Tuesday morning, the ballroom slowly fills up as attendees to the National Conference of State Legislatures annual meeting find their seats. Patriotic images are projected on the screen behind the podium. Over the sound system, “She’s a grand old flag” gives was to “Coming to America” Every time that flag’s unfurled, they’re coming to America

The preliminary speakers make their comments and finally the keynote speaker comes on the stage. David McCullough speaks slowly and thoughtfully. There is a measured dignity to his words that you just don’t hear from politicians or news broadcasters anymore, the sound of a wise old patrician, with all the positive connotations. Walter Cronkite is probably the closest I’ve heard to a similar voice in my generation.

Why don’t our politicians speak that way anymore? Why don’t we hear this sort of thoughtfulness in the voices of the media. I should learn to speak more slowly and thoughtfully.

McCullough starts of by saying that there is no such thing as a self-made man or woman. The recognition that we have all gotten to where we are because of the work of others that have gone before is one that I wish we had more people acknowledge. Yet McCullough brings a new twist to this great old thought.

“Everything I have achieved in my life, is to an indescribable extent, due to my partner, my wife Rosalie.”

It is a touching tribute. He asks his wife to stand and she is greeted with applause. Yet it is also a glimpse of the speech to come. Too many of us do not appreciate those whose shoulders we stand upon because we do not know our history. It is this lack of knowledge of our history that is the key point.

McCullough talks about times when he has spoken at college campuses and been astounded by the lack of knowledge of history these students possess. “The lessons of history are going right by our young Americans…For the past twenty-five years, we have been raising a generation of youth that are for all practical purposes, historically illiterate.”

He talks about students who do know now who George C. Marshall was and uses it to bring in a quote. George C. Marshall went to Virginia Military Institute, but said he didn’t have a great education there because they taught him no history. McCullough expands on that with a quote, “The only new thing in the world is the history you don’t know.” He continues by saying that history should be the most interesting of all subjects because it is about people.

I like that. It makes me think of Walt Whitman’s Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, where the poet talking about those who are to come being more in his thoughts than you might imagine. I’ve been thinking a lot about relationships. It is our relationships that matter, and McCullough and Whitman are right to place our relationships into a historical context.

McCullough expands on this. “There is no such thing as the past.,” he says. “Nothing ever happened in the past. It always happens in the present, just other people’s present… Washington or Adams never said isn’t it interesting living in the past, with these quaint outfits…”

Yet McCullough also talks about the sense of posterity that the great leaders of the past had. He talks about Washington writing about his travails and trying to find the best thing to do lest history judge him too harshly. He talks about the old halls of Congress where a statue of Cleo, the Goddess of History looks down on the Representatives, reminding them of their place in history.

He talks about schools where the history of athletes adorn the walls and inspires new athletes. My mind wanders to the wonderful scene in Dead Poets’ Society where Robin Williams, as a teacher who had attended the school, shows his students such a wall, and talks about the message those who have gone before are saying. Carpe Diem, seize the moment.

When I think of Dead Poets’ Society, I think of Robin Williams as an English teacher. He is trying to imbue his students with a love of poetry. Yet looking at it from the eyes of McCullough, what makes the poetry so vibrant is the history that Williams is teaching with it.

McCullough mixes all of this with some wonderful thoughts about pedagogy. He suggests that all that really matters is the teacher, the book and the midnight oil. He contrasts this to all the great building programs and other efforts to reform education that don’t focus first on the relationship between the teacher and the student. He talks about how what matters most is the attitude of the teacher. Attitudes aren’t taught, they are caught.

You can see that in the teaching of history. To McCullough, history is vibrant, crucial, compelling and essential. It is much different than the history so many of us resentfully waded through. He talks about a good history textbook being one that people want to read.

“If there is a problem with education today, the fault lies with us, with all of us. We need to encourage them to read what we like to read, what we liked to read when we were their age.” He suggests “We should not require students to read something we wouldn’t want to read.”

He invokes Barbara Tuchman and says there is no problem teaching history, just tell stories.

He then brings it back to our personal experiences. He says we have to bring back the dinner conversation. We need to bring back dinner. I applaud this line and the applause spreads through the hall. McCullough pushes this. We must take our children to historic sites ourselves. We should not wait for the school trips. We must show our children places where something interesting has happened, where something of great consequence has happened. Our children must see our interest in this.

Ever the historian, McCullough illustrates this point by talking about John Quincy Adams, who went back to Congress after being President, who died on the floor of the House as he continued to battle slavery. John Quincy Adams was brought up with this sense of duty from his dinner time conversations.

McCullough asks how people will know that the responsibilities of citizenship are so much more than just voting, unless someone teaches them.

McCullough brought in two anecdotes that particularly resonated with me. We commented that at times John Adams would write in his journal that he was “at home, thinking”. McCullough asked how often do we spend time thinking. He uses this to talk about what we really need is to teach people to think for themselves.

He ties it all together whit a great anecdote of when the aging John Adams met the young Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson notes Adams saying “I would that there be more ambition, that is ambition of the laudable type, ambition to excel”

Perhaps this ties into some of what I dislike about standardized testing. We can learn facts about George C. Marshall, Ralph Waldo Emerson and John Adams, but are we learning to think for ourselves or to love history? Are we developing an ambition to excel? Are we finding our place in the history books?

How do we address all of this? I’m not sure, but maybe some of it is that more of us need to be “at home, thinking”