Has the U.S. education system lost the ability to teach the country’s own history? The education scholar and historian discusses how the U.S. education system has failed the country, and how we can help our children recover it.
“There’s no other way to interpret our moment other than as an epic failure of education.”
It’s the middle of November, and Penn GSE education historian Jonathan Zimmerman is not in the mood to steer conversation toward his latest book. “The Amateur Hour: A History of College Teaching in America” is his eighth. The title’s final word America furnishes the link to all the others. From a history of one-room schoolhouses, to separate histories of alcohol and sex education, to an exploration of US campus politics, to a history of American teachers abroad, Zimmerman’s bibliography is above all else an examination of the US republic. And in the bile-spattered, venom-splashed, conspiracy-stained wake of the 2020 electi