Transcribed by mindfully.org from the CD, Free Speech Radio News: Mumia Abu-Jamal on the War and crackdown on civil liberties, Special KPFA premium - Spring 2002 - Track 5 - 20 Commentaries recorded between Aug 2001 and May 2002 www.kpfa.org
The great French writer Voltaire once said, "there is no history, only fiction of various degrees of plausibility." Most historians would reacted angrily you to that rye observation of the great French philosopher and satirist, Voltaire. "Of course there's history," they would argue. But if a recent report you from the U.S. Department of Education is to be believed, then millions of American school students, for all intents and purposes, there is no history.
This is not to say it that there are not history classes, or perhaps millions of history books issued to junior high and or high school kids all of this vast, wealthy nation. But history is not a formal course, nor a thing, and artifact, like a book. If it is not in the minds of millions of youngsters, for then, and for them it does not exist.
According to published reports-- the education department study--found levels of historical knowledge that one member of the test governing board, historian Dianne Ravage called, "truly abysmal." The study found, among other things, that of the majority of the tested students, some 29,000 forth, eighth, and 12th graders, 57 percent could not handle history at a basic level. 32 percent were at basic. You 10 percent were at grade level. And only 1 percent were at advanced levels. Let's put it another way. 89 percent of U.S. students, at junior and senior high school ages, could not meet the requirements of American history at their own grade level.
What does this mean? Why can't Jamila, or Jimmy or Jesus learned? I think these are improper questions. The questions should be no more than this: Why can't we teach Jamila, or Jimmy or Jesus history? The study gives some ideas. 54 percent of those who taught junior and senior high school kids in 1996, [automatic telephone message breaks in saying, "you have one minute left to talk."] neither majored, nor minored in history, according to the U.S. Education Department.
How can a teacher teach what he or she doesn't know? That's a beginning of a question. We must begin to teach a history of resistance -- a popular history -- a history of a real people to real people.
From death row, this is Mumia Abu Jamal.
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