Response: Getting a Job with the NPS
It is just as hard getting a job with the NPS as it is teaching. During the summer we employ about maybe six graduate students as seasonal rangers and another four as interns. Many of them would love to work for the NPS once they graduate from school but for every position, (when they become available) there is usually over one hundred applicants. Some are only open to permanent, (as opposed to seasonal) NPS employees. For all positions, the Park Service considers KSAs (knowledge, skills, abilities), education, experience, and assigns a certain point value. I don't know how this works exactly but there is a system. Veterans and applicants with disabilities get an additional 5-10 points. That means that usually a recent college graduate with a bachelor’s degree, or even a master’s degree, usually isn't going to make the cut.
All hope isn't lost though. There are a couple of other ways to get in. One way is through the STEP program, where a student can work full time for the Park Service while they are going to school. While you may work the entire year through STEP, you still aren't considered a permanent, full time employee. There are no benefits except a paycheck and once school is finished you are still out of a job, but I have known a few people who have managed to stretch their time in STEP over several years and in one case, it did lead to a permanent position.
Another way to get in is through what are known as "gateway parks.” These are parks that see a lot of turnover. They are usually very popular with visitors, but are somewhat stressful and exhausting to work at. Examples of "gateway parks" are the Mall in Washington D.C., Independence Hall in Philadelphia, and Boston National Historic Park. Because they have high turnover it is a little bit easier to get a job at these parks. [Then hope to transfer to another park at a later date] However, it may be years before a position at the park that the applicant really wants to work at opens up.
While these are permanent, full time jobs with benefits, it doesn't necessarily mean you will be working the entire year. Some of these jobs are subject to furlough, which means you may only work six or nine months out of the year. Also, these are entry level GS-4/5 jobs which means you aren't making a lot of money. Unless you have a [working] spouse or some other additional income, you might not be able to get by on just an NPS paycheck. If I didn't have an Army retirement paycheck I probably couldn't do this. Considering my experience and education, I'm making a lot less than most people my age with similar backgrounds, but this is one of the best jobs in the world.
Thanks for the input, John!
In the Service of Clio
Dr. Sarantakes is a military, diplomatic, and political historian who is the author of several books and multiple published articles. He has his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California and is currently an associate professor at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. What is unique about his blog is that he has “guest bloggers” post articles concerning a career in academic history and the state of the profession. In the earlier postings on his blog, Dr. Sarantakes has discussed some alternate employment options for Ph.D.s in history. In the last couple of months, the subject is the budget strategy taken by universities to hire cheaper adjunct professors over more costly tenured positions and what effect that has on the job market in that field.
The bottom line is that there are too many Ph.D.s for the number of university teaching jobs available. That drives down salary and benefits, as it would in any profession. I hate to sound like my dad here, but a couple of old adages used to fly around my house, as I am sure they did in most of yours. The first piece of advice is to “do what you love and the money will follow.” The other thing dad used to say was “Whatever you do, be the best at it and you’ll always have a job.”
The best example I know of these wisdoms in action is my friend John. We met in the masters program at Shippensburg. We have a lot in common and I have a great admiration and respect for him. John retired from the army and is better read on the Civil War than anyone I know. The job market for MAs in history is as tight and pay is as low as it is for Ph.D.s. Nevertheless, John started the program knowing what he wanted to do when he finished. He wanted to work for the National Park Service and be a ranger at one of the Civil War Battlefields. While still pursuing his masters, John interned with the NPS. He networked and he studied the job market. Today, John is leading tours at Gettysburg Battlefield. I wonder if he knows how really amazing that is. Do what you love and the money will follow. Be the best at what you do and you will always have a job. Livin’ the dream. Way to go, John!
There's more to it than you think...
Does making t-shirt graphics have anything to do with history? You bet it does. We thought it might be appropriate to share with our friends and fellow veterans what the process is for making our designs and in what order.
Let us say again that it is our goal to provide every veteran with the shirt or coffee mug that they want to honor their service to our country. That’s a pretty big goal considering the time limitations that we have. Military Vet Shop is our favorite pursuit. Unfortunately, it is not our only one. Sheila and Jim have a “day job” running Wave of the Future, our website development business. Moreover, Jim recently completed his MA in applied history and is researching a book length project: a history of the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion. You’ll be able to read more about it on his blog, The Roving Historian, in the near future.
