AT THE CROSSROADS – OVERNIGHT:  Americans sense that we are at a crossroads in our history, a battle between the American values that made us great, and some new values that would restrict our freedoms, wreck our Constitution, and lead us into a false world of "equality" that will be achieved through mediocrity.  An eminent historian shows us how our children must be prepared for this battle.  From the New York Post: 

We live in anxious times. But many times in our past were far more anxious, and the reasons for anxiety then were more compelling. Consider, for example, the situation facing the world in the early months of 1941, when Hitler’s triumphant armies controlled continental Europe, when only the British Isles managed to hold out and when the future of liberty looked very dim.

Yet at that moment, the novelist John Dos Passos wrote: “In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present.” Dos Passos urged that we look backward to a past that could be a source of sanity and direction, a lifeline of sustenance and instruction. Such training of the mind and memory ought to be at the core of an education for democratic citizenship.

We neglect an essential element in the formation of citizens when we fail to supply young people with a full, accurate, and responsible account of their own country. The evidence of that failure is overwhelming. In fact, the most recent test administered by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, sometimes called The Nation’s Report Card, shows continuing decline in (already-low) history and geography scores and flatlining in civics scores.

We must recommit ourselves to the teaching of both history and civics — and to the recognition that the two belong together. Something more needs attending to in the work of civic education, too. Tracking scores on standardized tests can provide useful, if limited, data about the state of our historical knowledge. But the scores cannot tell us about the depth and quality of that knowledge or the extent to which those who possess it feel a genuine and living connection to it. 

The word “citizenship” has lost much of the noble luster that it once had, just as “civics” has wound up demoted to a kind of “user’s guide” to the machinery of government. Both words deserve better. Citizenship is not merely about voting but also about felt membership in a society of civic equals.
Civic education, rightly understood, extends far beyond how a bill becomes a law. It should promote a vivid and enduring sense of our belonging to one of the greatest enterprises in human history. Hence a civic education should be an initiation not only into a canon of ideas but into a community; and not just a community of the present but also a community of memory.

The word “citizenship” has lost much of the noble luster that it once had. It’s not merely about voting but also about felt membership in a society of civic equals.

Ultimately, a patriotic education should be an education in love. This love must be embraced freely and be unsentimental enough to coexist with the elements of disappointment, criticism, dissent, opposition and even shame that come with moral maturity and open eyes.

Without the deep foundation that this love supplies, a republic will perish.

COMMENT:  Please read the rest and pass it on to others.  This is one of the best essays I've read on the need to teach children far more history and understanding of freedom than we do today.

At the end of World War II in Europe, General Eisenhower marched American soldiers through Hitler's concentration camps.  He said that our men might not know what they'd been fighting for, but this would show them what they'd been fighting against.  Today, fortunately, there are no death camps to teach our men and women what they are against.  But we must insist that they know what they are for. 

May 29, 2021