tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/social-studies-curriculum-22908/articlesSocial studies curriculum – The Conversation2023-06-02T12:39:40Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2054522023-06-02T12:39:40Z2023-06-02T12:39:40ZHow teachers can stay true to history without breaking new laws that restrict what they can teach about racism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529148/original/file-20230530-17-vjqji5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C25%2C5600%2C3697&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A growing number of states have passed laws that restrict what teachers can teach about racism.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/portrait-of-concerned-black-ethnicity-student-royalty-free-image/1279902711?phrase=social+studies+class&adppopup=true">FangXiaNuo via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When it comes to America’s latest “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-fog-of-history-wars">history war</a>,” one of the biggest consequences is that it has made many K-12 educators <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/02/14/critical-race-theory-teachers-fear-laws/">scared and confused</a> about what they can and can’t say in their classrooms.</p>
<p>Since 2021, at least <a href="https://crtforward.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/UCLA-Law_CRT-Report_Final.pdf">28 states</a> have adopted measures that restrict how teachers can teach the history of racism in the U.S. Many more states have proposals on the table. The laws have been portrayed in the media as measures that would prevent teachers from teaching “<a href="https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/legal-challenges-to-divisive-concepts-laws-an-update/2022/10">divisive concepts</a>” or lessons that would cause “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/02/09/florida-history-discomfort/">discomfort, anguish or guilt</a>.”</p>
<p>As a historian who studies some of the most brutal aspects of American history – from <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p063459">anti-Black lynching in the South</a> after the Civil War to the <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674244702">use of torture</a> during the war on terror – I don’t believe teachers have as much to worry about as <a href="https://kappanonline.org/wexler-no-anti-crt-laws-dont-actually-outlaw-lessons-that-might-make-students-uncomfortable-russo/">many may think</a>. Some observers have posited that the wave of new education laws will have a <a href="https://theconversation.com/bans-on-critical-race-theory-could-have-a-chilling-effect-on-how-educators-teach-about-racism-163236">chilling effect</a> on how history is taught. But a close look at these laws shows that they are generally written so broadly that they can’t effectively stop teachers from teaching history in a way that’s fair, accurate and true.</p>
<h2>Weaknesses seen</h2>
<p>I’m not the first to make this point. For instance, one media critic has noted that coverage of the laws has “<a href="https://kappanonline.org/wexler-no-anti-crt-laws-dont-actually-outlaw-lessons-that-might-make-students-uncomfortable-russo/">focused more on educators’ perceptions</a> of and emotions about the legislation than on the actual language.” A law professor has argued that the mainstream media “<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-public-doesnt-get-anti-crt-lawmakers-are-passing-pro-crt-laws-171356">distorts reality by mischaracterizing the laws</a>” as bans against critical race theory, or CRT. Critical race theory is a concept that holds that racism is not just something that takes place among individuals, but rather has been <a href="https://www.edweek.org/leadership/what-is-critical-race-theory-and-why-is-it-under-attack/2021/05">embedded in American law and policy</a>.</p>
<p>Some, such as law professor Jonathan Feingold, go so far as to say most of the laws actually call for <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-public-doesnt-get-anti-crt-lawmakers-are-passing-pro-crt-laws-171356">more CRT, not less</a>. I wouldn’t go that far. However, I do see a lot of leeway and loopholes in the laws. Here, I offer several examples of ways teachers can introduce difficult subjects that involve racism in the U.S. without violating the new laws that govern how teachers can discuss it.</p>
<h2>Focus on the free market</h2>
<p>In teaching about the history of American free markets, teachers would be justified to point out that slavery – and the associated industries of <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/12/empire-of-cotton/383660/">cotton</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.5309/willmaryquar.68.3.0327">tobacco</a>, to name just two – were all <a href="https://equitablegrowth.org/new-research-shows-slaverys-central-role-in-u-s-economic-growth-leading-up-to-the-civil-war/#:%7E:text=The%20estimates%20based%20on%20this,18.7%20percent%20and%2024.3%20percent.">major components of the economy</a> before the Civil War. </p>
<p>To make this more relatable to children, teachers could discuss something that every child understands: food and hunger. Historical records reveal that <a href="https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c6966/c6966.pdf">slaveholders cut costs by underfeeding enslaved children</a>. They often did this until the children were old enough to become productive laborers. Slave owners also <a href="https://archive.org/details/adviceamongmaste0000unse">published extensive advice</a> on how to reward and punish the people they had enslaved. Teachers can point out that for all the prowess of America’s free market, before the Civil War, that free market was <a href="https://equitablegrowth.org/new-research-shows-slaverys-central-role-in-u-s-economic-growth-leading-up-to-the-civil-war/#:%7E:text=The%20estimates%20based%20on%20this,18.7%20percent%20and%2024.3%20percent.">largely dependent on the violence and forced labor</a> that slavery involved.</p>
<h2>Examining the concept of liberty</h2>
<p>Considerable debate has taken place as of late over <a href="https://fee.org/articles/forcing-children-to-pledge-allegiance-is-undesirable-and-unconstitutional-so-why-is-it-still-happening/">whether students should be required to say the Pledge of Allegiance</a> – a daily school ritual that ends with the reciting of the words “and liberty and justice for all.”</p>
<p>Since liberty has been a long-standing pillar of American society, no teacher could be faulted for having students examine if and how the nation historically has lived up to the notion that liberty had truly been secured “for all.”</p>
<p>For instance, when Patrick Henry reportedly exhorted his fellow Virginians “<a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/on-this-day-patrick-henrys-most-famous-quote#:%7E:text=On%20March%2023%2C%201775%2C%20Patrick,%2C%20or%20give%20me%20death!%E2%80%9D">Give me liberty, or give me death!</a>” in an effort to persuade them to declare independence from Great Britain, he was himself a slaveholder. So were <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/2019/9/10/20859458/fact-check-declaration-independence-slaves-trumbull-painting-arlen-parsa">most of the signers of the Declaration of Independence</a>, which famously describes liberty as an “inalienable” God-given right.</p>
<p>Teachers could also examine the starkly different visions of liberty that developed over time. For instance, students could compare and contrast the visions of liberty <a href="https://www.civilwarcauses.org/anderson.htm">espoused by Confederates</a> in relation to the views held by <a href="https://politicalrhetoricarchive.wcu.edu/speech/address-at-sanitary-fair-by-abraham-lincoln/">President Abraham Lincoln</a> and other Unionists.</p>
<h2>Paying homage to freed men in battle</h2>
<p>In an effort to encourage patriotism, the <a href="https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/7/?Tab=BillText">“Stop Woke” law in Florida</a> – adopted in 2022 – requires teachers to educate students about the sacrifices that veterans and Medal of Honor recipients have made for democracy. This serves as a great reason to teach about <a href="https://www.cmohs.org/news-events/history/honoring-the-african-american-recipients-of-the-civil-war/">formerly enslaved men</a> – including <a href="https://www.cmohs.org/recipients/lists/black-african-american-recipients">those who were awarded the Medal of Honor</a> – who joined the Union army and helped defeat the Confederacy.</p>
<p>By studying these men and the reason they received these medals, students will learn the role that Black people themselves played in the abolition of slavery – the largest expansion of liberty in American history.</p>
<p>Given the current political climate in the U.S., there is no reason to assume more laws that govern what can be taught in public schools will not be passed. But based on how the laws are being written, there are still plenty of ways for teachers to tackle difficult subjects, such as racism in American society</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205452/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>W. Fitzhugh Brundage does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A history scholar sees leeway and loopholes in a wave of new state laws that seek to control what teachers can say about racism in America’s past.W. Fitzhugh Brundage, Professor of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel HillLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1803792022-05-18T12:14:13Z2022-05-18T12:14:13ZPublic education is supposed to prepare an informed citizenry – elementary teachers have just two hours a week to teach social studies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462314/original/file-20220510-14-crjvgp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=43%2C0%2C5717%2C3840&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A student listens to a U.S. history lesson in a New Mexico classroom.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/EducationSocialStudies/27cb0809521a44c4b5fdee2a7cb72187/photo">AP Photo/Cedar Attanasio</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The founders of the United States were <a href="https://iep.utm.edu/american-enlightenment-thought/">intentionally building a nation</a> <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/creating-the-united-states/founded-on-a-set-of-beliefs.html">based on the ideals of the Enlightenment</a>, a movement centered on <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Enlightenment-European-history">individual happiness, knowledge and reason</a>. This new approach to defining a country – rather than basing it on language, ethnicity or geographic proximity – meant the new United States would have to educate its citizenry with the ideas, skills and values necessary to build and grow their democracy.</p>
<p>As a result, the founders <a href="https://www.visitthecapitol.gov/exhibitions/artifact/northwest-ordinance-1787">called for schools to be established</a> and funded. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and others believed it was the <a href="https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED606970.pdf">responsibility of the government</a> to provide that education. Jefferson believed that education would <a href="https://www.deseret.com/opinion/2015/2/27/20759428/in-the-words-of-thomas-jefferson-why-education-matters">serve as the moral foundation of the nation</a> and redress the effect of poverty because education would be available to all children.</p>
<p>Though public schools did not become widespread <a href="https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED606970.pdf">until the 19th century</a>, the goal of educating informed citizens capable of inquiry and critical thinking was part of the democratic republic from the start. But nearly 250 years after the nation’s founding, its schools struggle to achieve that goal.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455652/original/file-20220331-15-bbb91w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A wood engraving depicts a young student speaking to a school class" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455652/original/file-20220331-15-bbb91w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455652/original/file-20220331-15-bbb91w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455652/original/file-20220331-15-bbb91w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455652/original/file-20220331-15-bbb91w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455652/original/file-20220331-15-bbb91w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=731&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455652/original/file-20220331-15-bbb91w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=731&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455652/original/file-20220331-15-bbb91w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=731&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">An illustration in Harper’s Weekly in 1874 depicts a village school lesson in rhetoric.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3b03482/">Harper's Weekly via Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A fourth basic subject</h2>
<p>Foundational American educational theorist <a href="https://www.neh.gov/article/john-dewey-portrait-progressive-thinker">John Dewey</a>, who worked and wrote in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, promoted education that would help build and maintain a democracy made up of different groups of people. In his 1916 book “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/852/852-h/852-h.htm">Democracy in Education</a>,” he warned that focusing education only on the “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/852/852-h/852-h.htm">three Rs: reading, ‘writing and 'rithmetic was not enough to educate a useful citizen</a>.”</p>
