Last updated on 2015-10-04
Listening to South Dakota Public Radio this morning, I think I heard Secretary of Education Melody Schopp say that the new K-12 social studies standards approved by the state Board of Education Monday give schools greater opportunity to teach early American history. SDPB hasn’t posted that report yet, so I can’t review Secretary Schopp’s exact words. But I’m a little puzzled about how curriculum standards “give opportunities.”
If standards are rules, they necessarily reduce opportunity. Rules say, “You must do A, B, and C.” You don’t get to teach A, B, and C; you have to. You may still get to do D, E, and F, but only with the time and resources remaining after you’ve convinced Secretary Schopp that you’ve done A, B, and C. Rules crowd out possibilities with requirements.
If standards aren’t requirements but merely guidelines, then they have nothing to do with opportunity. Guidelines say, “A, B, and C are good ideas, but if you prefer D, E, and F, no sweat.” Suggesting A, B, and C extends no additional opportunity to do D, E, and F.
Secretary Schopp’s comments this morning come in response to some fuss about the new social studies standards’ failure to include early American history in the high school social studies curriculum. Eighteen South Dakota professors of history wrote to the Board of Education last week asking that the standards require a one-credit high school U.S. history course covering 1776 to the present. Our previous standards made early U.S. history part of the eighth-grade curriculum and later U.S. history part of the eleventh-grade curriculum. The new history standards leave the Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War, and manifest destiny to the eighth-grade teachers (building on a lot done by fifth-grade teachers). But the high school civics standards build on that history with extensive discussion of the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution. The high school history standards call for discussion of industrialization and slavery, and territorial expansion between the founding and the Civil War.
Early U.S. history is in the high school standards; the professors’ beef is that the standards make early U.S. history an “option,” alongside modern and comprehensive, for high schools to choose for their one-credit history requirement. Their letter gets bogged down in discussion of critical thinking and research skills (which we can teach using almost any historical subject matter), but here’s the core of their historical argument:
It is our view that the current standard that covers early American history in 8th grade and modern American history in 11th grade is inadequate to the task. To begin to understand early American history requires knowledge of the terms, the dates, the major events and context, which is best done in 8th grade, but to fully understand that distant era also requires age appropriate explanations, analysis that comes with maturity, and contextualization that can only come with greater command of language. We encourage the board to leave 8th grade American history as it is, while placing early American history in the first half of the 11th grade year. Doing so is not duplicative, but rather re-engages the more mature student with increasingly complex material that builds upon their existing knowledge. By doing so, we hope that students will have greater success understanding their history and ultimately employing it as a citizen. Rarely is there an opportunity to improve something so dramatically for so many students, with so little expense. By simply defining the standard of 1 credit of U. S. history in high school as the comprehensive history course, we believe we will see an improvement in college preparedness for thousands of children. Because history skills are used in many disciplines, this change will enhance successful student performance, not only in history classes, but also in all the social sciences and humanities subjects. The AP U. S. history course already is designed to be comprehensive and we are advocating that all our students receive the same content [Dr. Ben Jones et al., public comment on social studies standards, 2015.08.18].
When I get the chance to teach history, I will teach the crap out of the Revolution, the Constitution, the Louisiana Purchase (bonus: that lesson gives me a chance to speak French!), slavery, and the Civil War. But I don’t need state standards to tell me the value of early U.S. history. I don’t know how one can discuss Constitutional rights, voting, the contemporary controversy over the traitor Confederate flag, colonialism and Western imperialism, or other great issues of history and civics without discussing our nation’s origins.
I can actually imagine structuring high school history curriculum to run backwards in time. When I was a kid, we always hammered away at the Age of Exploration, colonization, revolution, and the Civil War, and then ended up rushing through the twentieth century as we ran out of time at the end of the year. I can see logic in starting juniors in high school with the 21st century, making sure they understand all the issues that happened (and are still happening!) while they were watching Phineas and Ferb, get them asking, “How’d this happen? How’d we get into these messes?” and then start tracing those messes back through the 1990s, the 1980s, the 1970s. That backwards curriculum would always look for opportunities to tie the facts and issues of the current era back to, “Ah, see? This is what the Founders did. This is what the Civil War did.”
Good history teachers don’t need curriculum standards to provide them the “opportunity” to teach important material. They know how to tell America’s story. If Jones and the protesting history profs see students coming to college without enough knowledge of American history, the problem is not the standards, which are only written to codify good practices to satisfy checklisting bureaucrats in Pierre. The problem is deeper, in the commitment to telling America’s full story fostered in our history teaching corps… which one could imagine ought to have been fostered by all their history professors back at the universities.
Or maybe the problem is that the Common Core standards and state testing place such emphasis on basic math and English that they have crowded out richer, deeper social studies education with test prep.
To be clear: American Revolution, Constitution, westward expansion, Civil War—all vital, mandatory knowledge for every high school graduate. We should require the kids to read the Federalist Papers, the journals of Lewis and Clark, deTocqueville (in the original French! Oui-iiiiiiiiiii!), and other great works of our first century. But any high school teacher with good sense should already be integrating that material into her history and civics classes. The state should simply provide the resources and the academic freedom teachers need to exercise their good sense.
Standards don’t make a difference. Good teachers do.
Why is this even an issue?
Yes, make Social Studies mandatory.
not only should they read the journals of Lewis and Clark, Where possible visit those sites. Read and understand the Federalist Papers, and understand how those concepts apply today.
