LET'S BRING HISTORY TO LIFE

I watched a rerun of "60 Minutes" last night, featuring for most of the show an interview with David McCullough, the noted historian, author and voice of so many of the great Ken Burns documentaries. He was interviewed by Morley Safer in Philadelphia, the site of the writing and signing of the Declaration of Independence, and then in Paris, in the late eighteenth century the hub of great thinkers and ideas where so many of the major figures of the Revolutionary War and the framers of independence were inspired. McCullough's enthusiasm for his subject of American history is infectious and  compelling.

In the course of his conversation he climbed on his soap box to decry the "historical illiteracy" of so many of the young people of today. He mentioned how, some years ago on a college campus where he was delivering one of his stimulating lectures, he was approached afterwards by a female student who thanked him for his speech and said, "I had no idea the thirteen colonies were all on the east coast." DOH! Where did the Pilgrims land and where did the Jamestown settlers enter? And what ocean did they cross? Did she think some went around the bottom of the world to come around both capes to the west coast? McCullough thought this might be an isolated incident---but then it happened several more times at other college lectures.

He also decried the lack of specialists in education. Why, he asked, do you need to major in Education to be a great teacher? Can't you major in History or Chemistry or English and still be an inspiring teacher? I remember in school and college my most memorable teachers were not generalists but specialists in English and Latin and History.

Then he scored another point---one that I have been on the soap box about for some years: why can't families sit down for dinner and talk among themselves? It's amazing how much information can be gathered in such confabs. Being the patriarch of my family, I am by default the historian of family history and general knowledge. Who else can remember World War II, for example? My wife and I did. My wife lived through the Blitz in London; I lost a brother in WW II with another shot down who survived. I was in my teens, but it is still one of the illuminating memories of my life. In family gatherings at the dinner table, this kind of information erupts unexpectedly and haphazardly, but it gives a family a sense of personal history and identity. Ideas can flow when family is gathered and create a feeling of genuine solidarity and intimacy.

I know in our frantic world of activities and distractions of today, dining together is not possible every night, but surely it can be planned on a more regular basis. And, while it is being done, ban the kids of today from bringing their games, smartphones and tablets to the dinner table so that they can listen and talk and think.

Thank you, David, for the assist.