Letter: Museum notes history illiteracy
This is a first-grade classroom at Branch Brook Elementary School in Smithtown at the end of the day Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2011. Credit: Newsday / John Paraskevas
The loss of a history curriculum in the classroom threatens to not only rob students of the understanding that our nation's present was built on the past, but also how their own families played a direct role in cataclysmic events such as World War II ["Teachers: Social studies lose out," News, Oct. 31]. We've seen history literacy plummet among some visitors to the Museum of American Armor.
It prompted Jim Hart, the museum's artist and a son of a World War II pilot, to offer a poignant view of G.I.s past and what the future might hold for their legacy. Social studies and history have been relegated to an academic afterthought. To continue down that path destroys our self-awareness as Americans.
Sixteen years ago, there were nearly six million WW II veterans living in the United States. Today, there are fewer than 850,000, and we are losing them and their memories. Once these members of the "greatest generation" are gone, it will be up to us to keep their legacy alive.
James Oliveri, Melville
Editor's note: The writer is the Museum of American Armor curator at Old Bethpage Village.