I realize that Scalia and a whole host of right wingers treat the Federalist Papers as some sort of holy writing that should govern all future interpretation of our Constitution, yet this seems absurd. I have studied the Federalist Papers in detail and understand that these writings reflect the 18th century views of Hamilton, Madison and Jay. But why should such views be given any more weight than other commentators then or now who express opinions about the nature of the Constitution? Indeed, these writings have little relevance to modern life given that the authors had no idea of how the Country would evolve.
That said, I agree with Cory that the best teachers will help students learn about the history of our Country regardless of mandated priorities or standards. I just cannot understand the hoopla surrounding these political opinion essays from the 18th Century. Why should these be considered more important to teach than the opinions of Voltaire, Hume or Kant? After all, the writings of the latter philosophers certainly helped shape the political and philosophical views of our founding fathers, including Hamilton, Madison and Jay.
Field trip, MC! Absolutely! Two weeks on the river!
BCB, you offer a reasonable counterpoint to the Federalist Paper suggestion, especially if we are talking about supplanting them with bigger philosophical timber from the great philosophers, thinkers who didn’t feel the need to write under pseudonyms. Lincoln-Douglas debaters read and cite those philosophers often. (High school debate satisfies a wildly disproportionate number of curriculum standards for a mere extracurricular activity. If every student did debate for one season, we’d cover 2/3 of our communication and civics standards.)
The Federalist Papers is just the start.
Go through all the great thinkers.
Understand FDR’s New Deal.
Explore Reaganomics.
There is a lot to chew on in just eight years (5th grade to 12)
summer canoe trip from Sioux City upstream to Fort Yates? between Jr. and Sr. year. This could be done.
While we are at it, the American history curriculum for high school students in this state and nation should also do a better job of teaching how the the Iroquois nations were instrumental or at least influential in the formation of the US Constitution; and I think our schools could do a better job of reviewing, recognizing, and studying the Cherokee nation’s “Trail of Tears.” Both of these facts seem to be ignored or marginalized in our current American history classes.
Perhaps, we should also spend as much time, if not more, talking about Wounded Knee as is spent on Custer and his “Last stand.”
Field trip to the trail of tears. Like the idea, however it is a bit far off.
I would like to see the American Revolution studied from all sides.
What did the French have to gain, and what about Spain? What role did Native Americans play.
Study The Wounded Knee incident from both sides
(do I smell a field trip?)
Talk to the people who were there.
make sure our kids know what happened, and why so it doesn’t happen again.
Earlier this summer I read a great book, “1776, West of the Revolution” by Claudio Saunt. The standard way of teaching history is to go from East to West, largely focusing study on “the 4%” who were in the English colonies, and ignoring the vast majority of the continent. Saunt presents the history of the year 1776 and the years immediately before and after in the vast territories west of the 13 colonies. There was a hell of a lot going on that had lasting impact on the US.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/books/chi-west-of-the-revolution-claudio-saunt-20140627-story.html
I’ve always been interested in how ranch and cowboy culture and western water law evolved from Native American and Spanish roots. What we think of as the quintessentially American culture has no roots in “America.”
U.S. history did not start in 1776, it dates back to before then. If going to teach early history, IMO it should include what led up to 1776.
Back in my grade school days we were taught about Columbus and the Native Americans/American Indians.
More to your point Cory, education like most things requires balance. Yes we need English, math and sciences. They need to be balanced with history, foreign languages and the arts.
Clark, we already know this stuff. Go tell it to the idiots who would actually vote for you in a primary.
“we always hammered away at the Age of Exploration, colonization, revolution, and the Civil War, and then ended up rushing through the twentieth century as we ran out of time at the end of the year.”
That’s exactly the problem I found when I taught American History in the mid-late 1970s. It was frustrating because I couldn’t get into the depth of detail and discussion I wanted. Instead, due to time constraints, the class was only a superficial overview. Rats.
SD “history” must include the Treaty of Travese de Sioux and the Treaty of Mendota – both 1851 and cast in present day southern Minnesota. Recall that once the Territory of Minnesota extended to the Missouri River. Once again the Europeans were unable to keep their word for more than the time it took for the ink to dry. The eastern Dakota (Sioux) rightfully revolted in the Dakota War of 1862 which resulted in more deaths than occurred at the Little Big Horn and the western Sioux Wars.
The eastern Dakota were cast to reservations at Wahpeton, Sisseton, Flandreau, and Crow Creek – in addition to enclaves in NE (Santee), Devils Lake ND, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan – all of which “opened” for European settlement what became the eastern-half of South Dakota, in addition to south-western Minnesota.
Yep; and the myth, legend, and folklore among the eastern SD folks is that their fore bearers “acquired the land from the railroads”. Keep teaching to myth for ignorance is bliss.
http://www.usdakotawar.org/history/aftermath
Early US history…………back when Raygun and Strom Thurmond,et al, were knocking knees with dinosaurs and de-evolved from the great apes that became Democrats and humans. The other party became the barrel of monkees we know as wingnuts,flinging their own poo and grooming each other for photo ops.
More recent history details the division of ‘murrica geologically along the “It’s Obama’s Fault”when mostly white tectonic plates decided to go South,in more ways than one.
Mike, that’s hilarious!!! Thanks.
Sounds like a Koch Brothers incursion into SD education????
Cory, you may be interested to know that my junior year history class at MHS with Mr. Osterberger did in fact take the backwards approach you mention. We started at the end of the textbook and read towards the front. I thought it worked pretty well. It was nice to read about Nixon for once instead of the early history of the nation for the fourth time.
Tom Osterberg! Innovator! Thanks, Brett!