I agree wholeheartedly that a teacher that doesn't know history can teach a kid what the Bill of Rights is, or what year the Berlin wall fell. I don't agree, however, that a teacher can be really effective at teaching the social implications of those things simply by reading a textbook before the kids do.
Here's two examples:
In the Everything Else forum, we're talking about racism and segregation. I think most people agree that one of the best ways to combat that is through education. While an teacher that is not trained in history could flip through the book and find the sections on Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr, and be able to recite the facts, a teacher trained in history would have the knowledge and background to explain the race issue in detail.
That's not the best example, but maybe this next one will illustrate my point better:
I was in a world history class when 9/11 happened. The professor immediately bagged the lesson plans and gave us a month long series on middle eastern history and an explanation of Islam. It was extremely enlightening in a time where everyone was searching for answers.
Going back to the first example, imagine that there is a US history class at a school where big racial conflicts are coming up. A student raises his hand and asks "Why is there this conflict? Where did it all come from?" More importantly, another student asks "What does the law say? What can we do about it?" What would it tell the students when the teacher responds "Well, let me turn to the textbook and read to you what it says."
When 9/11 happened, were the history teachers, with their five classes worth of knowledge, able to say "This is why it's happened." Were they able to calm the fears of students by shedding light on an unknown enemy? Or, instead, did they say "Well, I saw on 60 minutes last night that..." and then go back to the regularly scheduled lesson plans.
History is not about memorizing facts and figures. It is about linking the past to the present in an attempt to explain why the world is the way that it is. Teenagers are naturally angry and rebellious - wouldn't a better understanding of the world, locally and internationally, be beneficial?
I'm not saying that teachers shouldn't have to know how to teach. I'm simply saying that teachers really ought to know what they're talking about also.
And Fell, I didn't learn much in high school either, although thinking back, I learned a lot from teachers that knew what they were talking about. You can't tell me that you didn't learn from Eckberg or Fowler.