Loewen: Chapter 10

Is The United States A Nation Without Sin?

Benjamin Franklin in his 1736 Poor Richard's Almanack wrote, "Don't throw stones at your neighbors, if your own windows are glass."  Loewen concurs arguing in this chapter that presenting a nation without sin to students leaves them ignorant and unable to understand why others in the world are upset with the United States of America or its people.  I've never believed that social studies teachers intentionally avoided the last chapters of history books because they believed students were aware of the issues or that the issues were too recent to be accurately discussed.  Rather, it was always obvious that there was never enough hours in the day to cover everything that was available in the textbook.  Perhaps, because I was one of those students who secretly read the last chapters of the book during class that I became a history teacher.

Broadcaster Paul Harvey used to do a piece called The Rest of the Story on public radio.  I grew up believing that one never had the whole story when it came to history.  The mysteries, controversies, and big questions were what made history the best subject in school, as far as I was concerned.  I teach history through stories and inquiry-based methods, because I hope that it will create in students a lifelong desire to know more - no matter what the topic.

This past weekend, the Wall Street Journal wrote a front page piece on high school social studies teacher Tom Clark, who for 27 years has had his students track down the families of Indiana's war dead and create an archive of their mementos, their letters, the stories of loved ones lost in combat and lives lived in grief.  It is an incredible project that is not only intergenerational, but also a powerful reminder that a smaller share of Americans currently serve in the Armed Forces than at any other time since the era between World Wars I and II, a new low that has led to a growing gap between people in uniform and the civilian population.

As historian James Anthony Froude once said, "That which especially distinguishes a high order of man from a low order of man, that which constitutes human goodness, human nobleness, is surely not the degree of enlightenment with which men pursue their own advantage; but it is self-forgetfulness; it is self-sacrifice; it is the disregard of personal pleasure, personal indulgence, personal advantage, remote or present, because some other line of conduct is more right."