Waging Undeclared War: Development of Thematically-Based Curriculum on America’s Militaristic Endeavors (2010-1945)

Abstract

In the classroom today, content objectives tend to be emphasized over real-life skills such as critical thinking because of the nature of the schooling system. Today’s teachers are being forced to adhere to the standards of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 in order to receive federal funding. With this act, teachers often find themselves teaching to the test and focusing their time on students learning the facts of the content area. Teaching to the test tends to overshadow deeper questioning of a subject’s material and keeps students from higher-level thinking, a skill that will serve to be useful both inside and outside of the classroom. In an effort to end merely lower-level learning of knowledge and comprehension of United States History at the 11th grade level, this thesis will be dedicated to the development of a curriculum for the course. This curriculum will be designed to promote critical thinking and skills through the thematically based unit of waging undeclared war. It will address the United States’ involvement in militaristic, foreign policies from the current War on Terror in Afghanistan, to the Iraq War, the Persian Gulf War, the Vietnam War, the Korean War and the Cold War, respectively, in a reverse chronological order. The driving question in this curriculum is whether or not the past five wars the United States has been involved in have all been a direct result of the Cold War and its policies.