The nation`s public schools are failing to teach history and literature adequately because they emphasize the process of learning instead of the content, the National Endowment for the Humanities said Sunday.
In a study requested by Congress to assess the state of humanities education in American public schools, the federal agency said that teaching students about ”practical life” has driven out an emphasis on ”intellectual life” that was a hallmark of public schools during the early part of the 20th Century.
”Instead of preserving the past, they more often disregard it, sometimes in the name of `progress`: the idea that today has little to learn from yesterday,” said Lynne Cheney, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency that supports education,
scholarship, research and public programs in the humanities and has an annual budget of $138 million.
By emphasizing the process of learning over content, schools are producing students with startling gaps in knowledge of history and literature, according to the report.
It cites a National Assessment of Educational Progress report scheduled for release Sept. 10 finding more than two-thirds of 8,000 American 17-year-olds tested this year were unable to place the Civil War within the correct half century in a multiple-choice question with six possible responses.
That same study also will report that a majority of 17-year-olds tested were unable to identify writers whose works are considered classics, including Geoffrey Chaucer, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walt Whitman and Herman Melville.
A curriculum that focuses on skills at the expense of knowledge, textbooks containing little meaningful content and a system of training teachers emphasizing how to teach rather than what will be taught all must share the blame in producing high school students ”who do not firmly grasp the facts of history and literature,” the report said.
Many schools across the nation have upgraded science and mathematics courses in response to a widespread call for educational reform that began in 1983.
”History and literature were not emerging as central concerns in the various state, regional and national commissions looking at education,” the report said. ”Educational reform was in the air, but the humanities were seldom a part of it.”
The new report clearly is an attempt to gain a share of the spotlight for humanities in educational-reform circles.
It recalled that in 1892, a reform commission of scholars known as the Committee of Ten called for a new emphasis on history and literature, and its call for a curriculum based on intellectual life prevailed in American public schools into the early part of the 20th Century.
But then schools changed, emphasizing the process of learning rather than its content, though both are important in the teaching of history and literature, the report said.
The report also said: ”Current reformers have emphasized the necessity of paying close attention to what our children learn as well as how they learn, but their message has proved difficult to translate into the classroom.”
For example, new curriculum rules have been issued in Texas mandating
”essential elements” for three required English and language arts high school courses. They include how ”to vary rate of reading according to purpose” and how ”to recognize relevant details,” but only one in the more than 100 mentions major literary works and authors.
The problem extends further with a proliferation of curriculums in which students can fulfill English and social studies graduation requirements with courses such as ”Introduction to Careers” and ”Business Communications.”
Reading textbooks used in many classrooms contain few selections from classic children`s literature, not even much good prose, the report said. Textbook writers ”produce a variety of materials, mostly aimed at developing skills, everything from how to recognize cause and effect to how to make grocery lists and use the telephone book,” it added.
What elementary school children read ”seems particularly vacuous when compared to what grade-schoolers once studied,” the report said.
”In the early decades of this century, they read myths, fables, stories from the distant past and tales of heroes. . . . exercising their imaginations and beginning to develop a sense of life in other times.”
Likewise, history textbooks also are disappointing, the report said. Many weigh 3 pounds and are heavy with facts, ”but seldom were those facts made part of a compelling narrative, part of a drama with individuals at center stage,” it continued. ”The human ambitions and aspirations that are both the motivating force of history and its fascination were largely absent.”
The report concluded about history textbooks that they ”are poor in content, and what content they do contain is not presented in a way to make anyone care to remember it.”
Teacher-preparation programs require time for courses in learning how to teach that might be better spent studying history and literature, the report contended. Elementary school teachers, expected to teach everything from mathematics to history, typically must spend 41 percent of their time in undergraduate study taking courses in education.
Among the report`s recommendations is that much in the school curriculum labeled as ”social studies” should be replaced by a systematic study of history, and that ”enduring works of literature” should be a part of every student`s academic life every school year.
Restoring humanities to their proper place in the schools will help students acquire familiarity with the past that they will find useful in their lives, Cheney said.
”We would wish for our children that their decisions be informed not by the wisdom of the moment, but by the wisdom of the ages,” she said. ”The story of past lives and triumphs and failures, the great texts with their enduring themes-these do not provide the answers, but they are a rich context out of which our children`s answers can come.”
TEENS FLUNK ON CIVIL WAR DATE
Across the United States, 8,000 17-year-olds were tested this year on history and literature by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which periodically tests students of various ages to determine their knowledge in specific subjects. The testing was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
One question on the test, and the percentage of students giving each answer, was:
When was the Civil War?
A. Before 1750. (3.7 percent.)
B. 1750-1800. (22.6 percent.)
C. 1800-1850. (38.4 percent.)
D. 1850-1900. (32.2 percent.)
E. 1900-1950. (2.5 percent.)
F. After 1950. (.6 percent.)
Source: National Endowment for the Humanities.
