Editorial: Don't make history a thing of the past

Pop quiz:

• When did Columbus land in the "New World?"
• Who was the first president of the United States?
• Which president issued the Emancipation Proclamation?

If you found yourself answering, "1492," "George Washington" and "Abraham Lincoln" with ease, then good for you. If you struggled, then perhaps history has never been of too much interest to you.

Of course, history isn't necessarily something that people are drawn to, but rather something that they are exposed to, usually early in life. This early exposure can turn into a later love, and that's why we are disturbed at the proposition of Virginia eliminating its history and social studies standardized examinations for third-graders.

These Standards of Learning tests would be cut so that schools can focus on reading and literacy. Literacy is a noble goal, but we have all heard about "teaching to the test," and this editorial board fears that in the absence of history and social studies SOLs, these two important areas of education will be overlooked in the haste to prepare students for the remaining tests.

And yes, it is only third grade, but what if it's successful? What if students' literacy rates jump? Perhaps other grades would start looking to implement the changes as well.

Making sure children are literate is important. In the absence of reading skills, history and social studies wouldn't make much sense. But rather than cut out the impetus to teach these subjects, we feel that another way to promote literacy should be found — perhaps extra credit literacy classes after school, focusing on literacy through the study of history and social studies or maybe just giving less importance to the history and social studies SOLs without eliminating them all together.

The Department of Education has been told to come up with a timetable for adding social studies content to reading assessments, but that leaves out history and is too little compensation for the SOL cut.
We don't know the right choice; we are not teachers. But we believe other choices must be explored.

Stafford County Sun editorials represent the opinion of the managing editor. Other columns, letters and cartoons on his page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily the Stafford County Sun.