To the editor: At this level, the relative shortage of time allotted within the college curriculum for U.S. historical past is a most severe concern. And, the issue intensifies as time passes. (“Why historical past is an important topic at school immediately,” letters, Aug. 2)
For instance, in my first 12 months of classroom instructing in 1965, my college district’s curriculum naturally known as for a full sweep of U.S. historical past. Nonetheless, my school research in that chosen main immediately alerted me that I may simply take a complete semester to adequately cowl our story for the reason that finish of World Struggle II in 1945.
Throughout that transient 20-year span, plenty of vital occasions occurred that significantly affected our lives immediately — and that doesn’t even rely what has occurred since 1965. So, I completely agree that colleges ought to commit rather more time to learning America’s story.
In these polarized occasions, discerning truth from fiction has turn into tougher for us all. We can not proceed to permit our highschool graduates to stay weak to the rising fiction merely due to a scarcity of primary information of what truly did or didn’t occur earlier than their time.
David M. Bouchier, Lengthy Seaside
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To the editor: In her op-ed article co-written with Benjamin Carter Hett, New York College historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, my LAUSD graduate classmate, introduced a convincing case that former President Trump’s assertion about there being no want for future elections is according to previous dictators’ intolerance of fashionable sovereignty and democracy.
After we develop resistant to the outlandish, we subtly enable the outrageous.
To fight this, California colleges must put extra historical past programs in our curriculum, as college students not perceive World Struggle II and its particulars, implications and that means.
As a substitute of extra remedial math and remedial English in our summer season colleges, we may create social research electives that embody civics, modern historical past and present occasions, together with the battle in Gaza, the Armenia-Azerbaijan tensions and rather more.
These programs will re-engage our college students post-COVID greater than mandating any new programs.
David Tokofsky, Eagle Rock
The author is a former instructor and a former Board of Training member within the L.A. Unified College District.
