One of the biggest concerns of late is the threat against our education system. All around the country, statues of slave-owners, Confederate generals, genocidal perpetrators, and general home-grown racists have been taken down in the name of “social justice,” leaving many Americans to ask, “How, now, will we learn history?”
The question is an imperative one. How, without the visual depictions of historical icons, will we as a society remember history? How is it okay to erase history in this way? Citizens and historians alike are baffled, but one expert sees a light at the end of the tunnel.
Professor of Statue History at Brown University, Jen Lee, has been working with historians to find a new way to record history and disseminate it to the public. The team working for public engagement have found that the rare and long-abandoned practices of writing and reading have tested positively in focus groups for conveying historical information.
“The tests are still inconclusive,” Jen said, “but we’re hopeful for positive results. Abandoning statues as our primary tool for teaching history has really thrown historians a curveball, but there is evidence mounting that reading books actually results in a higher comprehension of historical understanding than the visual icons represented on statues.”
We’re a long way from seeing the depth of historical research and widespread knowledge that is famous from the Statue Era of America, but with perseverance and further study, just maybe we can reach those heights again.
Wrong Impressions is of course satire. The real world is much crazier.