So how do we choose what to create, given the limited time available? Remember the old Burger King™ commercial with the song “hold the pickles, hold the lettuce...special orders don’t upset us...” You’re singing it right now, aren’t you? Well, that’s us. We love special requests. A request was behind the new badges section and the branches section. A request was made for the 30th Medical Command patch. A request was made for the CH-46, CH-47, and the M551 Sheridan. We figure that if you want it, there must be others out there that want it. Hopefully, you know some folks who want it and will tell them about it. For that reason, requests automatically go to the top of the “to-do” list.
Now here is where the history comes in. After the request list, we are then prioritizing a list of every major unit patch that was in Vietnam. For each patch that we choose to create a set of graphics for, while Sheila (the graphics artist) is making the patch object, Jim is researching the history of the patch. We have to determine if the patch was in Vietnam, or Iraq, or Afghanistan. Then we need to determine what vehicles the veterans who wore that patch used. It is in this task that veteran’s websites and the pictures posted on the web are invaluable. If enough information is available, we’ll even produce a summary history of the unit patch on our website.
Making patches is a relatively quick task, but making an original, photo-realistic, graphic image of a vehicle or aircraft is a time intensive project. Sheila puts hours of work into these projects. That’s why it takes a few weeks for requests of vehicle graphics to be fulfilled. Moreover, the operative word here is original. We completely respect the work of others and are careful not to violate the copyrights of any artist. We will not cut corners by copying from others. That is also why you won’t find the image you buy from us on any other site. (If you do, please let us know for obvious reasons!)
As you can see, you the veteran, our customers, are a crucial player in obtaining our goal of getting every veteran the design they want. We welcome your input!
Winter is for reading...
Instead of pursuing my passion for museums and battlefields, for the time being I’m spending the season reading up on my WWII history and doing a little writing. One of the areas I’ve neglected over the months that I was working on the masters degree and the Locks project was writing unit histories for Military Vet Shop. Rectifying that, I’ve just posted a summary history of the 7th Infantry Division.
I enjoy writing these articles, but unfortunately, since I don’t live near an archive, I’m limited to the sources I find on the Internet. One of the sources I like to use the most is what veterans have posted on their sites, both as individuals and organization' sites. In lieu of finding any new or detailed information, I have to go with what I can find. Sometimes I get it wrong. Because, quite frankly, what has been posted is wrong. I really appreciate it when a veteran contacts me to set the record straight. I invite any comments, critiques, and clarifications. Just shoot me an email.
Marine Corps Restricts Use of Emblems and Terms
Normally I would limit the content of this blog as much as possible to matters of public history. On occasion I do want to share with you some concerns that arise in my "day job" over at http://www.militaryvetshop.com/. Historians communicate to the public through writing, documentaries, websites, and museum displays. Therefore, issues of copyright and trademark do come up on occasion, so I think you will find the following information interesting:
The availability of t-shirts and coffee mugs with any reference to the United States Marine Corps (USMC) might be seriously curtailed. Recently the USMC, from their newly created Trademark Licensing Office, has claimed trademark rights on all emblems and terms that might reference the Corps. This includes the word “Marine” and any reference to Marine Veterans. The claim also encompasses terms like “USMC,” and even “Semper Fi.”
Each of the military services has always protected the use of the service seals representing the Department of the Army, the Department of the Navy, etc. This is allowed in Federal Statutes and it is understandable to prevent an organization from inferring that they officially represent one of the branches of the military. However, there has never been any claim to copyright or trademark of terms against those designs that represent the military in a positive light and with respect to veterans. Civilian companies have always created products that celebrate the service of veterans without the requirement of licensing. With the advent of print-on-demand (POD) technology and Internet sales, these designs and products have multiplied to unimaginable numbers. It would easily be assumed that terminology that refers to the military branches, or emblems created by these government organizations would be in the public domain and free to use by anyone. Apparently, that is not true anymore.
