History is anything but "boring"

This post was published in the Wilson Times Oct. 19, 2019.

I recently received a letter that began, “Dear Fellow Student of History.” With a salutation like that, you know you are getting a fundraising appeal. The letter from Jim Lighthizer of the American Battlefield Trust, was, indeed, a fund-raising appeal. Like other such letters I’ve received over the past three decades, this letter was alarming and effective.

The American Battlefield Trust, formerly the Civil War Trust, is a nonprofit devoted to preserving and restoring American battlefields. Originally, the organization focused solely on Civil War battlefields but has expanded to include Revolutionary War and War of 1812 battlefields. Walking around on the “hallowed ground” of battlefields is one of my favorite things to do on vacation. Just four years ago, I made my third visit to Gettysburg and hiked all around the boulders and fields where more than 51,000 Americans were killed, wounded or missing in a three-day battle in 1863.

Lighthizer’s organization has preserved many acres of battlefield land at Gettysburg, Richmond, Chancellorsville, Harper’s Ferry, Bentonville and dozens of other places. The Battlefield Trust has been very successful in saving “hallowed ground” from commercial and residential developers and other threats.

What worries Lighthizer is the lack of interest, especially among younger generations, in the history he and other supporters are preserving. He calls it “a crisis in history education” and writes, “The numbers are terrifying.” Here’s a brief listing of scary facts:

1.    Over a recent 20-year period, no more than 17 percent of U.S. eighth graders scored “proficient” or better in history in national tests. That leaves 83 percent who are less than proficient in history, and they will be able to vote!

2.    A 2015 survey found that one-third of new college graduates could not place the Civil War (the most significant American event since the founding of the Republic) in its correct 20-year time frame.

3.    A survey of America’s top 75 colleges found that a third of them did not require an American history course to earn a degree in history!

4.    A survey by the Woodrow Wilson Foundation found that only 40 percent of Americans could pass the U.S. Citizenship Test given to immigrants seeking to become citizens.

These statistics reinforce other findings that Americans are ignorant of their nation’s history. Many young students say they find history “boring.” These are probably students taught that history consists of a bunch of dates and obscure people who are all dead anyway. That’s not the way to teach history.

To teach the Civil War, take students to Gettysburg. Have them stand at the stepping off point of Pickett’s Charge, and point out the ridge three-quarters of a mile away, and tell them they must walk briskly uphill toward that ridge while 10,000 well dug-in soldiers supported by cannon delivered a hailstorm of bullets and cannonballs at them. There’s nothing boring about being shot at. Use that incident to open the door to the whole history of the Civil War.

Meanwhile, the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, which has been “selling” history for 80 years as a 301-acre living history museum (and the colonial capital of Virginia), is alarmed that freedom, liberty and democracy seem to be declining worldwide. Williamsburg CEO Mitchell Reiss used his column in the Foundation’s quarterly magazine to warn that liberty is in decline and authoritarianism is on the rise around the world.

In Williamsburg, visitors can walk the streets and visit the homes and government buildings the founders of American democracy inhabitated. This “living history” also is not boring. It is the closest thing we have to a time machine that transports us to the age of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and others.

Nevertheless, Colonial Williamsburg has struggled with changing tastes of American vacationers. Many parents want their children to have fun on vacation, not learn how their nation began. CWF has changed its programming to include more child-friendly activities and more African-Americans of the 18^th century, both enslaved and free.

Both the Battlefield Trust and Colonial Williamsburg offer on-site seminars for teachers, showing them how to turn “boring” into excitement and equipping young Americans to understand their rich history and to appreciate the courageous acts that give them their liberty.

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