil War, including  The Maps of Chickamauga, Failure in the Saddle: Nathan Bedford Forrest, Joseph Wheeler, and the Confederate Cavalry in the Chickamauga Campaign,  and his narrative trilogy, The Chickamauga Campaign.

 

Rather than delivering another narrative of the battle, Decisions at Chickamauga  examines crucial moments—turning points, as it were—in the course of the action, where leaders faced difficult moments and the outcome hinged on their choices. Each discussion outlines a situation a leader (not always the army commander) faced, his possible choices, and the underlying pros and cons. Rather than pass judgment, readers are asked to consider stepping into an officer’s shoes at a particularly compelling moment to reach their own evaluation of each potential course of action.

 

Written as a form of military-style staff ride, Decisions  is the latest release in the new  Command Decisions in the American Civil War  series from the University of Tennessee. Earlier works explore Gettysburg, Stones River, and Second Manassas. A number more are planned. Affordably priced, these paperback guides are meant to take students and aficionados onto the battlefield to consider the difficult nature of command in the Civil War.”

 

Read more about Dave’s new book here .

On July 15th, ERW Historian Mark Maloy spoke at Morristown National Historical Park on his book Victory or Death: The Battles of Trenton and Princeton, December 25, 1776 – January 3, 1777. For more information: www.nps.gov/morr .

On July 18, ERW Historian Phillip S. Greenwalt spoke at the Lehigh Valley American Revolution Round Table about the book he co-authored with ERW Historian Rob Orrison , A Single Blow: The Battles of Lexington and Concord and the Beginning of the American Revolution, April 19, 1775. For more information: www.lvarrt.org

Check out the blog, Emerging Revolutionary War , at www.emergingrevolutionarywar.org .