According to a 2008 New York Times article, teenagers in America do not have the same knowledge of basic literature and history as did teenagers of earlier years. This was confirmed for myself when a fellow De Anza College student could not answer when the Constitution was written and did not know Alaska was one of the 50 states. Ignorance runs rampant amongst the youth of America – it’s an ever-growing epidemic.
Before vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin came onto the political scene, most people would not have been able to point out Alaska on a map. Yet it became obvious in this last presidential election that everybody would have to step outside of their comfort zones to find out more about the candidates and their stances on important issues. The formation of the Constitution, the legal document around which our country was started and continues to evolve, is a historical event without which the United States of America would not exist.
In a survey, 1,200 17-year-olds were called and asked to answer 33 multiple-choice questions about history and literature that were read aloud to them. The questions were drawn from a test that the federal government administered in 1986. According to the article, “fewer than half of American teenagers who were asked basic history and literature questions in a phone survey knew when the Civil War was fought, and one in four said Columbus sailed to the New World some time after 1750, not in 1492.”
Some would say ignorance is bliss, and “Who cares? The event was before the Internet was invented so it is no use to me, and who reads books these days? Haven’t you heard of Twitter?”
It is important to study history because it offers a storehouse of information about how people and societies behave. An exclusive reliance on current data would needlessly hinder our efforts. Major aspects of a society’s operation such as mass elections, missionary activities, or military alliances cannot be set up as precise experiments. Consequently, history must serve, however imperfectly, as our laboratory; data from the past must serve as our most vital evidence in the unavoidable quest to figure out why our complex species behaves as it does in societal settings.
This is why we cannot stay away from history: it offers the only extensive evidential base for the contemplation and analysis of how societies function. People need to have some sense of how societies function simply to run their own lives. Also, it is only through studying history can we grasp how things change. Only through history can we begin to comprehend the factors that cause change. And only through history can we understand what elements of an institution or a society persist despite change.
Literature for the same reason must be studied because it is the identity of a country. In order to figure out whom we are and who we want to be, it is important to study literature so that we understand the issues once important to this nation, and may be important again.
According to the survey results commissioned by Common Core and released in February 2008, “The survey results … demonstrate a significant proportion of teenagers live in ‘stunning ignorance’ of history and literature. I can only say, “I concur.”
