Demand Real History Education Reform In NC
Published February 5, 2010
Dear June Atkinson and the Department of Public Instruction:
We oppose the proposed draft for United States History in North Carolina that would eliminate teaching US history prior to 1877. The proposed curriculum is pedagogically inadequate in both its goals and methodology.
Plunging high school students into post-1877 textbooks without background will leave them conceptually bereft. With such a shaky foundation, they cannot fulfil the course’s objectives of building a framework for studying political, social, economic, and cultural issues and for analyzing the impact these issues have had on American society. Part of the study of history is learning, remembering and tracing the long-term connections between events.
Students cannot develop analytical thinking skills about history without having much knowledge of it. The curriculum proposes to de-emphasize “facts” in order to build “higher level thinking skills.” While the theory is fine, they need more context in order to make those evaluations. The facts of American History before 1877 include major episodes that affected millions and continue to shape American life, including the more current issues addressed by the proposed curriculum. Some pre-1877 issues are sporadically included in earlier years (such as in elementary school), but this is no substitute for teaching the material comprehensively in high school.
The proposed curriculum leaves out major events whose ramifications are felt today. It is difficult to explain the snapshot of the United States beginning in 1877 without knowing about, for example:
The Colonial Period
The Revolutionary War
Slavery and all its ramifications
US Civil War
Native American cultures and societies over time
Wars of Western Expansion
Consider, without knowledge of the above, how students can achieve these objectives from the proposed curriculum:
*“Understanding the Civil Rights Movement” would be impossible without a foundation of the history of slavery and the Civil War.
*Understanding United States politics “beginning immediately after Reconstruction” gives students no explanation of the complicated path leading to that date
*Understanding “ drives for social justice” without understanding underlying injustices
*”Critique the outcomes of political and diplomatic decisions” without a foundation of prior instructive decisions.
*”Evaluate increases and decreases in the power of government” without knowing that it is the longest running debate in the country.
* Understanding how, from the Revolution onwards, public policy has had a crucial role in creating America's transportation and communications infrastructures, shaping its industrial development, and forging the regulatory rules that infused markets with public confidence.
There are few short-cuts in building an education. Foundations are everything. We would never study Algebra II before Algebra I. While it may make end-of-grade evaluations easier, the educational scaffolding built by a U.S. History curriculum that leaves out history before 1877 will not support further learning at college or in life without crumbling.
We request that the person who creates the new curriculum and EOG testing for the course have significant experience teaching Advanced Placement-level US History (as that is the only level where U.S. History has been taught comprehensively in NC), and ideally should have some graduate instruction in history. We encourage you to make history a two-semester sequence (two years under block scheduling) and to change the way that EOG tests are structured to test more fundamental understanding of U.S. History.
Imagine trying to teach students to “make historical assessments and evaluations” with so little to assess and evaluate. How can students appreciate the special value of U.S. citizenship if they do not know what into creating it? How can they know what the Constitution means if they don’t know how it was born? How can they know what it means to be a citizen in a democracy is if they don’t understand the alternatives?
Education must look to the future, but aren’t our students doomed to repeat the errors of the past if we haven’t taught them? What will we become, as a people, as citizens, with so little knowledge of our past and our roots, our troubles and debates? What is it that North Carolina hopes to become by forgetting its past?
Review the curriculum here: http://www.ncpublicschools.org/acre/standards/phase2/
We oppose the proposed draft for United States History in North Carolina that would eliminate teaching US history prior to 1877. The proposed curriculum is pedagogically inadequate in both its goals and methodology.
Plunging high school students into post-1877 textbooks without background will leave them conceptually bereft. With such a shaky foundation, they cannot fulfil the course’s objectives of building a framework for studying political, social, economic, and cultural issues and for analyzing the impact these issues have had on American society. Part of the study of history is learning, remembering and tracing the long-term connections between events.
Students cannot develop analytical thinking skills about history without having much knowledge of it. The curriculum proposes to de-emphasize “facts” in order to build “higher level thinking skills.” While the theory is fine, they need more context in order to make those evaluations. The facts of American History before 1877 include major episodes that affected millions and continue to shape American life, including the more current issues addressed by the proposed curriculum. Some pre-1877 issues are sporadically included in earlier years (such as in elementary school), but this is no substitute for teaching the material comprehensively in high school.
The proposed curriculum leaves out major events whose ramifications are felt today. It is difficult to explain the snapshot of the United States beginning in 1877 without knowing about, for example:
The Colonial Period
The Revolutionary War
Slavery and all its ramifications
US Civil War
Native American cultures and societies over time
Wars of Western Expansion
Consider, without knowledge of the above, how students can achieve these objectives from the proposed curriculum:
*“Understanding the Civil Rights Movement” would be impossible without a foundation of the history of slavery and the Civil War.
*Understanding United States politics “beginning immediately after Reconstruction” gives students no explanation of the complicated path leading to that date
*Understanding “ drives for social justice” without understanding underlying injustices
*”Critique the outcomes of political and diplomatic decisions” without a foundation of prior instructive decisions.
*”Evaluate increases and decreases in the power of government” without knowing that it is the longest running debate in the country.
* Understanding how, from the Revolution onwards, public policy has had a crucial role in creating America's transportation and communications infrastructures, shaping its industrial development, and forging the regulatory rules that infused markets with public confidence.
There are few short-cuts in building an education. Foundations are everything. We would never study Algebra II before Algebra I. While it may make end-of-grade evaluations easier, the educational scaffolding built by a U.S. History curriculum that leaves out history before 1877 will not support further learning at college or in life without crumbling.
We request that the person who creates the new curriculum and EOG testing for the course have significant experience teaching Advanced Placement-level US History (as that is the only level where U.S. History has been taught comprehensively in NC), and ideally should have some graduate instruction in history. We encourage you to make history a two-semester sequence (two years under block scheduling) and to change the way that EOG tests are structured to test more fundamental understanding of U.S. History.
Imagine trying to teach students to “make historical assessments and evaluations” with so little to assess and evaluate. How can students appreciate the special value of U.S. citizenship if they do not know what into creating it? How can they know what the Constitution means if they don’t know how it was born? How can they know what it means to be a citizen in a democracy is if they don’t understand the alternatives?
Education must look to the future, but aren’t our students doomed to repeat the errors of the past if we haven’t taught them? What will we become, as a people, as citizens, with so little knowledge of our past and our roots, our troubles and debates? What is it that North Carolina hopes to become by forgetting its past?
Review the curriculum here: http://www.ncpublicschools.org/acre/standards/phase2/
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