Math and Science are practical, and help a child learn the skills for a job.   English is the key to appearing educated, reading, writing, and understanding written material is crucial for anyones future.  Languages, Computer skills, Physical Education, and Health all round out an education and provide skills and abilities that can serve a person well in the real world.  But there is a subject often overlooked or reduced to a role of social engineering.  A subject that was included in schools but often seems to be an afterthought.  The subject of History.

Why does History matter?  The oft repeated phrase "Those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it" comes to mind.  Besides this nugget of truth, studying History gives us insight into human behavior, civic responsibilities, the balance between rugged individualism and cooperation, and most of all, the consequences of decisions.  The sad thing is that History is so rarely taught this way.   The History teacher at my old high school was a sports coach, teaching History was an afterthought and it showed.  Many History teachers make kids memorize facts in a vacuum, facts without the relevance explained or accentuated.  Other History teachers make History a place of social engineering, a place where kids are taught that America caused all the worlds problems, or that History in a struggle between minorities and white male oppressors, or that History in a chronicle of mans degradation of the environment.  The history teachers where I work (I teach science) do a great job of making history both interesting and relevant, teaching both the facts of history as well as analysis and coordination of those facts.  

So in American History, what are some things students should know?

1) We have taken part in thirteen wars (counting the French/Indian or 7 Year War as a colony) and innumerable battles or police actions.  Students should know the lead up, the reasons stated for fighting, the results, the main characters, and the politics.  Why?  Because in each of these wars, we can learn something politically and culturally about ourselves, we can discover parallels to our own time and place.
    1756-1763  French Indian/7 Year War:  Britain vs France
    1775-1783  Revolutionary War:  US vs Britain
    1799-1815 (Intermittent) Barbary Pirates War  US vs African States of Tripoli, Algiers, Tunis, and Morocco
    1812-1815 War of 1812 US vs. Britain
    1830's and 1840's Texas Independence/Mexican American War Texas vs Mexico and US vs Mexico
    1860-1865 Civil War US vs Confederacy
    1898-1899 Spanish American War  US vs Spain
    1917-1918 World War I US, Britain, France, Russia vs Germany, Austria, Ottomans
    1941-1945 World War II  US Britain, Soviets vs Germany, Italy, and Japan
    1950-1952 Korean War  N Korea vs S Korea 
    1967-1974 Vietnam War N Vietnam vs S Vietnam 
    1990-1991 Gulf War US vs Iraq
    2002-Present  War on Terror  US vs Al Qaida and Supporting Governments

Besides war, understanding the repeated struggles between Labor and Business, The Western movement, the conflicts pre and post Civil War, The issues of Voting, the formation of the Constitution, Immigration through History, The New Deal, Great Society, and their consequences, and a myriad of other subjects that have relevance to politics today.

If you were to ask the average man on the street about the key moments of History, most will know little if anything.  This is an indictment of History teaching, but also of News coverage, which does not make the analytical leaps that exist because our Journalists either do not know History or were taught a sanitized and PC version.  If you teachthe subject well, many kids will respond.  Certainly not all, but many will see and respect the importance of our past to our present and future. 

I don't trust the government to make History education relevant, interesting, or well rounded.  What I would like to see is privately funded seminars offered to History teachers to give them the tools they need to teach History well.  The education colleges we all attend to become teachers are in many ways indoctrination centers.  For every good professor, there are a dozen who are using their position to further an agenda.  These seminars could be used to counter that indoctrination and help American students get a better and more well rounded History education.  I would love to see people like Newt use a forum like this to share their Historical knowledge with the next generation.  It comes down to a simple fact.  If our kids never learn the reality of our past, they will follow our biased media when they say we can't win in Iraq, or when they say we owe the world our allegiance.  America is exceptional, and its time our kids learn that.