History and Knowledge Disappear in the Progressive American Education System

By

       M. Richard Maxson

                James Madison, known as the "father" of the Constitution, wrote, 
                 "A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people."

     For the last fifty or sixty years now our youth have been under an intense indoctrination program in our public schools and universities. American history is no longer taught, but instead a revisionist history of this country is force fed down our children’s throats by “educators” whose own anti-American biases are obvious. When we censor our history by disguising our scars, we belittle the struggles our ancestors fought so hard to overcome. Today, in America, schools have become nothing more than ‘leftist indoctrination centers’. 
 
      One effect is that many of the rising generation can

go from elementary school through postgraduate education at our leading colleges and universities without ever hearing a coherent presentation of a vision of the world or our own country that is fundamentally different from that of the political left. There are professors at either elite or non-elite academic institutions that have been shouted down, forced out, or even physically assaulted when they tried to give a historical point of view that challenged the prevailing political correctness.

       As children, the young Patrick Henry, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and the Marquis de Lafayette did something our children don’t do today. They studied the past. These children studied how ancient civilizations governed, what the world’s most brilliant philosophers thought and why man acts as he does across time. Seeds of knowledge and understanding were planted in these mere children so they knew how a healthy government should operate to serve its people, and how its people should in turn conduct themselves.

If our Founders returned today, they might be alarmed by the widespread ignorance of American history and civics among U.S. citizens.

• For example, slightly more than half (53%) of Americans do not know that the first 10 amendments to the Constitution of the United States are called the "Bill of Rights."

• A third of Americans (33%) do not know who delivered the Gettysburg Address. A sizable minority (42%) of Americans do not know the title of the national anthem.

• The scores also indicate that four in five Americans (83%) cannot name the current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, William Rehnquist.

• Three in 10 (31%) are unable to name the current vice president of the United States.....and it goes on.
  

      There are more educated people than ever before, but fewer people who seem capable of thinking. In general, Republicans outscored Democrats on most of the questions asked. However, this difference likely results from the fact that Republicans tend to be better-educated than Democrats are.  

      What our educational system is producing is cultural amnesia, a wholesale lack of curiosity, historyless clones of our children, and educational goals composed buzzwords like “critical thinking,” “diversity,” “ways of knowing,” “social justice,” and “cultural competence.” Our education system now excels at producing perfectly hollowed vessels, receptive and obedient, without any common culture or shared history. 

 

     These findings are cause for deep concern. If knowledge of these basic components of American history and civics are lost, then the American system of representative democracy could be lost as well.