One concern I have is that, like the owner of a hammer for whom every problem is a nail, Burns implies films can fix what Rogan called “stale, boring classrooms.” I want to push back, affectionately. Yes, documentaries are educational gifts, but only if they’re embedded in rich instruction. Students need to read, to write, to interrogate, to challenge. They need repeated exposure to ideas—not just once via film, but through repeated historical examples, well-crafted narrative, and opportunities to defend their claims in writing. Students absorb language and content best when they encounter them again and again, over time and through varied methods of delivery.
What does a classroom that does this look like? Picture students who:
• analyze multiple primary sources about European settlement in North America—letters and artifacts are accessible to students at all grade levels.
• debate interpretations of the Declaration of Independence, repeatedly revisiting its significance as they read related documents and biographies.
• write short arguments on historical complexity, such as how some Founders reconciled liberty and slavery.
• build vocabulary to expand knowledge across different aspects of historical study—legal terms in civics, military terms in war studies—allowing deeper understanding and retention.
I agree with Rogan’s and Burns’s observation that we’ve “taken the fun out of history,” draining civics and ethics from school. But I also know students can handle complexity. When we give them time and the right tools, they want to wrestle with contradictions. They want narrative and knowledge. They want context and nuance. Not fairy tales.
Today’s students are more likely to conduct research on YouTube than in books. Thoughtful history curriculum is essential to building their stamina to handle long-form texts, not just podcasts and film, especially when it builds the background knowledge that grants them access to the fuller story.
So, here’s what I’m carrying forward: In a world that prizes speed and flash, Rogan’s listeners still crave time. Burns provides it visually. But history teaches best when curiosity meets structure. Depth sustained by deliberate design—that’s history education worth its name, the kind that builds citizens capable of thinking deeply about who we were, who we are, and who we might become.
This November, in anticipation of the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence, Burns will ask us to spend six nights and 12 hours looking back at The American Revolution. Millions will.
His documentary may inspire and even inform some viewers; the triumph of 1776 is a critical story, both for American history and human development globally. But without knowledge and understanding of the forces at play and the implications it wrought, will viewers appreciate it for more than just infotainment?
Gifted as he is, Ken Burns can’t deliver this alone. If America is, as Lincoln called it, “the last best hope of earth,” we need to demand more of our instructional materials—more knowledge, more understanding, and a greater sense of civics, history, and self. Starting in the earliest grades, we need to invest in curricula that ensure that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”.
