Historic Find

I like to think I'm connected to the blogging world. I have a personal blog and a lot of my close friends have blogs, so I often find myself discovering interesting articles or websites because of them. Today, I came across a random blog post entitled "Young Americans Don't Know Their U.S. History." Since I'm currently in a class that focuses on history instruction, this article caught my attention. I followed the link and discovered a Marist Poll. After reading the results of the poll, I sat and thought about the two numbers, 74% and 26%. I also read the question asked of the participants - "On July 4th we celebrate Independence Day. From which country did the United States win its independence?" I'm not sure what number shocked me more. The fact that only 74% of Americans knew that we achieved our independence from England, or the fact that 26% of participants either didn't know or named another country altogether (Spain, France, and Mexico were some of the countries mentioned in the poll). That still shocks me. This question directly relates to the original 13 colonies, so I guess I can see where someone would say Spain considering its connection to Texas and other western states. Regardless of the margin of error in the poll, the poll reinforces the importance of great history teachers.

I came across another Lauren Sausser article while I was still pondering over the poll results. The article I came across was entitled "Thomas Jefferson made slip in Declaration." I was drawn to this second article due to the fact that Independence Day was less than a week ago. The article reveals that while declaring independence from England, Jefferson slipped and called the American public 'subjects' rather than 'citizens' within the document. Think about that. Jefferson, among others, were working to create a document that would free the United States from English control, people that commonly used the term subject to refer to the American public. If you look closely at the document, you can clearly see that he wrote subject, but then quickly wiped his hand across the word, replacing it with citizen. Look at the images below. History at it's finest!









The Library of Congress released these images on Friday, July 2 just in time for the July 4th holiday. The discovery was made last year with hyperspectral imaging technology, using a high resolution digital camera. You can read the article in full from the msnbc website.

The results of the Marist poll, but also the new findings within the Declaration of Independence, prove the importance of great history teachers. As teachers, we have to stop pushing our social studies lessons to the end of the school day. Students are tired from a long day of instruction and teachers are often burned out. The key to keeping students engaged over a long day of instruction is by integrating subjects. As seen in a previous post, integration is a key part of a meaningful, well-planned social studies lesson. Don't forget that! The 26% of Americans that didn't know what state we achieved our independence from is reason enough for me to think critically about the ways I teach history in my classroom.

*Marist Poll information - 1,004 United States residents were interviewed. The poll was conducted over the phone from June 17-24. Participants were 18 years of age or older. I question the results of the poll to an extent because of the method does make me question the results of the poll to a certain extent. I think the information is still important to consider.

(Pictures featured in this post are from the Library of Congress)