As we begin the final decade of the twentieth century, I keep thinking about a song that was popular during the Second World War -- "When the lights go on again, all over the world" is how it began. This was what everyone was looking forward to, and it happened in 1945. But the peace was darkened by 45 of fear and uncertainty. Now, suddenly -- and almost miraculously - events in Eastern Europe seem finally to have removed the shadow.
What is happening now gives the world greater hope of peace than anything that could possibly come out of munitions factories or arms-reduction meetings. People in countries that were formerly part of the Soviet bloc are now free to express differences of opinion about what's going on in their societies. They are free to visit other countries and to import periodicals and books as they choose. They'll be able to vote their leaders in and out of office. All these things reduce the likelihood of war because they mean that a country's leaders have to reckon with the opposition of their own people if they embark on an unpopular or dangerous course -- the kind of opposition the French government faced during the Algerian war and our government faced during the war in Vietnam.
But there's a sour note amidst the jubilation: Our kids, whose future is now freer of the constant menace of war between two superpowers, are indifferent to the events that are taking place in Eastern Europe - at least that's what a recent article in the Washington Post (December 2, 1989) tells us. "I'm sorry," said a student in an honors history program during a discussion of satellite countries struggling to free themselves from Soviet domination, "but what is this talk of satellites? ... Are we talking about satellite dishes or what?"
The problem seems to be that students don't know enough. They've heard about the Cold War and Iron Curtain, one history teacher said, "but they don't really know what communism means." And this lack of knowledge makes our students react to the history that is being made practically before their eyes as if it were nothing more than an inferior TV show. One student put it this way: "In country after country, all you have is Tom Brokaw standing in front of some crowd talking. After awhile it becomes a white blur."
Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised at this. The 1986 National Assessment of Educational Progress told us that two-thirds of our 17-year-olds did not even know that our Civil War took place between 1850 and 1900, and 70 percent didn't know that Jim Crow laws were designed to enforce racial segregation. How can we expect our future citizens to appreciate the birth of democracy abroad when they don't understand its history and significance at home? Over the past several years, we've seen dozens ofreports calling for education reform. Nearly all these reports have concentrated on the dire economic and social consequences of a school system that produces plenty of unskilled dropouts and relatively few students who are up to the level of secondary school graduates in other industrialized countries. These are important concerns -- no doubt about it. But we must also realize that improving the economy is not the only purpose of education. The political consequences of poorly educated citizens are at least as serious as the economic ones because these citizens will be making decisions that will influence the future of the country and the world. The Washington Post story -- and the NAEP results -- should make us shudder at this idea. Less than 20 percent of the kids in one of the high school history classes read the daily newspaper. And none of them came from a family that subscribed to any kind of newsmagazine -- so it's doubtful that the parents are much better informed than the kids.
At the end of World War II, the Marshall Plan gave two percent of the country's gross national product to Europe to help rebuild it, and we all know how important that decision was in creating a relatively peaceful and secure Europe in the years following the war. Would our kids who are looking at the events in Eastern Europe now do the same thing? It's very unlikely -- in fact one of the history classes in the Post story (a class in modern European history) was almost unanimously against any such idea.
The word that kids still use to describe what is not of immediate concern to them is irrelevant. And it's fascinating that many of them consider the events in Eastern Europe irrelevant. In fact, these events should be of the closest interest. If they produce a war instead of the peace we all hope for, these kids will be called up to serve in the armed forces. If there is a military buildup, the kids will pay for it with their taxes. If there is a nuclear war, they are unlikely to survive -- and so is the planet. What could be more relevant?
We talk about these kids not appreciating how history is being made in Eastern Europe, and of course it's a terrible thing for them to be missing the show. But after all, that's their loss. What will be our loss is to have millions of absolutely ignorant citizens making the decisions on which our country and the world depend. If we're going to have a democratic society, we have to educate students in it. The consequences of our inability to govern ourselves will be at least as serious as the consequences of our losing our industries to other countries -- and maybe more serious.