The History teacher’s task in the “Information Age” has been made distressing when television and the Internet are the most active sources of our myths, folklore, and stories, without foundation in texts. How does the teacher distinguish for the student the historical past — events fossilized in a textbook: but also the events forming the nucleus of the student’s personality — from the news media, music, video games, comic strips, talk shows, magazines, and sports? In the News realm alone, current events are interpreted as fast as they are reported, in effect out-running History with a brand of hyper-historicism. How can the History teacher confidently instill in students a lasting flow of remembered time, when the regular conditions of contemporary life militate against effective remembering?
It would be another circumstance were the student exposed to two, three, or four information flows, and, thus, entrance into the Biblical stream, if you will, would have a chance of being a more vivid experience. Instead, the confluence of numerous streams floods the student’s mind and washes out the banks or sides that support the historical sense. Computers, televisions, radios, telephones, tape recorders, all of these gadgets allow him or her to obtain information whenever he feels like it, creating an increasing inattentiveness towards his experiences. If the teacher is not vitally aware of these conditions, he or she will be trapped within this same nonchalance and merely be contributing to the continued erosion of the historical sense.
From Desperation to Salvation: Concealing and Revealing Nothing in History - Robert Castle