History class

Those who do not know their history, as Mr. Santayana warned, are doomed to repeat it. But as Jay Leno has fun demonstrating by taking his "Tonight Show" cameras out on the sidewalk from time to time, the typical young American on the street today has trouble remembering against whom we fought the American Revolution.

Yes, history should be taught "warts and all" -- none of our forebears were paragons. But it would be naive not to note it's now way out of style to insist there's something special -- exceptional -- about America and our legacy of liberty.

Do our public school graduates today understand that? Why not?

To understand and be able to explain American exceptionalism, like it or not, it may be necessary to at least understand why airplanes were not used in the Civil War, why the British couldn't use the train to get back and forth between New York and Philadelphia in 1788, and why the Jackson Democrats kept making such a fuss about the National Bank.

Nevada's Council to Establish Academic Standards was scheduled to meet July 21 to adopt new public-school history standards. When some attention was drawn to what they're up to, they promptly postponed their meeting for "lack of a quorum."

Behind all the double-talk about replacing fact-driven, chronological history with a more "thematic approach," the unmistakable goal is to dumb down our history classes still further.

The draft proposal under consideration is "gobbledy-gook," says Carson City School Board member Joe Enge. The stated goals are "so broad I could drive a truck through them."

Extrapolating "themes" from history is great. But a young person cannot possibly judge -- let alone generate -- a useful interpretation of American history if he or she cannot locate the battlefields of Gettysburg, Pearl Harbor, Bunker Hill, Guadalcanal, Normandy and Yorktown on a globe ... place them in their proper chronological order ... and name a commanding officer from at least three.

Go ahead, ask them.