102. History’s greatest hits: Unnerving the traditionalists
[From Seth Godin, Stop Stealing Dreams http://www.squidoo.com/stop-stealing-dreams]
In his book Civilization, Niall Ferguson complains,
A survey of first-year history undergraduates at one leading British university revealed that only 34 per cent knew who was the English monarch at the time of the Armada, 31 per cent knew the location of the Boer War and 16 per cent knew who commanded the British forces at Waterloo. In a similar poll of English children aged between 11 and 18, 17 per cent thought Oliver Cromwell fought at the Battle of Hastings.
He bemoans the fact that kids only know the greatest hits of history, recognizing the names of Henry VIII, Hitler, and Martin Luther King, Jr., uncomfortably juxtaposed without the connecting facts well remembered.
My first answer is, “so what?” It’s even easier for me to be dismissive since he’s talking about British history and I know not a thing about the Battle of Hastings.
The real question, though, in an always-on world, a world where I can look up what I need to know about the Battle of Hastings faster than I can type this, is, “how many of these kids leave school caring to know?”
The top-down, command-and-control authoritarian pedagogical approach to cramming facts into our kids is an unqualified failure.
When forced to comply, the smart kid plays along, the stupid one is punished, and neither of them produces much of value as a result.
To be as clear as possible here: In which situation does knowledge of the Boer War help society? And does it help because it means the student was obedient and attentive enough to play along to get ahead (in other words, it’s a marker, a symptom of something else)? Or do we actually need the trivia?
Trivia? Yes, I think knowing the year that the Battle of Hastings was fought is trivia. On the other hand, understanding the sweep of history, being able to visualize the repeating cycles of conquest and failure and having an innate understanding of the underlying economics of the world are essential insights for educated people to understand.
When access to information was limited, we needed to load students up with facts. Now, when we have no scarcity of facts or the access to them, we need to load them up with understanding.
If we’re looking for markers, we need better ones.
Tags: stopstealingdreams
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