<p>It is no accident that Dewey’s career in educational philosophy coincided with the rise of a new field of education, <a href="https://www.socialstudies.org/sites/default/files/publications/se/5907/590702.html">called social studies</a>, aimed at cultivating good citizenship to build a stronger American society. </p>
<p><a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED374072&msclkid=a0283c7dcfd111ecbc4ada5d4ee48e1a">In 1916</a>, the term was used by the National Education Association to “designate formal citizenship education and [place] squarely in the field all of those subjects that were believed to contribute to that end.”</p>
<p>That purpose remains today. According to the National Council of the Social Studies, the current goal of <a href="https://www.socialstudies.org/about">social studies education</a> “is to help young people develop the ability to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world.” </p>
<p>But since at least the 1980s, the nation’s public schools have consistently put social studies on the <a href="https://www.proquest.com/openview/e18c582e6d1248932c183470595e70e6/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=48205">back burner</a>. This process accelerated with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-child-left-behind-fails-to-work-miracles-spurs-cheating-38620">required schools to focus</a> on the “three Rs,” to the <a href="https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/summer-2007/no-child-leaves-the-social-studies-behind">exclusion of social studies</a>.</p>
<p>A 2010 study demonstrated the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/03/31/social-studies-education-facing-crisis-as-class-time-is-slashed-departments-closed/">relative importance of social studies</a> when it reported that elementary school teachers spent <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00933104.2010.10473418">2.5 hours on social studies</a>, 11.6 hours on Language Arts, and 5.3 hours on math per week. </p>
<h2>A lower priority</h2>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=nGjdMkkAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">scholar of social studies education</a>, I have noticed that social studies is <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0895904812453998">often a lower priority</a> than reading, writing and math in <a href="https://hechingerreport.org/how-social-studies-can-help-young-kids-make-sense-of-the-world/">many schools</a>.</p>
<p>For instance, from 1993 to 2008, the time allotted to social studies instruction <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00933104.2010.10473418">dropped by 56 minutes per week</a> in third through fifth grade classes in the U.S. Over the same time, math, English and language arts instruction increased. This trend continued, with a 2014 study that documented an “<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0895904812453998">an average of 2.52 hours of social studies instructional</a> time per week.”</p>
<p>This reduction in social studies instruction has affected minority students more than others. Federal statistics show that since at least 1998, <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/civics/">Black students have tended to score lower</a> on tests of civics knowledge <a href="https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/civics/2018/">than white students</a>. </p>
<p>One study described how that this civic education gap contributes to a <a href="http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:8454069">civic participation gap</a>, in which poorer people and those from nonwhite ethnic groups vote less. That study declared the gap “challenges the stability, legitimacy, and quality of our democratic republic.” Those comments echo those of Jefferson and Dewey, who believed that the purpose of schools was to prepare children to be citizens. </p>
<p>There was a need for civic education in their time – and the complexity of modern society and the increasingly obvious fragility of U.S. constitutional government indicate that social studies is more relevant and more vital now than ever before.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180379/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kenneth Anthony receives funding from the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Program. He is a past president and member of the Mississippi Council for the Social Studies. </span></em></p>From the founding of the U.S., public schools were seen as a key way to develop an informed, active citizenry. Social studies educators struggle to achieve that goal today.Kenneth Anthony, Associate Professor of Elementary Education, Mississippi State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1100132019-02-01T11:40:29Z2019-02-01T11:40:29Z3 ways to improve education about slavery in the US<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256702/original/file-20190131-124043-7q7ksb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Textbooks often do a poor job when it comes to teaching students about slavery in the U.S.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/years-slave-657173227?src=3agCZltIQa_nIG3hMFF_-g-1-6">Dusan Pavlic from www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When it comes to teaching students about slavery in the United States, teachers often stumble through the topic. In the worst cases, they use poorly conceived lessons that end up inflaming students, parents and communities about a subject that is already difficult to deal with because of the inhumanity involved.</p>
<p>For instance, in 2018 a Bronx middle school teacher “<a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/bronx-teacher-sparks-outrage-cruel-slavery-lesson-article-1.3793930">shocked and traumatized</a>” her social studies class when she had black students lie on the floor, then “<a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/bronx-teacher-sparks-outrage-cruel-slavery-lesson-article-1.3793930">stepped on their backs to show them what slavery felt like</a>.” </p>
<p>In 2012 in Georgia, a third-grade teacher resigned after an investigation found the teacher and three others had <a href="http://www.gpb.org/news/2012/01/19/teacher-quits-over-slavery-math-lesson">assigned math homework with word problems about slavery</a>, such as, “If Frederick got two beatings each day, how many beatings did he get in one week?”</p>
<p>As a former social studies teacher and now as an assistant professor who <a href="https://cehs.wvu.edu/news/enews-archive/0818/2018/10/17/faculty-spotlight-tiffany-mitchell-patterson">helps prepare educators</a> to teach social studies, I have no shortage of ideas on how educators – or parents or anyone who is interested in learning more about slavery in the United States – can do a better job of understanding the subject and presenting it to others. Here are three of those ideas:</p>
<h2>1. Identify the slaveholding presidents</h2>
<p>Every American should know that several U.S. presidents – including some of the Founding Fathers – were slaveholders. <a href="https://www.history.com/news/how-many-u-s-presidents-owned-slaves">Twelve U.S. presidents</a> held anywhere from one to hundreds of people as slaves. The nation’s first president, George Washington, <a href="https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/slavery/ten-facts-about-washington-slavery/">enslaved over 300 people</a> and held slaves for 56 years. Thomas Jefferson, the nation’s third president, held <a href="https://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/property">600 persons as slaves</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256700/original/file-20190131-42594-1xxcwj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256700/original/file-20190131-42594-1xxcwj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256700/original/file-20190131-42594-1xxcwj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256700/original/file-20190131-42594-1xxcwj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256700/original/file-20190131-42594-1xxcwj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256700/original/file-20190131-42594-1xxcwj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256700/original/file-20190131-42594-1xxcwj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256700/original/file-20190131-42594-1xxcwj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">George Washington standing among slaves harvesting grain at Mt. Vernon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/george-washington-plantation-owner-standing-among-245963809?src=3agCZltIQa_nIG3hMFF_-g-2-2">Everett Historical from www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<p>This often comes as a surprise to students. In my experience, many students have also been taught that the presidents were nice and humane to their slaves. I would emphasize to students that treating a person as property is neither nice nor humane.</p>
<p>About three years ago, critics prompted Scholastic to <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/18/463488364/amid-controversy-scholastic-pulls-picture-book-about-washingtons-slave">stop distribution</a> of a book, <a href="https://www.cbcbooks.org/cbc_book/a-birthday-cake-for-george-washington/">“A Birthday Cake for George Washington,”</a> that depicted <a href="https://www.teachingforchange.org/gw-birthday-cake-not-recommended">“happy”</a> slaves and which Scholastic itself admits may have given a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/18/business/media/scholastic-halts-distribution-of-a-birthday-cake-for-george-washington.html">“false impression of the reality of the lives of slaves.”</a></p>
<p>Slavery should be taught from the perspectives of those who were enslaved. For example, the young reader’s edition of <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Never-Caught-the-Story-of-Ona-Judge/Erica-Armstrong-Dunbar/9781534416178">“Never Caught, The Story of Ona Judge: George and Martha Washington’s Courageous Slave Who Dared to Run Away</a>,” sheds light on an aspect of George Washington’s life as a slaveholder that is not widely told to children.</p>
<p>Similarly, students should contemplate the life of <a href="https://www.monticello.org/sallyhemings/">Sally Hemings</a>, an enslaved house servant with whom Thomas Jefferson – <a href="http://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/jefferson/aa_jefferson_declar_1.html">author</a> of the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript">Declaration of Independence</a> – fathered six children, <a href="https://www.monticello.org/sallyhemings/">beginning when she was 16</a>. Jefferson <a href="https://www.americanheritage.com/content/thomas-jefferson%E2%80%99s-unknown-grandchildren">never publicly acknowledged</a> his children with Hemings.</p>
<h2>2. Move beyond textbooks</h2>
<p>When it comes to dealing with slavery, textbooks often use inadequate or inaccurate descriptions. For instance, in 2015, a high school freshman noticed that his geography textbook referred to Africans brought to plantations in the United States between the 1500s and 1800s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/06/us/publisher-promises-revisions-after-textbook-refers-to-african-slaves-as-workers.html">as “workers” instead of as slaves</a>. This <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/10/23/450826208/why-calling-slaves-workers-is-more-than-an-editing-error">sparked widespread outrage</a> as McGraw-Hill is a <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/78030-global-publishing-leaders-2018-mcgraw-hill-education.html">major textbook publishing company</a>. McGraw-Hill <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/10/05/slave-workers-mcgraw-hill-textbook/73404632/">apologized</a> and agreed to revise the textbooks.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256693/original/file-20190131-127151-1ntst0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256693/original/file-20190131-127151-1ntst0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256693/original/file-20190131-127151-1ntst0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256693/original/file-20190131-127151-1ntst0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256693/original/file-20190131-127151-1ntst0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256693/original/file-20190131-127151-1ntst0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256693/original/file-20190131-127151-1ntst0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256693/original/file-20190131-127151-1ntst0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A page from a McGraw-Hill textbook that referred to enslaved Africans transported to plantations in the United States as</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/10/23/450826208/why-calling-slaves-workers-is-more-than-an-editing-error">NPR</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The McGraw-Hill textbook controversy was hardly an isolated issue. In 2018, <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/teaching-hard-history-american-slavery">the Southern Poverty Law Center found</a> that when it comes to teaching students about American slavery, “textbooks do not have enough material about it.” Even the best textbook examined in the center’s analysis scored just 70 percent on a rubric designed to assess how good the textbooks were teaching various aspects of U.S. slavery, such as how the nation’s founding documents – the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution – <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/how-the-constitution-was-indeed-pro-slavery/406288/">contain protections for slavery</a>, or how <a href="https://www.history.com/news/slavery-profitable-southern-economy">slave labor was critical to the nation’s economy</a>. The average book scored 46 percent.</p>
