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On the brink of the United States’ 250th anniversary, many Americans have a dismal view of the country and its future. Surveys abound showing that most U.S. adults think the country’s best days are behind us, and at least one poll found that a record low proportion are “extremely proud” to be Americans.
But are we actually living through the worst time in the nation’s history?
“Nope,” said Kathleen DuVal, a UNC-Chapel Hill history professor and Pulitzer Prize winner who researches early America. DuVal was among four panelists who spoke Tuesday evening at a Newsmakers event in Durham about the history and future of the U.S., hosted by The Assembly and America’s Future.
DuVal argued that the U.S. “has never completely gotten to” the ideals of equality and opportunity that its founders set forth in the 1776 Declaration of Independence. Still, for 250 years, the document has been a guiding light, she said, providing “a promise to look to, to point to when America isn’t living up to it.”
Milestone years in U.S. history have often coincided with tumultuous times. At the country’s 100th anniversary, in 1876, America was emerging from post-Civil War Reconstruction, a period followed by the rise of Jim Crow laws and white supremacist groups. The 200th anniversary, in 1976, came shortly after the Watergate scandal and the end of the Vietnam War.
“We have seen worse times,” said Christie Norris, director of education at the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. “But the hope is that it is a zigzag, and the pendulum swings back and forth.”
The event also included Devin Duncan, UNC-Chapel Hill’s student body president, and Leslie Garvin, executive director of N.C. Campus Engagement. Mark Martin, a former N.C. Supreme Court justice and the current dean of High Point University’s law school, was originally set to participate but withdrew after public backlash over his role in former President Donald Trump’s legal strategy to reverse the 2020 election results.
Teaching American history—and all of the tumult it includes—has become a political flashpoint in recent years. Along with bans on diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, some states have considered or passed restrictions on how schools can teach so-called “divisive concepts,” many of which relate to racial history. Conservatives have said history education focused on slavery and racism teaches students a negative view of their country, while those on the left argue that leaving the topics out or whitewashing them does students a disservice. A recent piece in The Atlantic posited: “Unable to agree on how to tell our story, we have swiftly abandoned efforts to tell it at all.”
Norris, a former Durham Public Schools social studies teacher, said educators are feeling the pressure in their classrooms.
“To speak bluntly, in some cases, history has become a dirty word. There is a lot of fear and confusion about history, how we teach it, how teachers teach it, whose history they should teach,” Norris said. “I think because of that dialogue that has been happening, I’ve seen a lot of teachers become very nervous in the K-12 space about teaching history.”
That could tempt some teachers to stick to a “very vanilla” way of teaching history, like having students memorize dates, Norris said, “rather than what we need to learn in history.” Norris said it’s important for teachers to receive quality professional development in pedagogy and scholarship so they are confident in how they teach the subject—and that it doesn’t run afoul of any policies.
“How do you do this in ways that aren’t going to have you called in front of your school board? That’s the reality,” Norris said. “And it’s things like using primary sources. It’s things like using local, place-based history in your classroom, which engages students.”
DuVal said the environment is “quite different” at the state’s public colleges and universities because higher education tends to involve more choice: students generally get to choose the courses they take, and faculty get to choose how they approach the material they teach. Still, there is a renewed focus in the UNC System on teaching students key historical documents, with a new “Foundations of American Democracy” course requirement. The mandate, which stemmed from a stalled bill in the General Assembly, requires students to read and “evaluate” six documents, including the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Gettysburg Address.
UNC System leaders, including President Peter Hans, cited the need to increase students’ civic knowledge as a key reason for creating the requirement. DuVal agreed with the sentiment, saying that students “need a little bit more understanding of how we got here, how the past relates to today’s democracy.” A recent NBC News poll showed that 80% of U.S. adults believe the country doesn’t put enough emphasis on civic education, a metric that found liberals and conservatives in agreement.
In DuVal’s experience, students are hungry for the information. She said she’s noticed that students in recent years have become more interested in the “importance of democracy” and in how U.S. history has shaped it.
“That feels like extra pressure, and it’s really exciting,” DuVal said.
But it’s not necessarily an easy time for students to become civically engaged. Duncan said at the event that the amount of information young people are exposed to online, on social media, and through AI platforms like ChatGPT can be overwhelming, making it difficult for students to sort fact from fiction and develop informed opinions. That makes the tenets of history education, like deciphering primary and secondary sources, even more important, he said.
Research by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University shows that young people are eager to vote and participate in politics, and they want trusted, reliable information to inform their decisions. Garvin pointed to other findings from the research to argue that students appreciate democracy and its principles “as concepts,” but they want to see meaningful changes to structures such as corporate campaign spending that might dilute their influence at the ballot box.
“For me, what has to happen is that young folks have to reclaim some of those things that maybe patriotism and these sorts of concepts have distorted,” Garvin said.
Each panelist said they remain hopeful about the country’s future, despite the current environment, largely because of the promise that quality history and civics education can offer the next generation.
“Patriotism and honesty go together,” Duncan said. “You can love this country but be honest about the very difficult times that I think we are in, and also have the hope that we can overcome those times.”