In December of 2007, the Department of Defense (DOD) initiated a directive for each service to “establish a branding and trademark licensing office to manage and coordinate a DOD-wide brand development and trademark licensing program.” You can read that Directive here: http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/553509p.pdf. The other services have exercised restraint in the application of this directive. For example, the Department of the Army enforces trademark on the Department of the Army seal and any copyright enforcement on shoulder sleeve insignia is delegated to the unit commander. The Air Force, so far, has chosen to only enforce their trademark on their seal, and the “high wings” emblem that you see on recruiting commercials.
The Marine Corps, however, has really taken the ball and run with it. They established their trademark office in July of 2009. Currently they are contacting print-on-demand companies and requesting that ANY design that refers to the USMC in ANY WAY, be removed from the site until a usage license is obtained from the Marine Corps. The Marine Corps was contacted directly and a representative stated that no licenses had been issued yet. Nevertheless, they were serious about enforcing what they saw as their trademark rights. When a license is issued, it will cost $1,000 to apply and a minimum of $5,000 per year in royalties. This figure puts most of us little guys out of business. For example, Military Vet Shop only earns a couple of hundred dollars per year on USMC veteran items, despite our loyal customers who wear our designs with pride.
Military Vet Shop uses two POD providers, Cafepress and Zazzle. We post on two different sites so that we can offer our customers a larger number of products and styles from which to choose. Currently, Zazzle is systematically searching their product database for any USMC designs and deleting them, with only an email notification to the designer that the removal was at the request of the Marine Corps. With no communication coming from Zazzle, the information in this article was gathered from other websites and the Zazzle seller forums. Within a few days we will no longer be able to offer any USMC veteran items on Zazzle.
So far, no action has been taken by Cafepress. We assume, and hope, that they are negotiating a collective license agreement for all designers who post their work on the Cafepress website. This is the option that we wish Zazzle had chosen, rather than becoming intimidated by the issue.
The USMC is perfectly within their rights to enforce a trademark that is specifically laid out in a federal law that allows them to do so. Even if the license fees go into the USMC Morale and Welfare Fund, we are still very disappointed in the direction the Marine Corps has decided to take. We think the morale of the veterans we honor is important too. It saddens us to see the “corporatization” of any of our military services.
If you would like to read more about this issue, here are some links for you:
Marine Corps Trademark Office, FAQs: http://www.marines.mil/unit/divpa/tmlo/Pages/faq.aspx
Federal Statute authorizing trademark of terms: http://law.justia.com/us/cfr/title32/32-5.1.1.7.33.0.37.6.html
A simple (and short) explanation of trademark and copyright: http://www.lawmart.com/forms/difference.htm
National Day of Listening
I have some experience with this. In 2007, I took the opportunity to interview my dad. He’s a Korean War veteran with the 187th Airborne and I wanted to record his experiences in the army. Admittedly, I had to ask him three times before he would sit down with a tape recorder going, but he did it. I was motivated to get his story by an oral history class I had taken and the knowledge that we are losing so many veterans every day. There are projects all over the country to record veteran’s oral history interviews, the two most prominent being the Veteran’s History Project at the Library of Congress, and my favorite, the Veteran’s Survey Program at the Army’s Heritage and Education Center in Carlisle, PA. Long story short (too late!), I did the interviews and wrote an article about his experiences that the History Channel Magazine was gracious enough to print.
However, he had more interesting experiences with history than I, or he, realized. I don’t really remember how it came up in conversation, but I asked what it was like during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 (I was only about a year and a half old at the time). He told me that he was working in a grocery store in Hollywood, California at the time. Sure enough, the American public was in a panic about the possibility of a nuclear war. There was a run on the grocery store with people buying up everything they could to stock up for the apocalypse they thought was on the way. Dad told me he had to stay at the store for 4 nights stocking the shelves as quickly as they could unload the trucks. Moreover, the punch line was that after the crisis was over, many people tried to return all of the groceries they had bought!
My dad didn’t think that story was very historically significant. However, all I had ever read about the crisis was the political side and the military side. There might have been a mention of a terrified public, but my dad’s story put a face on that aspect of the event. It made it real.
Therefore, during the holidays, when you have your extended family around the house, and the meal is over and everyone is sitting around talking. Take the time to ask the questions. And listen.
