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The vital need in this shrunken and fast-moving world is to get to know and understand both other peoples and ourselves. This is not the time in world history to send ignorant Americans abroad, nor to tolerate their domestic counterparts at home. It is the time to be better informed about--to understand--both others and ourselves.
In 1964 Clifford Lord prefaced Teaching with Community Resources with these words that are even more timely today than in that decade of turmoil when they were written. Lord, then Dean of the School of General Studies at Columbia University, applauded the many options and courses of study that were offered to help people understand the wide spectrum of world cultures. "But," he pointedly observed, "aside from rudimentary courses in community and family, so often given in the fourth or fifth grades, we largely ignore one of the most effective and important areas for gaining an understanding of ourselves: the local scene."
As the end of the twentieth century approaches, Lord's comments are still generally characteristic of our nation's schools. The circumstances and mechanics of change, however, have now reached a point in evolution that permit and require heritage education (local or community history) to become an integral part of every student's learning experience.
A significant catalyst for change is the passage of the Goals 2000: Educate America Act that was signed into law in March of 1994. Essentially, Goals 2000 reaffirms that the responsibility for education lies in state and local school systems. A basic objective is to accomplish education reform by creating broad-based cooperative partnerships in the community among teachers, students, business people, professionals, workers from all occupations, retired citizens, and other residents, as well as state and local government.
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