Don't know much about history. (Scan).(history education in America)(Brief Article)

America's public education system is famously underwhelming. At the American Enterprise Institute, a panel moderated by AEI senior fellow Lynne Cheney recently paid special attention to the teaching of U.S. history in America's classrooms. Four panelists agreed that a lack of high standards among teachers as well as students is a serious problem today. But where to lay the blame?

"There is a paradox today in teaching American history," argued Peter Gibbon of Harvard University, "with an abundance of Web sites and glossy textbooks on the one hand, and an ignorance of basic facts on the other." Factors outside school, including "the youth culture that makes history and authority suspect" hurt history education, he argued. "Students spend more time with media than with teachers"; they are "raised in a visual culture" which results in "shrinking vocabularies, shorter attention spans, and less efficient reading ...