Have you ever dozed off while travelling, hopefully while someone else was driving, and when you woke up you didn’t know where you were? Imagine that you are alone, in the middle of a field, with no idea how you got there. Without knowing the history of your travels you are reduced to making a guess about which way to go now.

As a people we have dozed off and, for the most part, have no real idea of what our history is. Our schools have generally done a very poor job of teaching it. I’ve been a history buff almost as long as I can remember but I found our class in high school very boring. When my kids were in school I was shocked at what they were being taught, or more importantly not taught. As an example, my daughter was able to tell me how many women and minorities served in the U.S. military during World War 2 but wasn’t clear on which countries were fighting on which side or why they were fighting at all. Now she was a very sharp kid but the teaching failed her. Take a look on YouTube and watch the videos of people on college campuses asking the students history questions. You’ll see what I mean. As a people we have to do better.

If you do get interested and start studying history you have to understand that each reporter filters an incident through their own experience. Also no one person saw everything that happened. You have to check more than one source to start getting an accurate idea of what really happened. On my book shelf are over a dozen accounts of “Pickett’s Charge”. While they agree on the basic story they differ, and sometime contradict each other, on the details of what happened during those few hours. I’ve been studying those hours for a long time now; reading everything I can find and walking that field. Maybe someday I’ll get a handle on it.

These days we are not only ignorant of our history but seem to be actively trying to destroy it. Some people want to ban symbols and destroy monuments that “offend” them. They don’t seem to understand that that thinking is a double edged sword. If “you” have a “right” to destroy “my” history then “I” also have the “right” to destroy “yours”. Pretty soon we will all be equally ignorant and doomed to repeat all the mistakes of the past.

I’m writing this in hopes of sparking someone’s interest in learning and preserving our history. Hoping that people will come to know how we got to where we are and help them to plot a course forward. At this point, however, the lesson of my studies is that people rarely learn from history. To quote a line from the movie “Tombstone”, “that's the damnable misery of it.”

Well said Slinger.

I am unsure though that what passes for history in our educational system is a teachers fault, sometimes perhaps but more likely the governments choice to miss-educate to their own end. Public education has become a sham.

I also study history and find that I much prefer reading the accounts of the folks who were there, and am totally disinterested in what any modern historian has to say about what happened when.

if you want truth in history then you have to be able to cut through the cognitive biases of the reporter as well as your own. Unfortunately we are literally bombarded with historical bovine excreta almost from birth. first myth to challenge is that the winners are always the good guys.

I don't see the difference between them history adulterer, some evangelical bible thumper who condemn science and isis who are destroying historical monuments.
IMHO they are all narrow minded hypocritical bigots who have no place in current society.

In the USA they are teaching "common core" as federally mandated.
Common core is a curriculum surrounding the concept that the group is worth more than individual thought and action. They don't teach history they teach things about the history that demonstrates how we should get along with everyone else. They don't teach math they teach the group to come up with a common answer.

Instead of teaching independent and creative thought they squash individualism at every turn. They don't teach critical thinking because that leads to questions and no one is supposed to question authority. The federal government has no idea how to teach children, but the know how to indoctrinate mindless slaves.

As I said a sham.

the shame of the Nazi concentration camps is glossed over, they teach kids how Hitler rose to power, and about his charisma.
the atrocities of the Japanese during this time arent even mentioned at all!!!!!
what was done to the allied P.O.W.s was even hidden from the general population by the govts of the time as they were ashamed and worried about how public would react or so I have been taught/learned.
this non flying of the "stars n bars" is wrong on so many levels, it is part of your history, a history that is what it is,warts n all.
we are now getting to stage where the "colonial/Maori wars" are being discussed and studied here...they were bitter and hard fought but numbers involved are a mere drop in the ocean compared to your lot.

We havent got that far Elvis.
Apart from the if you're white you're guilty bit.

Yeah, white privilege, BS. More like white get off our buts and did something rather than sat around bitching. Work ethic, caring for our families, not expecting anyone else to pick up our debits or responsibilities.

The history taught about most things in the US is cr@p, total lies and smoke and mirrors. Lincoln is a prime example, look to his own words about how he felt about slavery and the blacks, in many ways he was as bad as the slave owners. He wanted to ship all back were they came from and did not believe they should mix with whites, not my ideas his own words. In 1860 only 5% of the south were actual slave owners (from an 1860 census report), and your going to expect me to believe the entire population of the southern states, some 8.5 million people dropped everything and risked their lives in a war for that 8%, the war did not begin due to slavery, it was taxation, tariffs, and the overreaching of the federal government. OK, stepping down off my box.

Hope they do a more truthful job with the Maori Wars, but I doubt it.