Want to cure American amnesia? Teach history backward

There is a simple step America’s educators can take to improve civic awareness dramatically. Teach history backward.

That’s how I learned it. One of the best teachers I ever had was a man who taught me high school history. On the first day of class, he announced that we would be learning U.S. history starting with recent events. We began with Watergate and the Vietnam War, then moved back through the 1950s, the Red Scare, and the Korean War. From there, we covered World War II, the Great Depression, then the 1920s. Eventually, near the end of the school year, we found ourselves in the American Revolution.

It was a curriculum that worked brilliantly.

[This makes a lot of sense in a couple of different ways. Starting with more recent events makes history a little more relevant, and it engages learners to look further back to understand the context in which it happened. I’m not as sure as Mark is that it makes history more resistant to Bowdlerization, especially when dealing with “amnesia,” as he puts it. But it certainly makes it more engaging.

Now, let’s figure out how to cure American amnesia on civics and basic constitutional governance. — Ed]