More Awareness of our Country is Necessary
By Bob Branco, written in October, 2016
If you have nothing better to do today, take a walk through the streets of your city and ask 100 Millennials a few questions about the history of the United States. I think you will be shocked at the number of these 20–year–olds who know nothing about our country’s founding, our Constitution, and other significant events that helped to shape the United States. Without this knowledge, how can these young people apply it if they want a future in government? How can they enforce a Constitution that they were never taught? Therefore, how does this help our country moving forward?
While listening to a syndicated talk show one afternoon, I heard such an interview. A reporter went to a beach and spoke to many young people about the history of the United States. I heard their responses, and I was appalled. Why don’t these kids know all the things that we were taught in school?
This is an important segue into the root of the problem. You can’t blame these young people for not having enough knowledge about our government if it isn’t taught anymore. Yes, you heard correctly. A lot of schools no longer teach civics, U.S. history, and related topics. I don’t know why, and frankly, I don’t understand why. If we want to keep our freedoms and continue to run the country as our founding fathers wanted it to be run, how effective will our future leaders be if they’re not fully educated about this topic? What are these schools thinking?
When I was in school 40 years ago, one of our teachers asked his students to stay after school and write down the first 10 amendments of our Constitution as a form of punishment if they had done something inappropriate. For many years I made fun of this punishment and thought it was stupid. However, the more I hear about the lack of knowledge that today’s generation has about this country, the more sensible I find this punishment to be, because it’s an educational punishment. We can’t continue leading this country if the United States Constitution is no longer an educational focus.
I want the United States Department of Education to get the message and to realize what is happening. We are not headed in the right direction if important information is not regarded as it once was.
(Originally published in Word Matters)