The "Fall of the Wall." Has it really been twenty years?!
I remember that day in 1989. I watched on television with amazement at the people crawling all over the wall. I had returned to the United States exactly one year prior to that date after spending a three-year tour in Fulda, Germany patrolling the East German border with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. When I left the Blackhorse in 1988 there were no indications that only one year later the Wall (or the "Fence" as we called it) would come down and the two Germanys would reunify only one year after that. For me, and the army, the “Fall of the Wall” changed our mindset forever and ushered in a new post Cold War era.
While what would become NATO forces had faced off with Soviet armies since the close of World War II, the border fence and the Berlin Wall was not constructed until 1961. Before its construction, approximately 3.5 million East Germans had fled to the West. Approximately 5000 people tried to escape the East during its existence. Estimates of those killed vary widely between 98 and 200. I know from my own experience that between 30 to 50 people each year would escape across the border in our sector during the years I was serving with the 11th ACR.
In November of 1989, after only a few weeks of unrest in East Germany, the government announced that it would ease travel restrictions to the West. When asked at a news conference on the morning of November 9th when that law would take effect, a government official said that he assumed immediately. Spontaneously, thousands of East and West German citizens crossed the border and climbed on the wall, and activity that would have gotten them shot only hours before. A mass celebration erupted that quickly ushered in the reunification of the two Germanys and the dissolving of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact.
Now those Cold War days are all but forgotten. However, those times changed a lot of us. Everyone who served from WWII through the 1990s had a part in winning the Cold War and defeating the Soviet Block. To honor that service, I asked Sheila to create a graphic commemorating the date for our store Military Vet Shop. There is a generic version as well as a patch version that is currently made with 11th ACR and 2nd ACR patches. If you’d like your unit patch placed on that design, just let us know. Remember the day.
Plan for Veterans Day
I enjoy meeting veterans. Perhaps it is because I am one, or because I like history and most all veterans have a story to tell. I don't get to meet that many any more, so I thought there weren't that many of us around. But I just checked out the VA website, and found out that it's not true. There are a lot of us around. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, there are approximately 23.8 million living veterans in the United States. Women make up 7.5 percent of that number. Spouses and dependent children of living veterans and survivors of deceased veterans make up another 37 million Americans. Together those groups make up about 20 percent of the U.S. population. While those are big numbers, it is still an exclusive club. November 11th of each year is the day we set aside to honor the service and sacrifice of our living veterans.
Veterans Day has its roots in what was called “Armistice Day.” While World War I ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919, most people assume it was the day of the cessation of hostilities. Germany and the Allied nations agreed that fighting would end on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. The following year, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the first observance of “Armistice Day” on November 11, 1919. For some reason, after the carnage of "The Great War," a lot of folks thought that we'd never have another one and called it "the war to end all wars." After 27 states had made the day a legal state holiday, Congress echoed President Wilson’s proclamation in 1926, and then passed a law creating a federal holiday in 1938.
Originally, Armistice Day was created to honor the veterans of WWI and to set aside a day “to be dedicated to the cause of world peace.” However, by 1954 the country had survived World War II, which had required the greatest mobilization of armed forces in our history, and the end of hostilities in Korea. Congress passed Public Law 380, which President Eisenhower enthusiastically signed, making November 11th of each year a federal holiday that would be called “Veterans Day” to honor all of our living veterans.
For a few years, starting in 1971, we tried moving Veterans Day to the closest Monday to the eleventh in order to create a three-day weekend. It didn’t work out too well. It was made obvious to Congress that this day has great historical, patriotic, and emotional significance to many of our people. A law was passed changing the official observance of Veterans Day back to the way it originally was. Since 1978 we have honored our veterans on November 11th regardless of what day of week it falls on.
Remember that Memorial Day is to honor those who have fallen in war. Veterans Day was created to recognize all of our veterans for their service. On this coming November 11th, take the opportunity to say "thank you" to an American veteran. If you are a veteran, then thank another vet. Because no one understands better than a fellow veteran. Since the day a WWII veteran thanked me for my service, I've never looked at the day the same.
