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In Memoriam: Oscar Handlin
Understanding and appreciating America - that was Oscar Handlin. And understanding and tackling the threats to historical literacy and rigorous standards - that, too, was Oscar Handlin.
In these goals, Handlin and ACTA had a shared passion. How delighted and honored we were when this great professor joined hands with ACTA, in the early days, to reclaim academic excellence and accountability. A graduate of Brooklyn College and a professor at Harvard University, Handlin was the product of a demanding and rigorous education, and he wanted others to experience the joys of high expectations.
He worried about increasing historical amnesia and political correctness in the academy. He and other eminent historians, including Gordon Wood and David McCullough, endorsed ACTA's first history report, Losing America's Memory, which drew attention to America's troubling historical illiteracy.
"History is a discipline in decline," he wrote at that time. "There is profound ignorance not only among students but among their teachers as well. This study confirms that."
Before then, Professor Handlin had helped form the Committee for the Brooklyn Core which successfully opposed the "dumbing down" of Brooklyn's famed core curriculum.
It is with great sadness - and great appreciation - that we mark his passing.
Posted by Anne D. Neal on September 27, 2011 at September 27, 2011 03:40 PM
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