A Battle on the WWII Knowledge Front

Time, Focus Limit Area Students' Learning

Tiffany Charles got a B in history last year at her Montgomery County high school, but she is not sure what year World War II ended. She cannot name a single general or battle, or the man who was president during the most dramatic hours of the 20th century.

Yet the 16-year-old does remember in some detail that many Japanese American families on the West Coast were sent to internment camps. "We talked a lot about those concentration camps," she said.

As Washington begins a massive Memorial Day weekend celebration of the new National World War II Memorial on the Mall, interviews with national education experts, teachers and more than 100 public school students suggest that Charles' limited knowledge of that momentous conflict is typical of today's youths.

Among 76 teenagers interviewed near their high schools this week in Maryland, Virginia and the District, recognition of the internment camps, a standard part of every area history curriculum, was high -- two-thirds gave the right answer when asked what happened to Japanese Americans during the war. But only one-third could name even one World War II general, and about half could name a World War II battle.

Diane Ravitch, an educational historian at New York University, said the big emphasis in high schools today is on the internment camps, as well as women in the workforce on the home front and discrimination against African Americans at home and in the armed services.

"Then, too, there was a war in the Atlantic and Pacific," she said.

Teachers and historians have been arguing for decades about how to teach World War II and other parts of American history. Many surveys, and interviews with students and teachers, indicate that there is less emphasis now on battles and victories, sparked in part by American failure in the Vietnam War, which had a significant impact on this generation of scholars and teachers.

At George Washington Middle School in Alexandria yesterday, seventh-grade history teacher Eric Bartels led his students through a spirited discussion of World War II that included mentions of Pearl Harbor, D-Day and other battles. But much of the emphasis was on the class's earlier visit to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, a visit to the school by African American World War II pilots and the causes of several of the war's major events.

Instead of seeking the details of the Japanese assault on Hawaiian-based forces on Dec. 7, 1941, Bartels asked: "Why did Japan attack Pearl Harbor?"

He got a big response when he asked about American women entering the workforce: "Rosie the Riveter!" several students said.

Compared with other area students interviewed, Bartels's 23 students were somewhat less likely to know about the Japanese American internment camps (57 percent) but more likely to know that World War II had improved African American economic status (70 percent) and more likely to be able to name a battle in the war (86 percent).

Many teachers, including Bartels, say they emphasize the social, rather than the military, history of the war, a trend that extends to many universities and through both public and private schools.

Bryan Garman, principal of the Sidwell Friends Upper School in the District and a popular American history teacher, said "it is important to understand the political and social context -- the rise of Nazism, how the Germans got used to Hitler's leadership and to understand what was going on in Japan, too."

Other scholars warn that this approach can leave many students unclear on the details of the conflict and unable to understand what produced victory or defeat.