One of the things I always tell my students is that history begins at home. I have concluded that having a love of history depends on two things: your family and your books. My “meeting and greeting” on this subject has caused me to consider just how we learn about history. Will they act on it this session? I don’t know. Because of term limits, most of them were not around when the legislature green-lighted the downsizing of history by universities and colleges, and some of them have been genuinely shocked to find it out. Many have come to know me because of my bow tie and hat. The members that I have talked to about this have been unfailingly courteous. There never has been a statewide post-secondary history requirement in Florida, but up until the beginnings of the Scott administration, colleges and universities had enough leeway on how they did things that virtually all of them required history, most six hours or two semesters. If you’ve been reading me for a while, you know I have a thing about this. I am trying to get the legislature to do something really simple: require that every student who graduates from a Florida college or university take three hours of history. I am meeting and greeting legislators and their staffs, really, on behalf of a discipline. History. Nobody is paying me I don’t represent any institution. I am spending this session of the Florida Legislature talking to members.
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