<p>Parents and educators would be wise to encourage the use of primary sources to fill in what the textbooks are missing. Primary sources include records and firsthand accounts.</p>
<p>Since slavery in the U.S. was not <a href="https://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/13th-amendment">formally abolished</a> until the 13th Amendment was <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/13th-amendment-ratified">ratified in 1865</a>, today’s student might think there’s no way they could actually hear the voices of former slaves. But as demonstrated by <a href="https://www.loc.gov/collections/voices-remembering-slavery/about-this-collection">Voices from the Days of Slavery: Former Slaves tell their Stories</a> – a collection on file at the Library of Congress and available online – a person can actually hear firsthand accounts of life during slavery.</p>
<p>Hearing the voices of those who were enslaved is more powerful than what could ever be captured in a textbook.</p>
<p>Similar primary sources can be found in in the <a href="https://www.tolerance.org/frameworks/teaching-hard-history/american-slavery">Framework for Teaching Hard History of American Slavery</a>. Picture books and novels, such as those on a list titled “<a href="https://socialjusticebooks.org/booklists/slavery/">Slavery, Resistance and Reparations</a>,” are also a great way to engage children of all ages.</p>
<h2>3. Get out of the classroom</h2>
<p>Another way to learn about slavery is to visit museums and historic sites. Smaller state and local museums with exhibits, plantations, cemeteries, auction blocks and historical markers might be located in your state or local community. A librarian or archivist at a local library might be able to share unique local histories of slavery.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256698/original/file-20190131-109820-np652w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256698/original/file-20190131-109820-np652w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256698/original/file-20190131-109820-np652w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256698/original/file-20190131-109820-np652w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256698/original/file-20190131-109820-np652w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256698/original/file-20190131-109820-np652w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256698/original/file-20190131-109820-np652w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256698/original/file-20190131-109820-np652w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 2001 photo at the New York State Museum in Albany, New York, shows a depiction from the exhibit of ‘A Slave Ship Speaks: The Wreck of the Henrietta Maria.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-New-York-United-/fc992c6c52e1da11af9f0014c2589dfb/109/0">Jim McKnight/AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Plan family trips or field trips to larger national museums that highlight the histories of slavery. In Washington, D.C., the <a href="https://nmaahc.si.edu/">Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture</a> has a <a href="https://nmaahc.si.edu/slavery-and-freedom">“Slavery and Freedom” exhibition</a>. There is also the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/frdo/index.htm">Frederick Douglass National Historic Site</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.freedomcenter.org/">National Underground Railroad Freedom Center</a> in Cincinnati, Ohio, <a href="http://lwfsm.com/">Lest We Forget Black Holocaust Museum of Slavery</a> in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the <a href="https://museumandmemorial.eji.org/museum">Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration</a> in Montgomery, Alabama, all provide a more comprehensive lens on the systemic oppression of slavery.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated on September 27, 2023 to correct how the name of Southern Poverty Law Center was written.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110013/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tiffany Mitchell Patterson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A former social studies teacher lists three ways educators and others can better understand the difficult subject of slavery in the US, including a way to hear directly from freed slaves themselves.Tiffany Mitchell Patterson, Assistant Professor of Secondary Social Studies, West Virginia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1057242018-10-30T10:44:52Z2018-10-30T10:44:52Z7 ways to teach civil discourse to students<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242561/original/file-20181026-7056-1u2teli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lessons in civil discourse can start in the classroom.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/high-school-students-taking-part-group-199091393?src=CReX_IZ5RtOeAviHeTfpDg-1-5">Monkey Business Images/www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If young people are to engage in democracy and society, young people need to learn how to respectfully disagree. Yet, educators often find it <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/04/the-case-for-contentious-classrooms/524268/">challenging</a> to lead discussions on contentious issues.</p>
<p>Based on my experience as a <a href="https://www.tcpress.com/teachers-as-allies-9780807758861">middle school social studies educator</a>, I’ve discovered that there are ways teachers and others who work with young people can show them how to deal effectively and respectfully with controversial topics – as well as what controversial topics to take up. Though the list of seven ideas I have created below were designed with educators in mind, they are applicable beyond the classroom.</p>
<h2>1. Avoid personal attacks</h2>
<p>In my former classroom, we had a mantra: “We address the ideas, we don’t attack the person.” When a person feels attacked, they stop listening. </p>
<p>Collectively determine what respect looks and feels like within these types of discussions. For example, a student may raise their voice as they passionately discuss a topic, but that can be perceived as yelling. Have a conversation on students prior to discussion on tone, style and how to engage in a topic when it becomes heated.</p>
<p>The educator’s role as a facilitator is to ensure that students maintain respect for their peers as they passionately express themselves. Making this investment will pay off tremendously for any discussion you have, whether in a classroom or another venue. If young people don’t feel like their viewpoints will be heard and respected, they will likely not speak up. </p>
<h2>2. Try easy topics first</h2>
<p>Before you dive into a more contentious topic, practice the skills of debate and disagreement with a topic such as school uniforms or cellphone use in classrooms. </p>
<p>A critical element of disagreement must also be empathy. Lived experiences often shape beliefs. Allow young people to share their experiences and their rationale. You may not agree, but you can be sensitive and try to understand their perspective. Remind students to seek to understand without focusing on being right.</p>
<h2>3. Introduce familiar as well as new topics</h2>
<p>To engage students, select social issues that young people are passionate about. This allows them to utilize their own experiences and knowledge as a frame of reference. It’s important that you truly know and ask your students what they’re interested in. Do not make assumptions. At the same time, recognize that there are topics or issues students may not aware of such as racism, global warming, indigenous and LGBTQ struggles for justice, and that this can be an opportunity to introduce them to narratives outside of their lived experiences or interests.</p>
<p>Be mindful when discussing issues that are connected to young people’s lived experience. Understand that certain topics can evoke strong emotions.</p>
<h2>4. Keep discussions structured</h2>
<p>Effective discussions are structured, whether it is a formal debate or <a href="https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/teaching-strategies/socratic-seminar">Socratic seminar</a> where students facilitate their own learning through group discussion rooted in shared texts or sources. No matter the format, establish and communicate clear rules. This will make it easier for you as a facilitator to enforce the rules of engagement and respect.</p>
<h2>5. Have students prepare</h2>
<p>Students should be prepared for the discussion, which means they should have read, viewed and researched multiple sources on the topic. It’s important to emphasize that students understand the topic from various viewpoints. Allowing time for students to prepare will ensure that all students will be able to contribute and engage in the discussion.</p>
<h2>6. Take politics head on</h2>
<p>Election season provides an array of topics to analyze, which will provide lots of material to inform student opinions for the discussion. With the midterms, students can discuss and evaluate candidate platforms as they relate to various social issues and their proposals for change. Ballot measures and amendments such as abortion in West Virginia, transgender rights in Massachusetts, and voting rights in Florida are vital to evaluate as well. Have students read and question the ballot. There are many social issues embedded within ballot measures and examining them prepares students to be informed voters when they are a little older. The midterms can serve as a springboard, but you can continue having these discussions throughout the school year.</p>
<h2>7. Examine social movements</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242575/original/file-20181027-7047-l7h6ki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242575/original/file-20181027-7047-l7h6ki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242575/original/file-20181027-7047-l7h6ki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242575/original/file-20181027-7047-l7h6ki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242575/original/file-20181027-7047-l7h6ki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242575/original/file-20181027-7047-l7h6ki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242575/original/file-20181027-7047-l7h6ki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242575/original/file-20181027-7047-l7h6ki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A police officer leads an arrested National Woman’s Party protester away from a woman’s suffrage bonfire demonstration at the White House in 1918.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/policeman-leads-arrested-national-womans-party-242816698?src=o5qViRmtllJyxR76nZSR5w-1-1">Everett Historical/www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The complexities of social movements such as <a href="https://www.tolerance.org/classroom-resources/tolerance-lessons/womens-suffrage">women’s suffrage</a> and <a href="https://www.teachingforchange.org/books/our-publications/putting-the-movement-back-into-civil-rights-teaching">civil rights</a> are not highlighted enough in middle school and high school curricula. There is usually a focus on leaders and not the long-term collective actions of individuals. </p>
<p>Examining historical and contemporary social movements like pro-choice and pro-life, Black Lives Matter and All Lives Matter, and the LGBTQ movement, provides fertile ground for diverse individual and collective perspectives of an issue. Students can analyze the websites, news articles of social movements, or engage in a <a href="https://www.procon.org/view.background-resource.php?resourceID=006121">pro/con exercise</a> to grapple with perspectives of a social issue. Questions can be posed to students such as: “Why are people organizing?” or “How does each group see the issue differently?” You could facilitate writing projects to legislators and activists or design a research project where students investigate the purpose, perspective and civic actions of a social movement. A lot of insight can be gleaned from social movements that can enhance discussions. More importantly, young people can find ways to engage in civic action themselves beyond the classroom.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105724/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tiffany Mitchell Patterson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A former middle school teacher offers a series of tips on how educators can teach young people to engage in more civil discourse.Tiffany Mitchell Patterson, Assistant Professor of Secondary Social Studies, West Virginia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/828902017-09-07T23:29:52Z2017-09-07T23:29:52ZA new way to reduce playground bullying<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185004/original/file-20170906-9862-il178m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">As kids head back to school this week across Canada, many will be victims or perpetrators of bullying. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For some teachers, back-to-school excitement comes with jitters over how best to address new curriculum mandates. And for many parents, there are other worries, including concerns about their children’s social interactions and fears of playground bullying. </p>
<p>As a researcher in children’s literature, I have developed a literary mentorship program that tackles both of these challenges. <em>Read for Your Rights!</em> uses children’s fiction to engage young children on the concepts of rights and responsibility, and with the content of the <a href="https://www.unicef.org/crc/">United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child</a> (UNCRC). </p>
