Editor鈥檚 Note: This is an excerpt from Why Learn History (When It鈥檚 Already on Your Phone), Sam Wineburg鈥檚 just-published book in which he makes it clear that the current hand-wringing over U.S. students鈥� ignorance of history is nothing new. It鈥檚 a concern that stretches back to at least the early part of the last century when students were similarly challenged by historical recall. The idea that there was ever a 鈥済olden age of fact retention鈥� is a myth, writes Wineburg. With some urgency, the book confronts our growing reliance on search engines to do the work that our book reading once did. 鈥淣ever has so much information been at our fingertips, but never have we been so ill-equipped to deal with it,鈥� Wineburg explains. Our growing challenge with discerning fact from fiction portends trouble for our democracy. Part warning and part roadmap forward, the book comes with guidance on how we can become a better-informed citizenry.
The year the United States entered the First World War witnessed another first: the publication of results from the first large-scale test of historical facts. J. Carleton Bell of the Brooklyn Training School for Teachers and his colleague David F. McCollum tested 1,500 Texas students, from elementary school to college, and published their findings in 1917. They drew up a list of names (including Thomas Jefferson, John Burgoyne, Alexander Hamilton, Cyrus H. McCormick), dates (1492, 1776, 1861), and events (the Sherman Antitrust Act, the Fugitive Slave Act, the Dred Scott decision) that history teachers said every student should know. They gave their test at the upper elementary level (5th through 7th grades), in high schools (in five Texas districts: Houston, Huntsville, Brenham, San Marcos, and Austin), and in colleges (at the University of Texas at Austin and two teacher-training institutions, South-West Texas State Normal School and Sam Houston Normal Institute).
Students flunked. They identified 1492 but not 1776; they recognized Thomas Jefferson but conflated him with Jefferson Davis; they lifted the Articles of Confederation from the 18th century and plunked them down in the Confederacy; and they stared blankly at 1846, the beginning of the U.S.-Mexico War, unaware of its significance in Texas history. Nearly all students recognized Sam Houston as the father of the Texas republic but had him marching triumphantly into Mexico City, not vanquishing Antonio L贸pez de Santa Anna at San Jacinto.
A sober look at a century of history testing provides no evidence for the 鈥檊radual disintegration of cultural memory.鈥欌��
The score at the elementary level was a dismal 16 percent. In high school, after a year of history instruction, students scored a measly 33 percent, and in college, after a third exposure to history, scores barely approached the halfway mark (49 percent). The authors lamented that studying history in school produced only 鈥渁 small, irregular increase in the scores with increasing academic age.鈥� Anticipating jeremiads by secretaries of education and op-ed columnists a half century later, Bell and McCollum indicted the educational system and its charges: 鈥淪urely a grade of 33 in 100 on the simplest and most obvious facts of American history is not a record in which any high school can take great pride.鈥�
By the next world war, hand-wringing about students鈥� historical benightedness had become front-page news. 鈥淚gnorance of U.S. History Shown by College Freshmen,鈥� proclaimed The New York Times headline on April 4, 1943, a day when the main story reported that George Patton鈥檚 troops had overrun those of Erwin Rommel at El Guettar. Providing support for the earlier claim made by historian Allan Nevins that 鈥測oung people are all too ignorant of American history,鈥� the survey showed that a scant 6 percent of the 7,000 college freshmen could identify the 13 original colonies, while only 15 percent could place William McKinley as president during the Spanish-American War. Less than a quarter could name two contributions of Thomas Jefferson. Mostly, students were flummoxed. Abraham Lincoln 鈥渆maciated the slaves鈥� and, as first president, was father of the Constitution. A graduate of an Eastern high school, responding to a question about the system of checks and balances, claimed that Congress 鈥渉as the right to veto bills that the President wishes to be passed.鈥� According to students, the United States expanded territorially by purchasing Alaska from the Dutch, the Philippines from Great Britain, Louisiana from Sweden, and Hawaii from Norway. A Times editorial excoriated those 鈥渁ppallingly ignorant鈥� youths.
