PARTS AND PIECES
How much of our future is but a re-run of our own past? Have you every given that concept just a little bit of thought?
It is very much like asking yourself if the new car you buy is actually assembled, put-together or "made" in the the United States using mainly cheaper foreign parts and pieces and with profits from the project going to the firm in Japan, can be spoken of and marketed as a car "made in the United States of America."
We are, when you think about it at all, are - so often - pretty much what we have been both here and elsewhere.. We don't change as radically as we might think we do. There are additions from time to time, but the basic quality remains as it as before. Isn't that a true statement? Think about it in your life. If so, credit for some good we have must go to our forebears - some demerits, as well - because we share much of our past when we build our future.
Why, then, do so many people decry the teaching of history?
For what reasons does our nation become more and more determined, to avoid teaching the realities of human history - perhaps, much less than we might think - by events of the past. To ignore our national heritage -. True, our past has not always been perfectness have known both good and bad - and not to seek some understanding of why we do what we do, is a tragic mistake, it seems to me. If you have an dreams about what you want your nation to be, look at what it has been thus far. Many of the essentials for the future to be found in the past. And, if that worries you as a sort of fatalism, think of it in this manner: there is marked possibility that no one thought of doing what you wish to be done in the past. You can innovate paths into the future as well as make subtle changes in methodology used in the living of the past patterns.
I have been shocked and amazed when I come across such a lack of knowledge concerning our history among both the young and old. The old I expect to know it; the young not knowing it is understandable in view of our educational circumstances today.
We strayed from our former educational path in the era of so-called "permissive education", I believe, when History and Geography were two of the subjects which were truncated to fit and later lumped together with others under the fragmented headings of "Civics", "Social Studies", or "Cultural Sources".
It may well be that I am too severe when I say (as I have) that these ideas concerning educational reform were "thrust upon us." It might be a bit closer to the actual truth if I say we readily accepted the proffered ideas because we respected leaders of the time in this important field as being true educators. We did not realize to what extent many of them had become administrators, businessmen, CEO's and Big-Time Operators, in essence. We suddenly realize that previously "single" subjects were now being "covered" in one or two-week" units".
The story is told concerning Einstein visiting such a school where a little girl asked him what he did for a living. "I'm an astronomer." he replied . She looked at him with assurance , and said: "Oh, we learned all about that two weeks ago."
There are no magic short-cuts. Each of us is an American and everyone of us has a heritage we must respect and use to our mutual advantage.
A.L.M July 9, 2005 [c622wds]