<p>The program also aims to reduce bullying at school. And preliminary data from a pilot at a Chilliwack elementary school in British Columbia during 2017 shows success. </p>
<p>Participating teachers observed fewer instances of negative social behaviour after their students participated in <em>Read for Your Rights!</em> They also observed scenarios in which an altercation broke out and children made specific references to the program in attempts to elicit better treatment of one another. </p>
<p>Can you imagine hearing the words: “Remember to ‘Choose Kind’!” or “We’re like the Bully Blockers!” ring out over the playground? That’s what happened in Chilliwack after the children participated in the program. </p>
<h2>Teaching rights and responsibilities</h2>
<p>In B.C., teachers are wondering how to meet <a href="http://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/education-training/k-12/teach/curriculum">new requirements</a> to cover human rights within social studies lessons. Teachers are now expected to teach treaties such as the UNCRC beginning in Kindergarten. But how can such a complex legal document be made accessible for the youngest learners when even adults find it nebulous?</p>
<p>The key to making human rights real for children is making them concrete. Connecting some of the UNCRC’s abstract principles with familiar, everyday situations allows even kindergarteners to begin to grapple with concepts of rights and responsibilities. Using children’s books is an effective way to make it work.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185123/original/file-20170907-9573-mw2uau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185123/original/file-20170907-9573-mw2uau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185123/original/file-20170907-9573-mw2uau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185123/original/file-20170907-9573-mw2uau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185123/original/file-20170907-9573-mw2uau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185123/original/file-20170907-9573-mw2uau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185123/original/file-20170907-9573-mw2uau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Grade 5 kids working with undergraduate mentors on the Read for Your Rights! pilot in a Chilliwack elementary school.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That’s exactly what we did in <em>Read for Your Rights!</em> We piloted the program at a Chilliwack elementary school in February 2017. Students from my <a href="http://www.ufv.ca/english/">University of the Fraser Valley English</a> course <em>Children’s Literature and Children’s Rights</em> were involved in mentoring students in Grade 5 and then helping those children mentor kindergarteners.</p>
<p>First of all, the students read the <a href="https://www.unicef.org/rightsite/files/uncrcchilldfriendlylanguage.pdf">UNCRC in child-friendly language</a>. The UNCRC alone is too abstract, so we made it more tangibly real by bringing in a work of children’s literature and drawing connections between the story and the document. </p>
<p>The Grade 5s then read <a href="http://rjpalacio.com/book.html"><em>Wonder</em></a> by R. J. Palacio, while the kindergarteners read <a href="https://www.albertwhitman.com/book/the-bully-blockers-club/"><em>The Bully Blockers Club</em></a> by Teresa Bateman. My students, who read both stories, identified the most relevant UNCRC articles relating to each book and used them to create program activities. When that was done it was finally time to bring everybody — and everything — together. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185002/original/file-20170906-9202-kdgqcp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185002/original/file-20170906-9202-kdgqcp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185002/original/file-20170906-9202-kdgqcp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185002/original/file-20170906-9202-kdgqcp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185002/original/file-20170906-9202-kdgqcp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185002/original/file-20170906-9202-kdgqcp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185002/original/file-20170906-9202-kdgqcp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Wonder’ by R. J. Palacio.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Handout</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To deliver the program, my students supported the Grade 5 children in various activities ranging from group discussions, to literature circles, to skits, to making a (paper) friendship quilt. During four of these hour-long sessions, the children worked to connect <em>Wonder</em> and <a href="https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwj4y_eHrJPWAhUM3GMKHUvjCYoQFggmMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.unicef.org%2Fcrc%2Ffiles%2FRights_overview.pdf&usg=AFQjCNFqFlwsmxaTAjRz3TWm34ednn-CRw">Articles 2, 12 and 29 of the UNCRC</a>. These relate to non-discrimination, respect for children’s views and the right to an education that helps them develop their talents and live peacefully.</p>
<p>Using a similar approach, my students and the Grade 5 children spent two sessions working with kindergarteners to find common ground between Articles 15 and 19 — which include the right to protection from all forms of violence — and <em>The Bully Blockers Club</em>. During this portion of the program, activities included small and large group discussions, skits and friendship bracelets.</p>
<h2>‘We’re like the Bully-Blockers!’</h2>
<p>The program also aimed to reduce bullying at school. There are plenty of studies suggesting that children’s literature can <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ664307">help children understand bullying</a> behaviour and that <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15388220.2015.1095100">school-based programs might be effective</a> in reducing it. However, none bring in the UNCRC. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185001/original/file-20170906-9823-1oc2rx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185001/original/file-20170906-9823-1oc2rx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=761&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185001/original/file-20170906-9823-1oc2rx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=761&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185001/original/file-20170906-9823-1oc2rx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=761&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185001/original/file-20170906-9823-1oc2rx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185001/original/file-20170906-9823-1oc2rx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185001/original/file-20170906-9823-1oc2rx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘The Bully Blockers Club’ by Teresa Bateman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Handout</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since I have argued that the <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/628009">UNCRC is the foundation to developing a more child-centred approach to children’s literature</a>, I brought together various well-established practices — mentoring, literature circles, artistic activities and rights education — into a brand new program. My theory was that by linking rights and responsibilities, and at the same time inviting children to observe the emotional consequences of bullying through the “neutral” medium of story, they would begin to take responsibility for treating one another more kindly at school. </p>
<p>But does it work? Can reading for their rights really help children to better understand both the UNCRC <em>and</em> a work of literature — all leading to reduced bullying?</p>
<p>While the pilot was admittedly small, preliminary data collected through questionnaires and field observations does clearly indicate children’s increased understanding and application of their rights and responsibilities. </p>
<p>For example, before participating in <em>Read for Your Rights!</em> only eight per cent of the Grade 5 children who responded to the questionnaires reported knowing about the UNCRC or children’s rights. After the program, 96 per cent said they knew about these things. </p>
<p>Before the program, only 46 per cent of Grade 5 children believed that bullying relates to children’s rights; after the program, 64 per cent believed this. Before the program, 92 per cent of children didn’t know how to stop bullying. Afterwards, only 72 per cent reported not knowing. kindergarten results were similar (although less pronounced). </p>
<h2>In the classroom</h2>
<p>Any teacher can use elements of <em>Read for Your Rights!</em> You don’t need two dozen eager university students to begin enjoying some of the program’s benefits. Teachers can tick off a tricky item on the new curriculum To Do list anytime by:</p>
<ol>
<li>Identifying an area of human rights that relates to a behaviour observed in your classroom. </li>
<li>Finding a children’s book that focuses on that behaviour (a work of literature rather than a didactic tale or non-fiction). </li>
<li>Reviewing the UNCRC to select relevant articles. </li>
<li>Designing activities and projects that bring together the book and the articles. </li>
<li>Following up with discussion questions to ensure that children are taking away points of key importance.</li>
</ol><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82890/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Superle does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new mentorship program uses fiction to teach children’s rights, and to help kids understand and prevent bullying.Michelle Superle, Assistant Professor, University of The Fraser ValleyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/759762017-05-17T00:06:46Z2017-05-17T00:06:46ZAre movies a good way to learn history?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169574/original/file-20170516-11966-7ci4ib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Daniel Day-Lewis won the 2012 Academy Award for his portrayal of Abraham Lincoln. Is Spielberg's historical drama a good way to learn about the 16th U.S. president?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.fox.co.uk/lincoln">Touchstone Pictures</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hollywood loves history. At <a href="http://oscar.go.com/news/winners/oscar-winners-2017-see-the-complete-list">this year’s Academy Awards</a>, three nominees for Best Picture (“<a href="http://www.fencesmovie.com/">Fences</a>,” “<a href="http://www.hacksawridge.movie/">Hacksaw Ridge</a>” and “<a href="http://www.hiddenfigures.com/">Hidden Figures</a>”) were “historical” to today’s teenagers – set in or about events that occurred before they were born.</p>
<p>History movies, like most movies, have a huge audience in the U.S. Even Disney’s notorious 2004 version of “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0318974/">The Alamo</a>” – <a href="http://business.time.com/2012/03/21/the-top-ten-biggest-money-losing-movies-of-all-time/slide/the-alamo/">a box office “bomb”</a> – was seen by millions. That’s far more people than read most best-selling historians’ books.</p>
<p>A lot of these viewers are kids, watching the movies in theaters, at home and even at school. I’ve observed “The Alamo” used by teachers on more than one occasion.</p>
<p>But are motion pictures like these good for learning about history? As a scholar of social studies education and <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Teaching-History-with-Film-Strategies-for-Secondary-Social-Studies/Marcus-Metzger-Paxton-Stoddard/p/book/9780415999564">the use of film to teach history</a>, I offer the response that films can support learning – if used to meet specific goals and connected to the proper subject matter.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RK8xHq6dfAo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">2016’s ‘Hidden Figures’ was nominated for Best Picture. Will it be used in classrooms some day to teach about this moment in the 1960s?</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The allure of history movies</h2>
<p>Fact-based or fictional, realistic or fantastic, history movies shape the way people think about the past. In a study of how 15 families discussed historical understanding of the Vietnam War era, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831206298677">kids and parents both spontaneously drew on memories of movies</a>. “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109830/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Forrest Gump</a>,” in particular, was referenced by both generations.</p>
<p>It’s not surprising that teachers want to draw on this cultural power, showing movies in class to get students more excited about history. In one study of <a href="http://www.mccc.edu/pdf/cmn107/the%20burden%20of%20historical%20representation%20race%20freedom%20and%20educational%20hollywood%20film.pdf">84 Wisconsin and Connecticut teachers</a>, nearly 93 percent reported that they use some portion of a film at least once a week. While not enough to draw clear conclusions, this study does suggest that history films are likely used quite often in the classroom.</p>
<p>So why do teachers choose to show movies with class time?</p>
<p>People often talk about the <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/pros-and-cons-movies-in-class-7762">stereotype of the busy/lazy/overwhelmed teacher</a> who puts on a movie instead of doing “real” teaching. However, research indicates that teachers actually tend to have good motives when it comes to showing movies in class.</p>
