Real History Reform

The reason we are bringing this issue to public attention, instead of simply responding to the Department of Public Instruction’s web site, is that in the past the Department did not listen and did not respond to the concerns of history teachers whom they claim to have consulted.

Six years ago, during the last cycle of revisions, when the Department dropped U.S. History before 1789  from 11th grade, the “first draft” became the “final draft” with almost no changes. Teachers across the state protested; their e-mails were never answered. Many teachers thought that their e-mails were never read.

The Department has a very top down structure. They have committees, but they do not have to follow their advice.  I have heard from many of those on the committees this time, and they all say that they had little input and that their advice was largely ignored.

The changes  in 2003 were not publicly discussed and the Department did not seek public input.  Indeed this time they are quite upset that it has become a public issue, blaming “history teachers” for telling Fox news (a line in one e-mail from them that was forwarded to me).

We need real history reform, which also means reform of the Department of Public Instruction, including the process of course revision.

After I wrote an op-ed in the News and Observer in July, 2007, they put  some U.S. History before 1789 into the beginning of the Civics/Economics course in 10th grade.  While  teachers try to do justice to that history in a few weeks at the beginning of that class, there is much else to cover in Civics/Economics, including personal finance (which probably doesn’t belong there).  The new plan (see link on right) removes that small history component from the Civics/Economics Course.

Holly Brewer

Basnight’s Letter to June Atkinson

We currently have over 5,000 members in our Facebook Group “History Did Not Begin in 1877″ (as of February 13), which only began on February 3, 2010. Our group is full of lively debate and discussion, which we hope to bring over to this website. Here are a few of our favorite comments:

Chris Meekins
“Wow, I just looked at 6-8 guide – its horrific. Cast this also in light that the Civil War Sesquicentennial is almost upon us and the NC Department of Cultural Resources is designing a teacher institute for renewal credits, several lesson packets centered on Civil War events, and five years of public outreach and teachable moments – including, we hope, outreach to the public schools. It boggles the mind that the Civil War is not even hinted at in 6-8. I am glad someone is organizing and getting voices out on this issue.”

Richard Gilley
“Is there also a group that states “world history did not begin in 1945″? Seriously, I think our public school students have it bad enough not to have both the first half of American history AND the Holocaust deleted from their curricula.”

Eric Cavanaugh
“Well that certainly makes Black History month a bit…oh I dunno missing. While they are changing the curriculum how about stop using prime numbers in Math… maybe skip any literature whose author’s surname starts with the letters L-R?”

Jennifer Holland
“The so-called “Essential Standards” are ridiculously broad and seem to be written with the expectation that you teach thematically without concern to the past relationships that are necessary to understand WHY history occurred the way it did. The “Clarifying Objectives” clarify nothing and are redundant throughout the… document. There are concepts in US History that we teach that are challenging to 11th graders, it will be nearly impossible to expect mastery from lower level students. All that will happen with this curriculum is US History teachers in high school will start at 1877, but will have to reteach everything or simply refer to important topics as “oh by the way, this happened, but you don’t remember because you ‘learned’ it in the 5, 7, 8 grade, and because of this curriculum, I don’t have time to go back and clue you in.”

Amanda Jewett
“I love that this group was created! I’m on my way through school to teach Early American History at the university level and I can’t fathom the idea of kids getting into my class and not remembering anything about what I teach. Honestly, who remembers the details of what they learned in middle school??”

Becky Griffith
“I want everyone to understand how difficult it will be for Civics and Economics teachers to teach the proposed curriculum. There are only two strands in the new proposed curriculum: Civics/Government and Economics/Personal Finance. The history (from the current goal 1) has been totally eliminated. How can students possibly understand the Constitution if they have no knowledge of how it came to be?…..Magna Carta, Petition of Right, English Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Locke, Romans, Greeks, etc. How can you possibly understand the Bill of Rights if you don’t know about the injustices under English Rule and King George? Somewhere in high school we must teach the colonial and Revolutionary American history periods. How can students understand Judicial Review if they have not studied Marbury v Madison? How can students understand the Federal Reserve if they have no notion of Hamilton?”

Russ Olson
“I completely blindsided by this information at a county meeting of social studies teachers last week. World History, as I have known it in my 11 years as a high school history teacher, will cease to exist.

What are those folks in Raleigh thinking of?”

Curtis Ricketts
“For the life of me I can’t grasp how this idea got legs at all.

The early and epic struggles (the revolution, the constitution & bill of rights, Jefferson & Madison vs Hamilton, Jackson vs Biddle, the hypocrisy and abomination of slavery in the land of the free) not only defined who we the people became but we are st…ill locked in nearly mortal combat over the same issues.”

Doretha Dawkins
“Um, let’s get it together North Carolina. It’s important to educate students about the foundation of our country to ensure a well-rounded knowledge of history.”