Road Trip and Relocate
Two meetings for August
The Friends of the Chittenden Locks endeavors to identify, preserve, and make available records and papers, images, film and artifacts of enduring historical value concerning the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks, Carl S. English, Jr. Botanical Garden, and the Lake Washington Ship Canal. The Friends perform this mission as individual volunteers for the Seattle District of the US Army Corps of Engineers with the common bonds of a desire to document the history of these sites and serve the local community.
July Updated
We're on YouTube!
Since the online class is taught through Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, and I assume that the rest of the class live locally, there will be a couple of "in-person" class meetings. Obviously, spending the summer here in Seattle, I will not be able to attend. In lieu of that, Dr. Burg asked that I make a YouTube video introducing myself to the class. That turned out to be a fun weekend project. Although I really hate seeing myself in pictures or video, I'd like to share it with you (here if the embed is not working):
So, hello to all the folks I'll be chatting with in my online class this summer. We're making great progress with our slide and photo scanning. Aproximately 1500 images scanned so far. We've also started cleaning and organizing one of the storage rooms that we'll use for our archives. We'll be having our first volunteer organization meeting (working name of the group is "Friends of the Ballard Locks) on June 18th, at 6:30 pm at the Locks. Contact us for more details if you'd like to attend. Anyone interested is welcome. And as always, if you are in the Seattle area and would like to volunteer some time to our project, please contact me at jim@ridinthewave.com.
Jim and Michelle's Excellent Adventure
Our pictures on this post are both courtesy of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Hiram Chittenden Locks. The top photo is of a December snow in 1946. The second is of a seaplane forced to land in a snowstorm in the Puget Sound in February of 1947, that took passage through the Locks. If you are interested in helping to bring the rest of this photo collection online, please contact me at jim@ridinthewave.com
Moving Through The Locks
When it comes to setting up an archive, I will admit to being a rank amateur. I've researched in them, but I've never worked in one. I guess that is what makes this a good internship. I will be taking an online class this summer on Archive Management from Dr. Burg at Shippensburg University this summer. Nevertheless, like anything else I want to do and don't know how, I head for the library or Amazon. Currently, I'm reading "Managing Historical Records Programs" by Bruce Dearstyne. It's not nearly as dry as it might sound. In the first chapter, the author reviews the eight functions that archivists carry out. I thought they would make excellent mission goals for our project, so I'd like to share them with you:
April Updates on the Ballard Locks Project
Project started, volunteers needed!
- Inventory all photo collections, documents, and artifacts while creating finding aids by subject.
- Create a volunteer organization to fundraise for specific equipment and supplies, and recruit volunteers for the history project and gardens.
- Scanning all photos and slides in the collections (thousands!)
- Conduct several oral history interviews of former staff and volunteers
Eventually, we would like to see all of the finding aids and a database of the photos be available for convenience to the public online. For the garden side, our long-term goal is a new website showcasing photos of all of the plants in different seasons.
We’ll use this blog to keep you up to date on our progress. Read along with us and see how we do. Feel free to offer suggestions and (hopefully) encouragement. I've just gotten started scanning a huge collection of 35mm slides. Some of those pictures are in this post.
Obviously, there is a great deal of work to be done, and I can’t possibly accomplish this alone. Besides, the point is to organize a system of volunteers that will be caretakers of the Locks and Gardens and pass along this responsibility and privilege to others to continue after we’ve all moved on. As it should be with all historical sites and archives.
If you would like to help with scanning slides and photos, or working with creating a historical archive, please contact me, Jim Broumley, at jim@ridinthewave.com. This will be a unique opportunity for us to create an archive from scratch and really "do history."
If you would like to volunteer in the Carl English Garden (green thumb not required), please contact Michelle McMorran at Michelle.K.Mcmorran@usace.army.mil, or (206) 789-2622 ext 216. My wife, Sheila, volunteers in the garden and greenhouse and she has a blast “getting her green on.” Michelle is super nice and a wellspring of horticulture knowledge. So go get your hands dirty. ;-)
The Worst Job and One of the Best Jobs
I suppose I started following this premise that George W. Bush will be considered the worst President in U.S. history back in ’06 with the article in Rolling Stone. I’m not a regular reader of this particular periodical, but I must admit the caricature of the President wearing a dunce hat on the cover of the magazine really piqued my interest.