<p>In that study of 84 teachers, most felt that students are more motivated and learn more when a film is used. Case studies also describe <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Teaching-History-with-Film-Strategies-for-Secondary-Social-Studies/Marcus-Metzger-Paxton-Stoddard/p/book/9780415999564">other academic goals teachers have for using movies in class</a>, which include understanding historical controversies, visualizing narratives of the past and studying movies as “primary sources” that reflect the time at which they were made.</p>
<p>In a recent study of <a href="https://www.history.org.uk/publications/categories/304/resource/7132/the-international-journal-volume-12-number-1">more than 200 Australian teachers</a>, many described how movies added audio and visual elements to learning and showcased a more personal, empathetic look at historical figures and events – both aspects that the teachers felt resonated with the learning styles and preferences of their pupils.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169557/original/file-20170516-11966-kob1uw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169557/original/file-20170516-11966-kob1uw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169557/original/file-20170516-11966-kob1uw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=254&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169557/original/file-20170516-11966-kob1uw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=254&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169557/original/file-20170516-11966-kob1uw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=254&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169557/original/file-20170516-11966-kob1uw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169557/original/file-20170516-11966-kob1uw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169557/original/file-20170516-11966-kob1uw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">1994’s ‘Forrest Gump’ is a popular cultural touchpoint for thinking about the Vietnam War.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.paramount.com/movies/forrest-gump">Paramount Pictures</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Do students trust movies?</h2>
<p>Most young people are savvy enough to know that movies and TV are fictionalized, but that doesn’t mean they know how to keep history and Hollywood separate. After all, movies and TV shows set in a historical period can be extensively researched and often <a href="http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/57hsn7hf9780252076893.html">blend fact and fiction</a>.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ760285">a study of two U.S. history classes,</a> high school students interviewed claimed that “Hollywood” films are less trustworthy sources of information. Yet in classroom activities, they treated them like any other legitimate source – perhaps because the teacher adds some unintentional legitimacy simply by choosing the film. The teacher “must see some good history in it,” explained one student. “I don’t think he’s going to show something random,” said another.</p>
<p>A case study by education professor <a href="http://education.uconn.edu/person/alan-marcus/">Alan Marcus</a> found that students believed most movies watched in class to be <a href="http://www.infoagepub.com/products/Celluloid-Blackboard-Teaching-History-with-Film">at least somewhat trustworthy</a> – a source of information to gather facts.</p>
<p>The level of trust students have may also depend on their prior knowledge or cultural viewpoints, as in a study of <a href="http://www.infoagepub.com/products/Celluloid-Blackboard-Teaching-History-with-Film">26 Wisconsin teenagers</a> – half of them white and half Native American. The Native American teens found the 1993 Kevin Costner film “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099348/">Dances with Wolves</a>” to be slightly more trustworthy than their white peers did. The white students, on the other hand, rated the school textbook as much more trustworthy than the Native American teens did.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169561/original/file-20170516-11956-1oo69a4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169561/original/file-20170516-11956-1oo69a4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169561/original/file-20170516-11956-1oo69a4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=254&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169561/original/file-20170516-11956-1oo69a4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=254&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169561/original/file-20170516-11956-1oo69a4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=254&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169561/original/file-20170516-11956-1oo69a4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=319&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169561/original/file-20170516-11956-1oo69a4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=319&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169561/original/file-20170516-11956-1oo69a4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=319&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The perceived trustworthiness of Kevin Costner’s ‘Dances with Wolves’ may depend on a student’s cultural background.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Orion Pictures</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Educational challenges</h2>
<p>The complicated relationship between fact and fiction is just one of the many challenges educators face when using history movies in their classrooms. It’s not as simple as pressing “play.”</p>
<p>Among the host of practical and academic challenges:</p>
<ul>
<li>Many history movies are R-rated, with material parents may not want shown in class.</li>
<li>Some administrators aren’t supportive of spending class time on popular media.</li>
<li>Pressure to cover content standards and prepare for testing can leave little time for intensive media projects.</li>
</ul>
<p>The very structure of the school day, in fact, <a href="http://www.iajiss.org/index.php/iajiss/article/viewArticle/116">makes it difficult to fit film viewing into the curriculum</a> – especially if discussion and reviewing strategies are included.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most daunting question is whether movies are actually good for learning history.</p>
<p>In one Australian study, most participating teachers believed film to be useful, but some took the position that <a href="http://www.iajiss.org/index.php/iajiss/article/viewArticle/116">film can confuse students with inaccurate portrayals</a>. “Hollywood distorts history, but kids remember what they‘ve seen more than the facts,” said one teacher.</p>
<p>A psychological research study found that viewing history films <a href="http://psych.wustl.edu/memory/Roddy%20article%20PDF%27s/Butler%20et%20al%20(2009)_PsychSci.pdf">considerably increased factual recall</a> when the film matched historical readings. However, students came away with considerable misinformation when the film conflicted with the readings – because the students remembered the film and not the text. This occurred even when students were generally warned that the history movies were fictional.</p>
<p>With specific warnings about false details, most students were able to remember the accurate information as well as the misinformation. Teachers must set the stage when a movie is introduced, helping students mentally tag which elements are inaccurate.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169567/original/file-20170516-11956-d5q30w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169567/original/file-20170516-11956-d5q30w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169567/original/file-20170516-11956-d5q30w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169567/original/file-20170516-11956-d5q30w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169567/original/file-20170516-11956-d5q30w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169567/original/file-20170516-11956-d5q30w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169567/original/file-20170516-11956-d5q30w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169567/original/file-20170516-11956-d5q30w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Zack Snyder’s 2006 epic ‘300’ has some big pieces of misinformation, but the bulk of the narrative elements is more accurate than many people think.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.warnerbros.com/300">Warner Bros.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How to learn history from Hollywood</h2>
<p>History movies have potential as learning tools, but that potential isn’t easy to realize.</p>
<p>Teachers need strong subject matter knowledge about the topics portrayed, so that they can frame the movie and its relationship to fact and fiction. Teachers also need to have sound learning goals and awareness of the diverse cultural viewpoints that students bring to the classroom. And they need the time and resources for meaningful discussion or assignments after viewing.</p>
<p>Simply put, history movies – and most other media – by themselves don’t teach.</p>
<p>If a teacher lines up proper film choice, lesson goals, subject matter and class activities using the film, it is possible to really learn about history by way of Hollywood.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75976/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Scott Alan Metzger does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>History movies may have Oscar potential, but their educational potential is more complicated. Should teachers use Hollywood to teach?Scott Alan Metzger, Associate Professor of Education, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/749722017-03-31T20:29:08Z2017-03-31T20:29:08ZHow should World War I be taught in American schools?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163500/original/image-20170331-27263-1ug7790.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Modern high school students are learning two very different approaches to World War I.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/classmate-friends-classroom-597114503?src=lSrbukCX8E_Tq0AlybtDZA-2-25">Africa Studio / Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The centennial of the end of World War I is reminding Americans of a conflict that is rarely mentioned these days.</p>
<p>In Hungary, for example, World War I is often remembered for the Treaty of Trianon, a peace treaty that ended Hungarian involvement in the war and cost Hungary two-thirds of its territory. The treaty continues to be a <a href="http://www.americanhungarianfederation.org/news_trianon.htm">source of outrage</a> for Hungarian nationalists.</p>
<p>In the United States, by contrast, the war is primarily remembered <a href="https://academic.oup.com/dh/article/38/4/727/2754606/The-World-War-and-American-Memory">in a positive light</a>. President Woodrow Wilson intervened on the side of the victors, using idealistic language about making the world “<a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=65366">safe for democracy</a>.” The United States <a href="http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/world-war-one/world-war-one-and-casualties/first-world-war-casualties/">lost relatively few soldiers</a> in comparison to other nations.</p>
<p>As a professor of social studies education, I’ve noticed that the way in which “<a href="https://archive.org/details/warthatwillendwa00welluoft">the war to end war</a>” is taught in American classrooms has a lot to do with what we think it means to be an American today.</p>
<p>As one of the first wars fought on a truly global scale, World War I is taught in two different courses, with two different missions: U.S. history courses and world history courses. Two versions of World War I emerge in these two courses – and they tell us as much about the present as they do about the past.</p>
<h2>WWI: National history</h2>
<p>In an academic sense, history is not simply the past, but the tools we use to study it – it is the process of historical inquiry. Over the course of the discipline’s development, the study of history became deeply entangled with <a href="http://www.h-france.net/vol2reviews/vol2no91kramer.pdf">the study of nations</a>. It became “partitioned”: American history, French history, Chinese history. </p>
<p>This way of dividing the past reinforces ideas of who a people are and what they stand for. In the U.S., our national historical narrative has often been taught to schoolchildren as one where more and more Americans gain more and more <a href="http://teachinghistory.org/issues-and-research/research-brief/23488">rights and opportunities</a>. The goal of teaching American history has long been <a href="http://www.socialstudies.org/publications/socialeducation/september2006/social-studies-wars-now-and-then">the creation of citizens</a> who are loyal to this narrative and are willing to take action to support it.</p>
<p>When history is taught in this way, teachers and students can easily draw boundaries between “us” and “them.” There is a clear line between domestic and foreign policy. Some <a href="http://www.oah.org/about/reports/reports-statements/the-lapietra-report-a-report-to-the-profession/">historians have criticized</a> this view of the nation as a natural container for the events of the past.</p>
<p>When students are taught this nationalist view of the past, it’s possible to see the United States and its relationship to World War I <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/inside-first-world-war/part-nine/10801898/why-america-joined-first-world-war.html">in a particular light</a>. Initially an outsider to World War I, the United States would join only when provoked by Germany. U.S. intervention was justified in terms of making the world safe for democracy. American demands for peace were largely based on altruistic motives.</p>