Lawrence Hatter
“What a convenient way of ignoring the problem of slavery.”

Nina Gunther Kilbride
“Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.” – Thomas Jefferson

Dara Rosenkrantz
“I just took an entire college course at Brandeis University entitled “American Legal History Part I” that began with the first settlements and only went up until the end of Reconstruction (1877). I learned so much and have a much better understanding of the origins of the United States, and why the government function…s as it does. Spending an entire semester just on the focused topic of LEGAL history proved to be insufficient. I cannot imagine eliminating the entire pre-Reconstruciton epoch from the curriculum. It is absolutely horrifying. In addition to being ignorant of the colonies and Lockeian ideology, etc. that served as a basis for the Dec. of Independence and the Constitution, future students will be completely oblivious to tragedies like Indian Removal under Jackson (Trail of Tears) and so many other pivotal issues.”

While few of us have noticed, the North Carolina Department of Education has gutted history education. As a result of a decision taken largely without public input or comment, our high school students no longer learn about colonial and revolutionary American history unless they take AP classes. Required U.S. History in high school now begins with George Washington’s presidency and ends with that of George Bush. It is crammed into one semester (on block scheduling) instead of two.

At a moment when the nature of basic American rights have once again become a crucial issue in American politics–our students–our citizens and future voters– now learn nearly nothing about the principles over which the Revolution was fought, except during one day in their tenth grade civics and economics class. The Constitution, inasmuch as students consult it in that class, becomes an empty document, a list to be memorized without context or meaning. It too, is hurried over, in a course that focuses on other material.

Four years ago, I taught a refresher course for history teachers in North Carolina, who warned me that these curricular changes were about to happen. But I didn’t believe them. In this state which was an original colony, I couldn’t believe that our schools would virtually cease to teach the first half of American history. I now learn from those teachers that these changes have in fact reduced instruction in early American history—including the Revolution–to virtually nothing.

Leaving out nearly two centuries of American history–and especially the Revolution and Constitution–is simply unconscionable. History provides a grounding in the basics of citizenship through the tangible experiences and decisions of historical actors, whether John Winthrop, Thomas Jefferson, Phyllis Wheatley, or the ladies who participated in the Edenton tea party. Only by understanding that Jefferson was raised in a Church of England that put the King at its head, for example, can we understand why he so vigorously advocated the separation of church and state.

Our students need to learn where the principles of democracy come from and why they matter. They need to learn about the struggles of early settlement, about cultural conflict on the frontier, about the religious intolerance and conflicts over basic rights that motivated people to support the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution.

America’s colonial and revolutionary past explains why we have developed rules against torture and arbitrary imprisonment. That history explains how slavery was allowed to develop in the first place and why people began to believe that slavery was wrong. It explains how we came up with principles of religious toleration. It explains how to avoid unnecessary wars, and how difficult it is for empires to win military conflicts against anti-colonial insurgencies. It shows how we have changed as a people and a nation. As the 1988 report of the Bradley Commission on History in the Schools stated: History “provides the only avenue we have to reach an understanding of ourselves and of our society.”

The problem with history instruction, moreover, goes deeper than the recent change in high school standards. The focus on basic reading, writing, and math skills in elementary school–partly a product of No Child Left Behind–has minimized history instruction in earlier grades as well. Yet history is at the core of what students should be learning because it provides them with so much useful advice and perspective on their own lives. Students are also fascinated by history, even in elementary school, and it can be a means of inspiring them to learn to read and getting them excited about school. (They have a year of NC History in 8th grade, and a long semester of World History in 9th grade. However, these do not fill the gap.)

The North Carolina History Education standards—now three years old–require substantial revision, after a much more open process of public debate. The curricular change introduced four years ago emerged after the introduction of block scheduling, which allows students to take more total classes in high school, each with fewer instructional hours (cut by 1/4) than on the old system. The real effects mean less history, and less colonial and Revolutionary history in particular. Surely there is a better solution.

I suggest two possibilities: We could reinstate the year-long sequence of U.S. history, which would give them two block semesters, which is what AP students now do. Alternatively, we could encourage U.S. History to be taught thematically–which is much more interesting–rather than forcing students to simply memorize an incredible medley of facts and dates. This thematic or inquiry based approach would allow broader coverage, without leaving out the first half of U.S. History. We could also do both.

In this 400th anniversary year of the Jamestown settlement, we need to put early American history, including the issues that arise from that colonization, back into the classroom. We need to recover the Revolution and Constitution, and make the controversies that surrounded them real for our children. This issue should galvanize North Carolinians of all political persuasions. As you celebrate July 4th, consider what you can do to make this happen.

Holly Brewer, Associate Professor of Colonial and Revolutionary American History and State Coordinator for the National Council for History Education.