The Times鈥� breast-beating resumed in time for the bicentennial celebration, when the newspaper commissioned a second test, this time with Bernard Bailyn of Harvard University leading the charge. With the aid of the Educational Testing Service, the Times surveyed nearly 2,000 freshmen on 194 college campuses. On May 2, 1976, the results rained on the bicentennial parade: 鈥淭imes Test Shows Knowledge of American History Limited.鈥� Of the 42 multiple-choice questions on the test, students averaged an embarrassing 21 correct鈥攁 failing score of 50 percent. The low point for Bailyn was that more students believed that the Puritans guaranteed religious freedom (36 percent) than understood religious toleration as the result of rival denominations seeking to cancel out each other鈥檚 advantage (34 percent). This 鈥渁bsolutely shocking鈥� response rendered the voluble Bailyn speechless: 鈥淚 don鈥檛 know how to explain it.鈥� Results from subsequent history tests (1987, 1994, 2001, 2006, 2010, and 2014) from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (the 鈥淣ation鈥檚 Report Card鈥�) deviated little from earlier trends. When the first NAEP history test was administered in 1987, Diane Ravitch and Chester Finn blasted students鈥� 鈥渟hameful鈥� ignorance and issued dire warnings of impending decline. Unless we change course, young people, they predicted, will be unable to 鈥渟tand on the shoulders of giants鈥� because they won鈥檛 be able to tell 鈥渨ho are giants and who are pygmies.鈥�
Fourteen years later, in the wake of the 2001 NAEP, pundits trotted out the same stale indictments (鈥渁 nation of historical nitwits,鈥� snarled the Greensboro News and Record); the same holier-than-thou condemnations (鈥渄umb as rocks,鈥� hissed The Weekly Standard); and the same boy-who-cried-wolf predictions of doom at the doorstep (young people鈥檚 ignorance is particularly dangerous 鈥渨hen the United States is at war and under terrorist threat鈥�). Ironically, the 2001 test followed a decade of the standards movement and a relentless push to raise the bar. Yet, inexplicably, results were identical to those from earlier tests. Six in 10 seniors 鈥渓ack even a basic knowledge of American history,鈥� wrote The Washington Post, results that NAEP officials castigated as 鈥渁wful,鈥� 鈥渦nacceptable,鈥� and 鈥渁bysmal.鈥� 鈥淭he questions that stumped so many students,鈥� groused then-secretary of education Rod Paige, 鈥渋nvolve the most fundamental concepts of our democracy, our growth as a nation, and our role in the world.鈥� As for the efficacy of standards in the states that adopted them, the test yielded no differences between students whose teachers reported adhering to standards and those who did not. Remarked a befuddled Paige, 鈥淚 don鈥檛 have any explanation for that at all.鈥�
Doom and gloom display astonishing resilience. After the 2014 National Assessment, headline writers fished into the recycling bin to pull out old standbys like 鈥淯.S. Students Stagnate in Social Studies鈥� and 鈥淢ost 8th Graders Score Low on U.S. History, Civics.鈥� More than half of 8th grade students couldn鈥檛 identify the precedent set by Marbury v. Madison, something that the chairman of the National Assessment Governing Board condemned as 鈥渦nacceptable.鈥� The president of the National Council for the Social Studies raised the volume, linking test results to America鈥檚 eroding stature on the world stage: 鈥淗ow do we, as a nation, maintain our status in the world if future generations of Americans do not understand our nation鈥檚 history?鈥� However, the prize for the zaniest link between 13-year-olds鈥� test scores and the ailments of American society goes to Les Francis, the former executive director of the Democratic National Committee. In an article entitled 鈥淐ivic Ignorance Begets Civic Unrest,鈥� Francis used invisible ink to connect the dots between scores on the 2014 NAEP and the race riots that convulsed Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray, a black man who died from injuries sustained in the back of a police van. Francis diagnosed the problem not as one of police brutality and the simmering racism that infects law enforcement. Rather, he called for a 鈥渟erious discussion about the possible linkages between ignorance of social studies鈥攈istory, geography, government, civics, economics鈥攁nd urban alienation,鈥� adding, forebodingly, 鈥渂efore it is too late.鈥�
To many commentators, what鈥檚 at stake goes beyond whether teens can circle the answer that shows they know it was Western ranchers and not Eastern bankers who supported the gold standard. In a blue-ribbon report called 鈥淓ducation for Democracy,鈥� the Albert Shanker Institute pointed to perennially disappointing test results and claimed that 鈥渟omething has gone awry. ... We now have convincing evidence that our students are woefully lacking in knowledge of our past, of who we are as Americans,鈥� indifferent to 鈥渢he common good,鈥� and disconnected from 鈥渢he American story.鈥� One has to wonder what evidence this committee 鈥渘ow鈥� possesses that has not been gathering moss since 1917, when Bell and McCollum hand-tallied 1,500 student surveys. Explanations of today鈥檚 low scores crumble when applied to results from 1917, the apex of history as part of the school curriculum. No one can accuse the Texas teachers of 1917 of teaching process over content or serving up a tepid social studies curriculum to bored students鈥攂ack then, the National Council for the Social Studies (founded in 1921) didn鈥檛 even exist. Rather than being poorly trained and laboring under harsh conditions with scant public support, Texas teachers were among the most educated members of their communities and commanded wide respect. (鈥淭he high schools of Houston and Austin have the reputation of being very well administered and of having an exceptionally high grade of teachers,鈥� wrote Bell and McCollum, a statement hard to imagine being written about today鈥檚 urban schools.)
Americans fondly refer to the men and women who fought World War II as the 鈥済reatest generation,鈥� the college students who abandoned the safety of the quadrangle for the hazards of the beachhead. Yet it is only in our contemporary mirror that they look 鈥済reat.鈥� At the time, grown-ups dismissed them as knuckleheads, even doubting their ability to fight. Writing in The New York Times Magazine in May 1942, Allan Nevins questioned whether a historically illiterate army might be a national liability: 鈥淲e cannot understand what we are fighting for unless we know how our principles developed.鈥�
A sober look at a century of history testing provides no evidence for the 鈥済radual disintegration of cultural memory鈥� or a 鈥済rowing historical ignorance.鈥� The only thing growing is our amnesia of past ignorance. Test results over the last 100 years point to a peculiar American neurosis: each generation鈥檚 obsession with testing its young only to discover鈥攁nd rediscover鈥攖heir 鈥渟hameful鈥� ignorance. The consistency of results across generations casts doubt on a presumed golden age of fact retention. Appeals to it are more the stuff of national lore and wistful nostalgia for a time that never was than claims that can be anchored in the documentary record.