<p>When taught in this manner, World War I signals the arrival of the United States on the global stage – as defenders of democracy and agents for global peace.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163478/original/image-20170331-27277-y5xopk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163478/original/image-20170331-27277-y5xopk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163478/original/image-20170331-27277-y5xopk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163478/original/image-20170331-27277-y5xopk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163478/original/image-20170331-27277-y5xopk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163478/original/image-20170331-27277-y5xopk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163478/original/image-20170331-27277-y5xopk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163478/original/image-20170331-27277-y5xopk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Woodrow Wilson addressing Congress, April 8, 1913.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/ggb2005011653/">Bain News Service / Library of Congress [LC-B2- 2579-2]</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>WWI: World history</h2>
<p>World history is a relatively new area of study in the field of historical inquiry, gaining particular ground in the 1980s. Its addition to the curriculum of American schools is <a href="http://worldhistoryconnected.press.illinois.edu/1.1/lintvedt.html">even more recent</a>.</p>
<p>The world history curriculum has tended to focus on the ways in which economic, cultural and technological processes have led to <a href="https://www.learner.org/courses/worldhistory/whatis.html">increasingly close global interconnections</a>. As a classic example, a <a href="http://en.unesco.org/silkroad/about-silk-road">study of the Silk Road</a> reveals the ways in which goods (like horses), ideas (like Buddhism), plants (like bread wheat) and diseases (like plague) were spread across larger and larger areas of the globe.</p>
<p>World history curricula do not deny the importance of nations, but neither do they assume that nation-states are the primary actors on the historical stage. Rather, it is the processes themselves – trade, war, cultural diffusion – that often take center stage in the story. The line between “domestic” and “foreign” – “us” and “them” – is blurred in such examples.</p>
<p>When the work of world historians is incorporated into the school curriculum, the stated goal is most often <a href="http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/oct02/vol60/num02/Growing_Good_Citizens_with_a_World-Centered_Curriculum.aspx">global understanding</a>. In the case of World War I, it’s possible to tell a story about increasing <a href="http://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/the_way_to_war">industrialism, imperialism and competition for global markets</a>, as well as the deadly integration of <a href="http://theconversation.com/as-the-u-s-entered-world-war-i-american-soldiers-depended-on-foreign-weapons-technology-75034">new technologies</a> into battle, such as tanks, airplanes, poison gas, submarines and machine guns.</p>
<p>In all of this, U.S. citizens are historical actors caught up in the same pressures and trends as everyone else across the globe.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163486/original/image-20170331-27277-wmi5oz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163486/original/image-20170331-27277-wmi5oz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163486/original/image-20170331-27277-wmi5oz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163486/original/image-20170331-27277-wmi5oz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163486/original/image-20170331-27277-wmi5oz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163486/original/image-20170331-27277-wmi5oz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163486/original/image-20170331-27277-wmi5oz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163486/original/image-20170331-27277-wmi5oz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The British Mark IV Tank ‘Britannia’ was brought to New York City and put on exhibit to help sell war bonds. Oct. 25, 1917.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/ggbain.25571/">Bain News Service / Library of Congress [LC-B2- 4379-7]</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The US school curriculum and World War I</h2>
<p>These two trends within the field of historical inquiry are each reflected in the American school curriculum. In most states, both U.S. history and world history are <a href="http://ecs.force.com/mbdata/mbprofall?Rep=HS01">required subjects</a>. In this way, World War I becomes a fascinating case study of how the same event can be taught in different ways, for two different purposes.</p>
<p>To demonstrate this, I’ve pulled content standards from three large states, each from a different region of the United States – <a href="http://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/SS_COMBINED_August_2015_496557_7.pdf">Michigan</a>, <a href="http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/histsocscistnd.pdf">California</a> and <a href="http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/rules/tac/chapter113/ch113c.html#113.41">Texas</a> – to illustrate their treatment of World War I.</p>
<p>In U.S. history, the content standards of all three states place World War I within the rise of the United States as a world power. In all three sets of state standards, students are expected to learn about World War I in relationship to <a href="http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-newsouth/5488">American expansion</a> into such places as Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Hawaii. The ways in which the war challenged a tradition of <a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp">avoiding foreign entanglements</a> is given attention in each set of standards.</p>
<p>By contrast, the world history standards of all three states place World War I under its own heading, asking students to examine the war’s causes and consequences. All three sets of state standards reference large-scale historical processes as the causes of the war, including <a href="http://hti.osu.edu/world-war-one/main/lessonplans/why_did_they_fight">nationalism, imperialism and militarism</a>. Sometimes the U.S. is mentioned, and sometimes it’s not.</p>
<p>And so, students are learning about World War I in two very different ways. In the more nationalistic U.S. history curriculum, the United States is the defender of global order and democracy. In the world history context, the United States is mentioned hardly at all, and impersonal global forces take center stage.</p>
<h2>Whose history? Which America?</h2>
<p>Scholars today continue to debate the wisdom of President Wilson’s <a href="http://www.heritage.org/political-process/report/remaking-the-world-progressivism-and-american-foreign-policy">moral diplomacy</a> – that is, the moral and altruistic language (like making the world “safe for democracy”) that justified U.S. involvement in World War I. At the same time, a recent poll by the Pew Research Center has shown that the American public has <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/12/04/americans-put-low-priority-on-promoting-democracy-abroad/">deep concerns</a> about the policy of promoting democracy abroad.</p>
<p>In an age when protectionism, isolationism and nationalism are seemingly <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/berenberg-similarities-trump-brexit-1930s-protectionism-populism-nationalism-2016-11">on the rise</a>, our country as a whole is questioning the relationship between the United States and the rest of the world.</p>
<p>This is the present-day context in which students are left to learn about the past – and, in particular, World War I. How might their study of this past shape their attitudes toward the present?</p>
<p>History teachers are therefore left with a dilemma: teach toward national or global citizenship? Is world history something that happened “<a href="http://www.firstworldwar.com/audio/overthere.htm">over there</a>,” or is it something that happens “right here,” too?</p>
<p>In my own view, it seems incomplete to teach just one of these conflicting views of World War I. Instead, I would recommend to history teachers that they explore competing perspectives of the past with their students.</p>
<p>How do Hungarians, for example, generally remember World War I? Or how about Germans? How about the Irish? <a href="http://www.armenian-genocide.org/genocide.html">Armenians</a>? How do these perspectives compare to American memories? Where is fact and where is fiction?</p>
<p>Such a history class would encourage students to examine how the present and the past are connected – and might satisfy both nationalists and globalists alike.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74972/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kyle Greenwalt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>High school students in America learn two very different perspectives on World War I in their U.S. and world history classes. But which of these competing viewpoints should take center stage?Kyle Greenwalt, Associate Professor, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/667362016-10-31T02:11:56Z2016-10-31T02:11:56ZWhy America urgently needs to improve K-12 civic education<p>The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-remains-defiant-ahead-of-debate-as-surrogates-grapple-with-tape-fallout/2016/10/09/9a95a09a-8e28-11e6-9c85-ac42097b8cc0_story.html">tone</a> of this presidential election, often called <a href="http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-04-29/just-how-uncivil-election-2016-mits-media-lab-has-some-charts-you-should-see">“uncivil,”</a> has <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/04/civic-education-in-the-age-of-trump/477501/">led many</a> to call for an urgent improvement of civic education in America. </p>
<p>Civic education <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Controversy-in-the-Classroom-The-Democratic-Power-of-Discussion/Hess/p/book/9780415962292">can teach citizens</a> how to deliberate, even when they have political differences. It can enable citizens to find solutions to many problems such as school attendance, economic development or community safety. </p>
<p>For over a decade, we’ve worked as researchers <a href="http://civicyouth.org/">investigating</a> a wide range of questions related to youth civic participation. Over this period, we have observed how civic life has been transformed. New technologies emerged as well as new political and social movements, such as the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street and the movement for black lives – all of which have changed civic life. Indeed, today’s youth have a lot <a href="http://ypp.dmlcentral.net/projects/youth-participatory-politics-survey-project">more opportunities</a> to express their political views and take action through <a href="Change.org">online platforms.</a> </p>
<p>However, significant gaps remain in one of the most basic forms of civic participation – voter turnout. <a href="http://www.civicyouth.org/maps/elections/">Only about 40-45 percent</a> of 18-to-29-year-olds turned out to vote in the 2012 election, and gaps among youth remain a concern in 2016. </p>
<p>One big reason for these voting rates is in the way many public K-12 schools are teaching civics: Students may be learning about the mechanics of government, but <a href="http://civicyouth.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/State-Civic-Ed-Requirements-Fact-Sheet-2012-Oct-19.pdf">they are not always required</a> to learn the skills needed for civic participation. Teachers, meanwhile, have voiced concern that lessons about elections and politics will be perceived by some as partisan.</p>
<h2>The missing young voters</h2>
<p>Currently, there are dramatic gaps among youth when it comes to voter turnout. The young people who regularly vote <a href="http://civicyouth.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/2012-Exit-Poll-by-Ed-Attainment-Final.pdf">look like the youth population</a> as a whole because youth do not vote at the same rates. Our analysis of state and federal voting data shows that young people without college experience remain underrepresented.</p>
<p>For example, in the 2012 election, 56 percent of youth with any college experience voted compared to only 29 percent of youth with no college experience. These young people between 18 and 29 make up 40 percent of the youth population. </p>
<p>The gap was just as large in the high turnout election of 2008, where 62 percent of youth with any college experience voted, compared to only 36 percent of youth with no college experience. Our analysis of census data suggests this trend is not new and this gap has existed for decades.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143730/original/image-20161028-15810-1ov3rz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143730/original/image-20161028-15810-1ov3rz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143730/original/image-20161028-15810-1ov3rz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143730/original/image-20161028-15810-1ov3rz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143730/original/image-20161028-15810-1ov3rz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143730/original/image-20161028-15810-1ov3rz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143730/original/image-20161028-15810-1ov3rz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Youth turnout by education.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://civicyouth.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/CIRCLE_2013FS_outhVoting2012FINAL.pdf">CIRCLE</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why is civic participation of youth so low?</h2>
