The College Board, which sets guidelines for the Advanced Placement classes taken by high school students around the country, announced it will revise its U.S. History curriculum in response to criticism from activists who felt it inadequately emphasized American heroes. One of the phrases to be added to the new guidelines is “American exceptionalism.”
There is a line that exists between marking one nation, one people, one anything as unique, and recognizing similarities, parallels and the opportunities to learn lessons in other contexts that can be applied within our own. We cross that line all the time – sometimes holding the things we care about as comparable to this or that, and other times holding those things as incomparable. The line is under our control, and we not only cross it, we move it at will. It is one of the tools we have for understanding the world around us.
But it is a tool that can facilitate misunderstanding as well. To be completely unique – to be the exception to everything – is to be alone in the world.
There is a limit to the value that can be gained from exceptionalism and celebrating heroes. When we place certain human beings outside the realm of normal human experience, we put them on the other side of the line from ourselves. That’s not fair to them or us, and in so doing, we rob ourselves of valuable lessons in life.
It is in digging deeper that the story becomes more real and more interesting. Students in my classes over the years were not surprised to learn George Washington was the wealthiest man in Virginia. They were a little surprised to discover he achieved this status by marrying the wealthiest widow in the colony.
Washington was highly regarded in his own day, but this was to a great extent a result of careful calculation on his part. He studied and scrupulously followed the rules of etiquette. He entered the military as an officer (he was, after all, born into the class of respectable wealthy landowners) to prove his leadership skills and devotion to public service.
In an era when to lobby for positions of power and influence was considered crass, Washington did not ask for command of the Continental Army. He simply showed up as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress in full dress uniform until the other delegates took the hint. He deserves a great deal of credit for holding together a ragtag army for years while facing a formidable foe, but he lost more battles than he won, and some of his greatest successes in the field were in simply escaping annihilation.
Washington the man, complete with human failings including unbridled ambition, obsessed with his public image, is far more interesting as a figure in history. And it is far easier for students to aspire to accomplishments as great as his when we see him as a man and not a monument.
The problem with heroes is their great deeds are by definition unremarkable. Heroes do great things. They are not like most of us. Different rules apply.
But wouldn’t it be better to acknowledge ordinary men and women are capable of extraordinary deeds – that all of us can aspire to do great good? Shouldn’t we teach history in a way that allows students to discover for themselves whether a person’s actions are worthy of admiration, instead of decreeing hero status on a select group of historical figures? Shouldn’t we challenge students to identify the ways in which the United States is like other nations throughout history, and the ways in which it is an exception, instead of starting from a declaration of American exceptionality?
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