Reply #19: My best history lessons happened when teachers acknowledged history.

[undeterred]

When JFK was shot I was on my way back to school after going home for lunch. I heard from other kids that something had happened, but when we went back to class (second grade) my teacher told us. She brought an old radio into the room and turned it on to the news. She said "Children, this afternoon is history". And she wept. There wasn't much to say, but we "got" that this was a watershed event.

They didn't send us home or deny what was going on. And at 7 we were not too young to understand.

When the Watergate/Richard Nixon scandal was going on I was in a high school social studies summer school class. We watched the hearings and discussed it. This was infinitely more interesting than the usual format and I am so glad the teachers decided to do this.

The inauguration is less than an hour, once every 4 years. Why on earth wouldn't schools include this, unless for political reasons.