<p>Civic education can not only increase youth voting, but in doing so also begin to <a href="http://civicyouth.org/commission-on-youth-voting-and-civic-knowledge-releases-report/">close historic voting gaps</a>. Our research shows, however, civic education itself remains a neglected area in in American schools. </p>
<p>Most states do not consider civic education as a vital part of student learning. While social studies is part of the curriculum in most states, <a href="http://civicyouth.org/commission-on-youth-voting-and-civic-knowledge-releases-report/">reports from 2013 show</a> only eight states assess students’ civic performance. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143744/original/image-20161028-15793-111mxt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143744/original/image-20161028-15793-111mxt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143744/original/image-20161028-15793-111mxt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143744/original/image-20161028-15793-111mxt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143744/original/image-20161028-15793-111mxt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143744/original/image-20161028-15793-111mxt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143744/original/image-20161028-15793-111mxt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Comments from young people who participated in a CIRCLE project reflecting on their high school experiences.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://civicyouth.org/thats-not-democracy-how-out-of-school-youth-engage-in-civic-life-and-what-stands-in-their-way/">CIRCLE</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The curriculum itself leaves much to be desired. Too often, in public schools, civic education is reduced to learning history and dry information about governmental processes. Students learn significantly more historical information – for instance, about wars and individual people – than skills that can teach them how to solve problems.</p>
<p>Research into state social studies curriculum standards shows they <a href="http://civicyouth.org/do-states-require-students-learn-about-political-ideology/">often do not include learning</a> in detail about modern parties and their ideologies. The results differ by state, but the general trends are striking. For example, this research indicates that “Democrat” and “Republican” are not often found in school curricula and only 10 states ask that students learn what these parties stand for.</p>
<p>It’s difficult to understand how a young person would understand American politics without this ability to differentiate. </p>
<h2>Other challenges</h2>
<p>In addition, schools don’t help students connect their learning to practice. It is students <a href="http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED503646">in wealthier schools, or who are on a “college track,”</a> who are more likely to find opportunities to learn about civic engagement through discussions or hands-on research that allows them to work on finding solutions to civic problems that they care about. </p>
<p>For example, a group of high school students in Chicago, after <a href="http://www.mikvachallenge.org/blog/youth-voice-on-the-ballot-in-the-49th-ward-pb-process/">learning</a> how to make their voices heard on civic issues, campaigned to have bus stop benches along major bus routes. </p>
<p>Another big challenge when it comes to civic education is public resistance to teaching anything remotely connected to electoral politics in public schools.</p>
<p>In a less controversial election (2012), <a href="http://civicyouth.org/how-civics-is-taught-in-america-a-national-survey-of-civics-and-u-s-government-teachers/">teachers</a> told us they believed that they would receive a pushback if they taught about politics and elections. </p>
<p>In a national survey of over 700 teachers we conducted during the spring after the 2012 election, more than one in four current teachers of US government or civics said that they would expect criticism from parents or other adults if they taught the election that had taken place that fall. Only one-third (38 percent) said they would get strong support from their district. </p>
<p>Concerns about introducing elections to classrooms are misplaced, since research has not found patterns of teachers influencing students’ preferences in elections. We found in 2012 that taking civics <a href="http://civicyouth.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/What-Young-Adults-Know-Fact-Sheet-20131.pdf">didn’t correlate with either</a> partisanship or vote choice.</p>
<h2>Improving turnout</h2>
<p>Existing research demonstrates that engaging youth in elections before they reach the age of 18 can increase the likelihood of voting. Classroom teaching practices where young people learn about current issues or can <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01957470290055501">practice having conversations</a> with different viewpoints involved can start to close these gaps. </p>
<p>These more active teaching practices allow youth to increase knowledge and develop skills, such as how to communicate effectively with someone with differing views. In turn, this can also build a young person’s confidence in their own ability to participate. <a href="http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED558007">Knowledge alone is not enough</a> to ensure future civic engagement. </p>
<p><a href="http://civicyouth.org/commission-on-youth-voting-and-civic-knowledge-releases-report/">Our research shows</a> that classroom teaching practices were positively related to informed voting, the idea of voting with accurate knowledge about the democratic system and preferred candidates. </p>
<p>Additionally, <a href="http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/nyulpp13&div=20&g_sent=1&collection=journals">preregistration laws</a>, which allow 16- and 17-year-olds to preregister and then automatically join the voter rolls when they turn 18, boost turnout. Appearance on a list of registered voters means that these preregistered youth are more likely to be contacted by parties and interest groups that use lists of registered voters for outreach. </p>
<p>As a result, easing youth into civic participation, through preregistration and starting to experience structured civic participation in the classroom, can prove valuable to later engagement, like voting.</p>
<p>Voting <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/becoming-a-habitual-voter-inertia-resources-and-growth-in-young-adulthood/9EA1F561496D714346491B25B0D52239">is habit-forming</a>. Closing gaps early by strengthening the connection between school civic education and civic participation could ensure that our electorate will more fully represent the U.S. population.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66736/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Abby Kiesa is the Director of Impact at CIRCLE, a national research center on youth civic education and engagement at Tufts University's Tisch College of Civic Life. Abby has worked on research projects funded by private foundations include: the Charles F. Kettering Foundation, Youth Engagement Fund, and the Democracy Fund, the Spencer Foundation, CloseUp Foundation, Bonner Foundation, Corporation for National and Community Service, The Pew Charitable Trusts, S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation and the Omidyar Network.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span> Peter Levine has received funding from: Abt Associates American Association of University Women Aspen Institute Beldon Foundation, JEHT Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and Solidago Fund Bill of Rights Institute (BORI) Bonner Foundation Bridging Theory to Practice Carnegie Corporation of New York Case Foundation Center for Public Integity (CPI) Civic Enterprises LLC Close Up Foundation Corporation for National and Community Service Deliberative Democracy Consortium Democracy Fund Democracy Fund with Knight Foundation and McCormick Foundation Engelhard Foundation Ford Foundation Ford Foundation Foundation for Civic Leadership and The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Foundation Generation Engage Grosvenor Fund, National Geographic Foundation Indiana Humanities Council Jobs for the Future Kellogg Foundation (via Brandeis University prime) Kettering Foundation Knight Foundation Massachusetts Department of Education National Conference on Citizenship Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek. New America Foundation Next Generation Learning Challenge Omidyar Network Online News Association Poynter Institute S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation Spencer Foundation State of Florida through University of South Florida The Florence and John Schumann Foundation The McCormick Foundation The Nonzero Foundation The Pew Charitable Trusts The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Tides Foundation US Department of Education WT Grant Foundation. He is affiliated with: Paul J. Aicher Foundation, Director (2009-present) Discovering Justice (2013-present) Charles F. Kettering Foundation, Trustee (2004-present; program committee chair 2012-14) Street Law, Inc., Director and Program Committee Chair (2004-present)
Partners</span></em></p>Only about 40-45 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds turned out to vote in the 2012 election. Civic education can improve youth turnout. But civic education itself remains neglected in US schools.Abby Kiesa, Director of Impact, Tufts UniversityPeter Levine, Associate Dean for Research and Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship & Public Affairs, Tufts UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/568542016-05-09T00:49:52Z2016-05-09T00:49:52ZExplainer: What is wrong with America’s civic education<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121578/original/image-20160506-8077-1x75jzy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What are America's children learning in civics classes?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/usaghumphreys/6091597370/in/photolist-qePrCK-pXgh3h-e1QuRj-pziKKZ-qePhKp-phQ6od-ahi2ES-eNVK82-5NHec8-2HRwc-biZYrc-pXnQcK-aRD1J8-ahi4MJ-4scJ2o-C8hMZD-DwizRk-5ek8Zu-ahi3FC-9RofC6-qcx7G3-ahfewZ-pXftwE-ahi1mS-pXgnLm-pQvzFe-ahfgFi-aD4ayH-oTHs72-ahfd8F-oTGSd3-ahi32y-c7idRQ-2Qm43n-yjdUcX-xaEEP8-xMM5Sr-x26Wx2-s2TMPS-x26Q3D-xjaJE6-xghun7-x1Zdd3-x1Z4wh-x1YWUj-xiAXqM-wmJPsV-x1Z9Ey-xghbAL-s2XRCK">USAG- Humphreys</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Any election demands knowledge, attention and wisdom from the whole electorate. When a campaign season does not seem to be going well, there’s often angst about whether the public has been sufficiently educated. </p>
<p>Anxious eyes turn to our public schools. </p>
<p>For instance, writing in The Atlantic recently, <a href="http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/faculty/Jonathan_Zimmerman">Jonathan Zimmerman</a>, professor of education and history at New York University, <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/04/civic-education-in-the-age-of-trump/477501/">decried the incivility of the 2016 campaign</a> and named “a flaw with civic education.” He wrote: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Put simply, schools in the United States don’t teach the country’s future citizens how to engage respectfully across their political differences.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I have studied and advocated civic education for almost two decades. I believe civic education must be improved in the United States. First, though, it’s important to understand the condition of America’s civic education.</p>
<h2>State of civic education</h2>
<p>Schools have a role in educating citizens, and they perform it in several ways. Almost all public schools offer explicit courses on American government, civics or, more broadly, history and social studies. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.nationalservice.gov/pdf/08_1112_lsa_prevalence.pdf">Some require volunteer service</a> and connect the service to classroom education as a way of teaching civic skills. Most schools also offer a range of extracurricular activities in which students <a href="http://civicyouth.org/featured-extracurricular-activities-may-increase-likelihood-of-voting/">learn to take leadership and make collective decisions</a>. </p>
<p>Forty states <a href="http://civicyouth.org/new-circle-fact-sheet-describes-state-laws-standards-and-requirements-for-k-12-civics/">require</a> civics courses for graduation. Although each state writes its own standards, what they say about civics overlaps a great deal. For example, <a href="http://civicyouth.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/State-Civic-Ed-Requirements-Fact-Sheet-2012-Oct-19.pdf">all states’ standards</a> require the U.S. Constitution to be covered in the curriculum. And every state and the District of Columbia expect all students to learn about <a href="http://civicyouth.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/State-Civic-Ed-Requirements-Fact-Sheet-2012-Oct-19.pdf">the functioning of the government</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121569/original/image-20160506-32012-109xzds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121569/original/image-20160506-32012-109xzds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121569/original/image-20160506-32012-109xzds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121569/original/image-20160506-32012-109xzds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121569/original/image-20160506-32012-109xzds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121569/original/image-20160506-32012-109xzds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121569/original/image-20160506-32012-109xzds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">How well are America’s future citizens being prepared?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/kjd/2502535352/in/photolist-4P99zf-5RxPq8-8UBCPi-fvqJKk-nS799x-ammKdS-nEgux8-obqdU6-nEgegr-beXqPT-8ztvQ-aVJFE2-nkZsMj-beXqPF-gHYFC3-re3jc7-7Wb1eS-6zCzmj-8yofaw-986W2T-9J1DTp-9kYWCn-9AXNey-fvEYSG-cdBKX-6efcWq-nqxnj7-4qohCU-4H1Edw-nEZtZJ-6Fopqh-nCu36D-fvEZDN-kraAnk-3pHz8o-4Edn21-avSrfa-fvqJbP-a6uPzb-4JX6Sf-ds88u7-97MRkQ-5RT1Yt-ivegLN-nd5Xxo-65mxsr-8pFTa3-8ibaJ9-ePvSFw-6tPXGb">Kim Davies</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is not surprising, then, that 97 percent of <a href="http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pdf/main2010/2011466.pdf#page=41">high school seniors say</a> they have studied civics or government in school.</p>
