World history is a subject that embraces all humanity, not
just certain nations, ethnic groups, or civilizations. Why
should schools ask teachers and students to investigate a
subject that encompasses the whole world and its peoples?
World History for Us All emphasizes three rationales for investigating
the human past.
1. Knowing who we are
Study of world history is the broadest and most searching
approach to the question of who we are as both individuals
and members of groups. Exploring how humankind has changed
since its hominid ancestors walked the earth is the best way
to grapple with the question of what makes us special, in
fact, unique, in relation to other living species. National
history teaches us what is distinctive about a particular
land and people. World history throws light on the distinctive
characteristics of human beings and how their thought, behavior,
and interactions have changed over time.
The National Standards for History remind us:
Historical memory is the key to self-identity, to seeing
one's place in the stream of time, and one's connectedness
with all of humankind. We are part of an ancient chain,
and the long hand of the past is upon us—for good
or ill—just as our hands will rest on our descendants
for years to come. Denied knowledge of one's roots and of
one's place in the great stream of human history, the individual
is deprived of the fullest sense of self and of that sense
of shared community on which one's fullest personal development
as well as responsible citizenship depends.
In short, world history helps us think about what it means
to be human and about the characteristics that all humans
have in common.
2. Preparing to live in the world
World history helps prepare young people for college studies,
international experience, and active participation in civic
life. It helps get them ready for the roles they will inevitably
play as citizens of both their country and the world. A "global
citizen" is simply a national citizen who knows and cares
about the history and contemporary affairs of all humankind,
a person who can in some measure think, speak, and write about
world issues and problems intelligently and confidently.
Most of us are generally aware of world interconnections
and interdependence. We know that the internet allows people
to trade stocks at blinding speed, that hundreds of millions
of people simultaneously watch the Olympic Games, and that
the threat of global warming requires cooperation among all
governments. We know that we live in a border-crossing, migration-prone,
multiple identity-taking world. Intelligently addressing today's
world conditions, however, requires more than vague awareness
of these realities. World history education helps us better
understand how and why the world got to be the way it is.
It gives attention to the histories of nations, civilizations,
and other groups and the differences among them. But it particularly
emphasizes the history, problems, and challenges that humans
have shared simply because they are humans.
3. Attaining cultural literacy on a world scale
World history contributes to our cultural literacy. Human
beings, unlike other species, have the gift of language, that
is, symbolic thinking and communication. That means that humans
also have what World History for Us All calls collective
learning, the ability to learn from one another and to
transmit knowledge from one generation to the next.
Communicating intelligently in any language, whether English,
Spanish, or Vietnamese, requires that we share a common fund
of knowledge, information, vocabulary, and conceptual tools.
We need shared knowledge and understandings partly because
we live in a world where people in specialized occupations
and professions tend to use special words, terms, and concepts
that "outsiders" do not understand.
Making world history a core subject in schools broadens
the fund of knowledge that we all share. It helps us speak
and write to one another in clearer and more intricate ways.
This does not mean that world history courses should be exactly
the same in every school district. But societies should aim
for general agreement regarding the common stock of both world-scale
knowledge and historical thinking skills that children ought
to possess when they graduate from high school.
All past societies that we know of have had an endowment
of collective knowledge. World history is shared knowledge
that citizens, whatever their country of allegiance, need
to function on our planet in the twenty-first century. The
complexity of human interrelations today means that cultural
literacy must be global in range and depth.