From: David Kim's, "Aspirin for Your Postmodern Headache," Fall '98 From: David Kim's, "Aspirin for Your Postmodern Headache," Fall '98Who is Slobodan Milosevic? Who are the Basques, and what do they want? What are the colors of the Spanish flag? Who is the president of the People's Republic of China? Falter on any of these questions, and you are likely giving legitimacy to the notion across the Atlantic -- largely in northern and western Europe -- that Americans are oblivious to the rest of the world and culturally shallow. Taking into account certain ulterior motives for these unfavorable opinions, we should nevertheless ask ourselves how valid these criticisms are, and to what extent we should be worried about them. While Americans may not have grieved filmmaker Akira Kurosawa's recent death or particularly enjoy the films of Fellini, we can pat ourselves on the back for this: Van Damme films have a larger audience in Asia than they do here, and the Europeans indulge in anything having to do with David Hasselhoff (minus Knight Rider, of course) significantly more than we do. And we should by no means be ashamed for creating these things. After all, if the rest of the world is willing to buy our trash, why should we stop producing it? And to a certain extent, our ignorance of world affairs and history is somewhat understandable. America's geographical isolation from most of the world almost automatically makes it difficult to see the significance of the mass displacement of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo or of some separatist movement in remote regions of Spain and France. Yet there are some fundamental problems with this attitude that should be addressed. First, our close proximity to Canada, Mexico and Cuba hasn't heightened our awareness of these countries' histories and current affairs. Next, the fact that the source of our ignorance is understandable does not serve as justification for the situation's continued existence. We may not all be able to afford to keep up with the daily developments in world affairs. As humans interested in our own nature and potential, however, we do have a stake and an interest in the events taking place tens of thousands of miles away, whether terrible, wonderful or simply momentous. While working as a tour guide in Berlin, Germany, last year, I was nearly brought to frustrated tears when an American college student asked, pointing at the Brandenburg Gate, "Is that the Berlin Wall?" For those who don't immediately understand my frustration, consider a wall surrounding a city, effectively and often violently preventing East Berliners from crossing the border to West Berlin for almost 30 years. Now imagine confusing that wall with a large gate (acropolis style), under which 18-wheel trucks, buses and people are casually passing. I could only beat down my pride as two Brits on the tour snickered evilly. Finally, we have absolutely no right to contentedly accept our ignorance of the world minus America, as we lack even a basic knowledge of American current affairs and history. And no, Kenneth Starr and the entire travesty of politics, justice and the press do not count. In this month's issue of Harper's, Christopher Hitchens discusses the tragedy and intricacies of teaching history in our schools in his article, "Goodbye to all That. Why Americans are not taught History." In it, he cites a 1994 poll in which 68 percent of fourth graders across the country were unable to name one of the original 13 colonies, and only 10 percent of eighth graders could mention anything about the Constitutional Convention. This is no recent phenomenon. In a 1943 New York Times survey, a quarter of American college freshmen were unable to name the United States president during the civil war. A closer look into the American education system shows that most of our deficiencies begin in school. Many states require only minimal history during high school -- and some none at all. Too many of those that do stress history in their education attempt to do so through unclear, ambiguous conceptual frameworks such as "Outcome-Based Studies" or "Time, Continuity and Change." In theory, few of these sound convincing. In practice, even fewer have any substance or are intellectually accessible to the students (or to the teachers, in many cases). Perhaps a more obvious factor in the problem is that less than 19 percent of all high school and middle school teachers actually majored or minored in history, according to a 1994 study by the National Center for Education Standards. Allowing for a few exceptions, how can we expect these teachers with little or no history background to convey complicated events, factors and results in accurate yet appealing forms to largely uninterested children? Faced with this wholly depressing state of our education and with the vast majority of us Penn students having no plans to enter education as a career, what can we do? The obvious first step would be to correct the problem in ourselves. Indeed, as students at a prestigious university, we are some of the future movers and shakers of our country and the world. Armed with our Ivy League education, let us not perpetuate the (in many ways justified) notion that Americans are ignorant. We have the opportunity to raise the standard here in America, first by example, and then by our active involvement in an informed and concerned dialogue with our fellow Americans in our everyday conversations. After all, if we can't keep abreast of current events and history, how can we expect our children or the rest of the country to? So pick up a newspaper or a magazine -- and a well-written, well-informed one at that -- and get to know the rest of the world. It's a lot smaller than you may think.
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