Knowledge of History Reaching Crisis Levels
Breakpoint
Colson Center
4.8 • 3.1K Ratings
🗓️ 6 October 2023
⏱️ 1 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Recently, historian Joel Kotkin argued in Quillette magazine that
History has moved to the front line of social conflict, but rarely has it been so poorly understood and sketchily taught. After decades of declining interest, only 13 percent of eighth graders achieve proficiency in the subject today. … When I show my students a picture of Lenin, barely one-in-ten of them recognize it.
Students saturated by information technology have less encouragement to study the past and, in their classrooms, history is frequently weaponized, glossed over, or ignored.
This is another reason that this moment is a golden moment for Christian education. Christians revolutionized education through monastic schools, cathedral-based universities, and Protestant ideals of knowledge and learning. We also have a faith grounded in historical events and a proper understanding of the human condition, a condition that transcends time and place.
Therefore, history is something that we can both study and learn from. In today's world, that's a revolutionary idea...
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | With a woman to look at culture from a Christian worldview, I'm John Stone Street with the point. |
| 0:04.5 | Recently, a historian named Joel Cockin argued in Colette magazine that, quote, |
| 0:08.4 | "'History has moved to the frontlines of social conflict, but rarely has it been so poorly understood and sketchily taught." |
| 0:14.0 | After decades of declining interest, only 13% of eighth graders achieve proficiency in the subject. |
| 0:18.9 | When I show my students a picture of Lenin, he writes barely one in ten of them recognize it. |
| 0:23.7 | Students saturated and information technology have less encouragement to study the path. |
| 0:28.2 | Not to mention, in their classrooms, history is frequently weaponized, glossed over, even ignored. |
| 0:33.3 | It's another reason that this is a golden moment for Christian education. |
| 0:36.4 | Christian's revolutionized education through monastic schools, |
| 0:39.1 | cathedral-based universities, and Protestant ideals of knowledge and learning. |
| 0:42.4 | We also have a faith that's grounded in historical events and a proper understanding the human condition, |
| 0:47.2 | a condition that transcends time and place. |
| 0:49.4 | Therefore, history is something we can both study and learn from. |
| 0:52.4 | And in today's world, that's a revolutionary idea. |
| 0:54.9 | For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street. |
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