http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3368
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3429
by http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3853 Baldwin
A recent USA Today report confirmed what most of us already knew: America has lost touch with its history. The story ran on February 26, 2008 and begins by saying, “Big Brother. McCarthyism. The patience of Job.
“Don’t count on your typical teenager to nod knowingly the next time you drop a reference to any of these. A study out today finds that about half of 17-year-olds can’t identify the books or historical events associated with them.
“Twenty-five years after the federal report A Nation At Risk challenged U.S. public schools to raise the quality of education, the study finds high schoolers still lack important historical and cultural underpinnings of ‘a complete education.'”This report only touches the tip of the iceberg. The fact is, the current generation of Americans is more “historically challenged” than any previous generation. The public education system has all but eradicated a healthy knowledge and respect for American history. I believe the indifference of public education to our great history is deliberate and intentional.
Not only is true American history not being taught, what is being taught is mostly a distortion of our history. For example, virtually every child in America can quickly identify Martin Luther King, Jr., as the father of the civil rights movement, but many, if not most, cannot identify George Washington as the Father of Our Country. Fewer still know that James Madison was The Father of the U.S. Constitution or that Sam Adams was the Father of the American Revolution. School children are indoctrinated in political-correctness, but are taught nothing of the fundamental principles of liberty upon which America was founded.
By contrast, when I attended a public elementary school back in the 1960s, I well remember reading copious volumes on America’s Founding Fathers. In fact, I recall that our required reading included documents such as Washington’s Farewell Address. On the whole, however, today’s public school children do not even recognize names such as Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Benjamin Franklin, or Alexander Hamilton.
Beyond that, about the only references that are given about America’s founders are insults, criticisms, and downright slander. Our Founding Fathers are referred to as racists, homophobes, extremists, etc.
http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/c2008/cbarchive_20080318.html