This idea that George Bush will be honored as the worst President came up again as I was watching CBS Sunday Morning. According to the story, it seems that “In a 2006 Siena College survey of 744 history professors, 82% rated President Bush below average, or a failure.” Back in April of 2008, George Mason University’s History News Network website conducted an informal poll of 109 historians. An incredible 98% considered Mr. Bush a failed president. And 61% said that he is one of the worst in American history. That’s quite an honor considering some of his fellow contenders like Buchanan, Harding, and Nixon. Oh! And with the recent downturn in the economy, Hoover is getting a lot of press lately.
Now it’s time for the good news. The employment website CareerCast.com recently researched and ranked 200 jobs. They have determined that Historian is rated the seventh (7th) best job in America! The jobs were ranked by income and employment outlook as well as other factors like job stress, working environment, and physical peril. Apparently, being a Mathematician (the number one rated job) is a lot better in all of these factors, including safety. But hey, maybe it really is cool to be a historian.
Update: I finally made it over to the Pacific Region of NARA here in Seattle. Not only did I find what I was looking for – original garden maps for the Carl English Gardens at the Ballard Locks – but the customer service was FANTASTIC. My thanks to archivists Kathleen Crosman and Patty McNamee as well as Senior Records Analyst Leslie Malek. These individuals not only helped me find what I needed there at the National Archives, but also got on the computer and found information at other archives and libraries. I was so impressed by the service and professionalism that I’m going to volunteer there.
Telling It Right
I have a theme that’s been running through my mind the past few days. I’m beginning to realize that there might not be one true version of a historical event. There is a fuzzy area out there that separates what is true and what is not, sometimes depending solely on perspective.
Of course we all know what is true. A known series of events, for example, or some other facts like names, numbers, etc. But how do we know it’s true? Well, we have to trust the source. But keep an open mind. Here’s an example:
I had posted on MilitaryVetShop.com a history of the 173rd Airborne Brigade. One of the sources I used for this summary history had credited the coining of the Brigade’s nickname of “The Herd” to the commander of the 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment. I was contacted by a veteran who was in the 1st Battalion, who credits Colonel “Rawhide” Boland, his commander at the time, with coming up with the nickname. (Read the quote and history here) There is no choice here. When the only sources you have are an undocumented article on a website and an oral history from someone who was there, go with the in-person witness.
On the other end of the spectrum you have people who make things up. Hopefully, we can catch the untruths before they get absorbed into the historical record. I saw a great example of this in today’s New York Times. The article is worth your time to read. Unfortunately Oprah has been fooled again. It seems that Herman Rosenblat’s Holocaust tale of his future wife tossing apples to him over the fence is not true. Fortunately, in this case other survivors and Holocaust researchers outed Mr. Rosenblat. While he is a Holocaust survivor, he felt he needed to spice up his memoir a bit and, like these things are wont to, the story ran away with the Rosenblats in tow. My point is not to judge this case specifically, but to show how some stories just need another source. Somewhere between my two examples is that gray area.
I just finished reading Tony Horwitz’ A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World. (4.5 stars on Amazon, and I personally give it two thumbs up.) Part history and part travel narrative, Horwitz travels the country to learn about the founders of America from Columbus through the Plymouth Colony and Jamestown. It’s a fascinating and entertaining read. What struck me was how people around the country would usurp history to fit their political/ethnic agenda or even to simply further the local economy. Read the book and you might be amazed to find out that Ponce de León never looked for a “Fountain of Youth” but if you go to St Augustine (where the Conquistador never went) you’re likely to be offered a paper cup full of water. How many of us are dead certain that many of these types of historical mythology are true?
The State of Education
Warning: The following post is a rant that doesn’t have much to do with history.
My friend Paul Kurzawa posted on his blog over at History Delivered about a test put out by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute with questions on civics, history, and economics. Here are links to the press release explaining the abysmal results and the test itself. Basically the average score of a random sampling of Americans who were given the test was 49%, or an “F.” However, the average score for a person with an undergraduate college degree was 74.4%. See where I’m headed here?
