There are so many examples that the reader can perhaps supply better ones than these, but consider briefly the simple question of how to use one's leisure. Today the average child is bombarded with choices and choices within choices. If none of those options pique his interest, he can hook up game machinery to the television and while away his time with an almost unlimited variety of games. The religiously inclined youth of today can be initiated into any sort of faith system from all the traditions of both Eastern and Western religions. Ida's vocational options could have been counted on her fingers and toes.
History is more than anything else the record of choices humans have made.
What we need to do is make that aspect of history more overt in our classrooms. Students must be led in the analysis of choices of the past. They must use the tools of sociology, ethics, economics, religion, political science, geography, and psychology in that analysis. They must, above all, be shown that choices have consequences and that some choices are better than others. That must also be shown that they have choices to make in their personal lives, and that history is important in helping them make those choices.