Wednesday, February 18, 2004

McIntosh H.S. senior: Children won’t understand, teens will miss out

It has often been said that those who do not know the past are doomed to repeat it. The generation of children that would be subject to this new, proposed state curriculum will be tomorrow’s leaders. How will they be adequately prepared to fulfill their positions as leaders if they do not have a firm grasp on the history of the United States and the world?

As a former student of Mr. Joseph Jarrell and one who appreciates the ramifications of understanding history, I have been disturbed to hear about this suggested alteration in the teaching of history. It is a blatant attempt at regaining lost pride rather than improving the quality of education for young people.

Test scores reflect on Georgia as a whole, and it is understandable to want to raise them, but giving students less material and simplified tests so that they may learn to memorize and spit back canned information is not the answer.

Children in younger grades are not stupid. Saying that they are not yet ready to deal in depth with topics such as slavery is not an insult. Elementary and middle school students need to spend their time studying fundamental concepts that will form the foundation for later learning.

English and math should be stressed in these grades, and, while an introduction to history is wise, history as a whole will be understood best at a high school level.

Unfortunately, with the plan of spreading the study of history out over several academic years, students will sacrifice such valued study in favor of a watered-down version of historical fact. Teachers will be forced to gloss over details that a younger mind is not equipped to handle.

The Civil War, the most divisive war in our nation’s past, will take on a new appearance. Its horrors will be softened and dulled. These children will grow up without a clear understanding of what the Emancipation Proclamation was really about.

Many nuances and shades of meaning will be lost on them: It’s not a matter of stupidity but of maturity. One cannot expect a sixth-grader to think on the level of an eleventh-grader.

The ancient beginnings of the world, Mesopotamia and early civilizations, foreign religions and rituals, will be taught, or rather, forced on children who will understand it at a child’s level. They will be fed platitudes and simplified stories and taught to repeat that information on tests whose scores may gradually improve at the expense of redefining education as brief memorization.

Students have everything to lose with this proposal. Not only will they be assaulted with the less noble side of history and confounded with complicated social and political subtleties, but in high school they will be further abused.

High school students, whose class time will be exhausted with sitcoms and a rigorous study of dating during the jazz era, will learn about the modern era founded on a hazy recollection of ancient times.

It is true that recent events are crucial to understanding current affairs. However, history builds on itself. What is happening now, what has happened recently, has all been caused by earlier events. It is a chain reaction. Teachers will find that their students will have to review old information.

How can they grasp the events of the 20th century without comprehending those of the 19th? In government classes during senior year, teenagers will struggle to recall those founding fathers that drafted the Constitution and the circumstances surrounding their decision. Studying government would make little sense. Why, students will question themselves, is equal representation such an issue?

Much will be forgotten. Much will be lost, fall through the cracks. We will encourage ignorance and feign surprise when the numbers of college dropouts increase and Georgia falls even further behind nationally. That is the inevitable outcome.

The benefits of teaching history completely and thoroughly in high school are too numerous to enumerate here. History and English teachers often find correlation between their subject matter. I remember studying Thoreau in my literature class while learning about the transcendental movement in U.S. history.

I read “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” for an English assignment before presenting to my history class biographical information about the same man. The correlation between the two classes has always enhanced the learning experience. But that, too, will be lost.

Similarly, classes within the same school will be studying different topics at the same time. Students will not be able to discuss the subjects that they are learning in class as each teacher teaches at his own rate a course lined with excessive flexibility.

Students in advanced placement classes will have to study all of history to prepare for the AP test in May. They will be on a completely different track than their peers, and, luckily for them, the only ones to receive a thorough background in history.

It is unfortunate that we would choose immediate gratification over long-term benefits. If a change is necessary, then we must certainly search for a solution, but haphazard guesses will not suffice. An all-out surrender of methods that have withstood the onslaught of time for the sake of increasing test numbers is inexcusable.

I know the value of a good education. I can appreciate the history I have learned these past few years. I appreciate learning the truth in place of speculations and reality instead of a simplified story. My knowledge of the past better equips me to face the future. I cannot promise that same chance to our future graduates who will be affected by this modification in teaching.

Short cuts have never been good enough for Georgia before. Why should they be now?

Cheryl New

Peachtree City, Ga.

[Ms. New, 17, is a senior at McIntosh High School and a member of the Peachtree City Youth Council.]