While I agree with Paul that we are pathetic citizens when it comes to knowledge about our own history and government, our bigger problem is the overall decline of education in this country. Currently, almost 30% of our students drop out of high school across the nation. According to an article in USA Today, only 29% of Americans have a bachelor degree. The article goes on to tell us that of the 70% of students who graduate high school, 65% of them go on to college. But if that many students enroll in college why do only 3 in 10 of us have a degree? It is because somewhere along the way, from kindergarten to college graduation, seven of us gave up on formal education. In addition to that, they’ve given up on life-long learning.
Here’s my take on it: Public school started pushing ALL kids to go to college, even if they don’t know what they want to do for a career. So the kids who can go to college go without any clue of what they want to do with their lives. They then burn out on classes that they have no interest in and drop out. Meanwhile, the kids who aren’t able to go to college, for whatever reason, have received the implicit message loud and clear. They are worthless in this society for not going on to college. So they give up and drop out of high school. The kids who stick it out and graduate have no love of, or skills for, learning on their own.
My father went to “Technical High School” where he learned trade skills like welding and cabinetry. But he also was taught math through trigonometry and a love of poetry so strong that he carried a book of Robert Service poems to Korea. I graduated from college, but most of what I’ve learned about history was from outside of the classroom. Mostly through visiting museums, watching documentaries, and that’s right, reading books! And who taught me to read? Right again! My dad. He told me that reading was the most important skill you can have because anything you want to know about is in a book somewhere. Are parents today doing that for their kids?
Of course I’m ranting and of course I’m grossly generalizing. But how do we fix the declining state of education in this country? Let’s work on the weakest link. How about teaching every student in public school to a standard level of skill and competence? For the last several decades it seems like we’ve been putting all of our resources into teaching the most talented and advantaged while leaving the others to struggle. Why do we do this in public education? I’d like to see a public high school education mean something again. Let’s have that basic education be able to stand alone. Let’s get off of the “college is everything” kick for awhile. Because I really don’t worry too much about the upper middle class kid whose parents are involved and can afford to pay for college. I worry about the kids who don’t have those advantages. So should you. Because they both get one equal vote.
What are you reading?
I’ll give you a couple of examples. I picked up the book Faded Coat of Blue by Owen Parry in a used book store. It is actually part of a detective series set within the backdrop of the Civil War. I enjoyed the character of the heroic sleuth, Able Jones, who was a Welsh immigrant making his home in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Since I was living in that area of the country at the time, I saw that the author was dead on historically accurate with the history of the coal mining region of Pennsylvania. I really enjoyed the book, but I was upset when the author had the main character secretly meet President Lincoln, who asks him to work for him as a secret agent. Thus the stage is set for a detective series within the Civil War. Okay, so I read a few more books in the Able Jones series. It's a fun read, but as I said: brain candy.
One of the books that really turned me on to military history was The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara. I read the book the first time as an assignment for a military history class when I was in ROTC. Since then I’ve read the book three more times and I must have watched the movie version, Gettysburg, at least a dozen more. One of the reasons I like the book so much is the attention the author paid to historical accuracy. All of the characters in the novel are historical personalities. The only thing made up in the book is the conversations the characters have with each other. Michael Shaara’s son, Jeff, has taken up the family business. Jeff Shaara writes with the same standard of historical accuracy and now has a long list of titles on Amazon. He has done a prequel and a sequel to the Killer Angels, and done works on the Revolution, the Mexican War, World War I and World War II. I just yesterday finished The Steel Wave, Jeff Shaara’s second volume about WWII. I liked it so much, as I do all of his work, I mailed it to my dad to read. It’s not brain candy, or even brain fast food. Think of it as a healthy brain sandwich.
The bottom line is that I think we can learn a lot from historical fiction, whether by reading a novel, or watching a movie. It doesn’t just have to be about military history. Movies (that are almost always books first) like Seabiscuit and A Beautiful Mind were box office successes AND historically accurate. Or at least these works are historically accurate enough to teach the story while entertaining. These works should not be discounted as a way to learn history. I find history exciting. It's unfortunate that many others don't. History makes for a good story. Why can’t we get people interested in, and excited about, history by presenting it as the drama that it is?