<h2>What students know – and don’t know</h2>
<p>But what exactly are students learning? Is the situation as dire as some seem to believe? Or, do the students demonstrate a reasonable level of learning?</p>
<p>The answers to these questions depend on how you measure what students learn from their civics classes.</p>
<p>For example, after the federal government released its <a href="http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/">National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)</a> Civics Assessment report in 2011, The New York Times published an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/05/education/05civics.html?_r=0">article titled</a> “Failing Grades on Civics Exam Called a ‘Crisis.’”</p>
<p>But, a closer look reveals that students actually got a lot of the NAEP’s questions correct. When presented with a plausible list of ideals, more than half of eighth graders could <a href="http://www.nationsreportcard.gov/hgc_2014/#civics">choose the one</a> that’s stated in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution. </p>
<p>Clearly, they had studied the Constitution and remembered what they learned. </p>
<p>On the other hand, when eighth graders were asked to choose a “belief shared by most people of the United States,” a majority (51 percent) picked “The government should guarantee everybody a job,” and only a third chose the correct answer: “The government should be a democracy.”</p>
<p>Students are entitled to their own opinions about guaranteed employment, but this result suggests they misunderstood the U.S. political mainstream and current policy.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121574/original/image-20160506-32021-14mwjde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121574/original/image-20160506-32021-14mwjde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121574/original/image-20160506-32021-14mwjde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121574/original/image-20160506-32021-14mwjde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121574/original/image-20160506-32021-14mwjde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121574/original/image-20160506-32021-14mwjde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121574/original/image-20160506-32021-14mwjde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Students are spending time learning facts, but not learning how to discuss issues.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/wwworks/22088691939/in/photolist-zDUjyc-Ci8Rg3-w6YyLS-pjGSzi-6gz3yq-jGRYVs-9ktiXR-e3rEJq-9riyjU-nNUaWG-5Zs3Ut-dYRuSf-jGRYMG-9gL2FY-6m6kj4-6U9X9J-fCYnbn-aZpEUB-am9eCe-nMFxrf-ayysTi-dmbarB-6U9Yrd-b4yzRz-fDfXWL-5awC8o-4v5wXJ-7zeVM-bSQLse-fDfXLb-doEq7k-fDfXRd-fD6DPw-77AkZu-5qH82L-gwB1mr-fDcP71-bqPDKT-8RPNA2-77wpCp-6fivBJ-8oTq2a-5umDuc-7txDYG-fDfDwJ-b6Zbc6-nocbWr-6r5HQf-enWtJ8-rk2pPy">woodleywonderworks</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A close and nuanced view of what young people are learning reveals both the strengths and weaknesses of the current curriculum. Almost all students are spending time learning about core documents, especially the U.S. Constitution. However, they don’t always perform as well on questions about current events or apply their knowledge to current politics.</p>
<p>For instance, after the 2012 election, my colleagues and I conducted a telephone survey of young adults and <a href="http://civicyouth.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/CIRCLE-youthvoting-individualPages.pdf#pages=24">found that</a> only 10 percent met a standard of “informed voting” that we defined as correctly answering most questions about current politics and the recent campaign, having an opinion about a major policy issue, choosing a candidate whose position was consistent with their expressed opinion about that issue <em>and</em> actually voting. </p>
<h2>Learning to talk and listen</h2>
<p>The deficit that Jonathan Zimmerman names is not a lack of knowledge of the formal political system or even of current events, but an inability to discuss controversial issues with civility. Some students do learn to do that <a href="https://www.routledge.com/products/9780415880992">in their civics or social studies classrooms</a>, but many students miss that opportunity.</p>
<p>Deliberation is one of the advanced skills necessary in a democracy. In courses and schools where “civic education” devolves into learning a lot of facts about the official political system, students don’t learn such skills. They may even forget the factual details that they have crammed for tests.</p>
<p>Most state standards for social studies are long lists of fairly miscellaneous topics that must be covered. That way of defining and regulating civics leads to a lot of cramming information. </p>
<p>On the bright side, at least <a href="http://civicyouth.org/states-are-implementing-the-c3-college-career-and-citizenship-framework/">eight states</a> have started using the <a href="http://www.socialstudies.org/c3">C3 (College, Career and Citizenship) Framework</a> to guide revisions of their standards. In the C3 framework, instead of studying one topic after another, students explore content in order to address important questions and prepare for active citizenship. The idea is to make civic education deeper, more purposeful and more interesting.</p>
<h2>Inequality in civic education</h2>
<p>Some students already experience exciting and challenging civic education, but some do not. Unfortunately, the most advantaged young people <a href="http://civicyouth.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/CIRCLE_NAEPBechtelFactSheetApril30.final_.pdf">tend to get the best opportunities</a> in civics, as in most other areas of education. </p>
<p>For instance, opportunities to discuss social problems and current events are <a href="http://www.civicyouth.org/PopUps/WorkingPapers/WP59Kahne.pdf#page=13">more common for white students</a> and students who plan to attend college than for kids of color and those not heading for college. The same is true for community service opportunities.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121629/original/image-20160508-2513-1n22knl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121629/original/image-20160508-2513-1n22knl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121629/original/image-20160508-2513-1n22knl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121629/original/image-20160508-2513-1n22knl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121629/original/image-20160508-2513-1n22knl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121629/original/image-20160508-2513-1n22knl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121629/original/image-20160508-2513-1n22knl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Opportunities to discuss current events are more common for white students.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/itupictures/8369682249/">ITU Pictures</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Furthermore, schools themselves send implicit messages about who matters in society, whose voice counts, who has power and how power is exercised. For instance, African-American and Latino students are <a href="https://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/resources/projects/center-for-civil-rights-remedies/school-to-prison-folder/state-reports/discipline-and-participation-the-long-term-effects-of-suspension-and-school-security-on-the-political-and-civic-engagement-of-youth/kupchik-discipline-engagement-ccrr-conf-2013.pdf">far more likely</a> than white students to be punished for the same infractions. Schools that serve disadvantaged kids are more <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1021320817372">likely to be authoritarian and discriminatory</a>. </p>
<p>Since a school represents the government, these kinds of disparities send powerfully alienating messages about civic engagement and further expand gaps in civic engagement by offering the most empowering experiences to more advantaged kids.</p>
<h2>Need for innovation</h2>
<p>Civics in the 21st century should be excitingly different. The political world for which we are preparing students has changed dramatically, as have our students’ demographics and backgrounds. For instance, to stay informed, citizens once had to understand how a printed newspaper was organized, but now they have to know which social media to trust, follow and share. </p>
<p>Clearly, there is a need to innovate. The point is not to “bring back” the civics we once had, which <a href="http://yalebooks.com/book/9780300062564/what-americans-know-about-politics-and-why-it-matters">never produced</a> an impressively informed adult public. </p>
<p>A major priority in improving civics should be to expand opportunities for high-quality learning and engagement where they are most scarce today. That way, we can help students learn that politics and civic affairs are interesting, relevant and
even enjoyable.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56854/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Levine consults with the National Council for the Social Studies, which publishes the College, Career, and Civic Life standards.
Peter Levine has received funding from: Abt Associates American Association of University Women Aspen Institute Beldon Foundation, JEHT Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and Solidago Fund Bill of Rights Institute (BORI) Bonner Foundation Bridging Theory to Practice Carnegie Corporation of New York Case Foundation Center for Public Integity (CPI) Civic Enterprises LLC Close Up Foundation Corporation for National and Community Service Deliberative Democracy Consortium Democracy Fund Democracy Fund with Knight Foundation and McCormick Foundation Engelhard Foundation Ford Foundation Ford Foundation Foundation for Civic Leadership and The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Foundation Generation Engage Grosvenor Fund, National Geographic Foundation Indiana Humanities Council Jobs for the Future Kellogg Foundation (via Brandeis University prime) Kettering Foundation Knight Foundation Massachusetts Department of Education National Conference on Citizenship Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek. New America Foundation Next Generation Learning Challenge Omidyar Network Online News Association Poynter Institute S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation Spencer Foundation State of Florida through University of South Florida The Florence and John Schumann Foundation The McCormick Foundation The Nonzero Foundation The Pew Charitable Trusts The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Tides Foundation US Department of Education WT Grant Foundation.
He is affiliated with: Paul J. Aicher Foundation, Director (2009-present) Discovering Justice (2013-present) Charles F. Kettering Foundation, Trustee (2004-present; program committee chair 2012-14) Street Law, Inc., Director and Program Committee Chair (2004-present)
</span></em></p>Ninety-seven percent of high school seniors have studied civics in school. While they can recall facts, they are unable to apply that knowledge to current politics. Why is that?Peter Levine, Associate Dean for Research and Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship & Public Affairs, Tufts UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/510892015-11-25T05:04:53Z2015-11-25T05:04:53ZWhere are the voices of indigenous peoples in the Thanksgiving story?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103072/original/image-20151124-18225-1azmjab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What's missing in the telling of this history?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=&searchterm=first%20thanksgiving&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=238058800">Painting image via www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Thanksgiving is an important time, when schools teach the story of who we are and where we come from as a nation. </p>
<p>My own students have told me about the Thanksgiving story they learned in school, which focused solely on the survival of the Pilgrims and the friendly meal shared with “Indians.”</p>
<p>In my research and experience as a teacher educator, I have found social studies curricular materials (textbooks and state standards) routinely place indigenous peoples in a troubling narrative that promotes <a href="http://zinnedproject.org/materials/indian-removal/">“Manifest Destiny”</a> – the belief that the creation of the United States and the dominance of white American culture were destined and that the costs to others, especially to indigenous peoples, were justified.</p>
<p>As we consider history and its place in our schools, it is important to ask: how do state-mandated history standards represent indigenous peoples in social studies education? And, in this season of “Thanksgiving,” should we revise our curriculum to be more accurate and culturally relevant? </p>
<h2>Placing indigenous peoples in the shadows of the past</h2>
<p>From late 2011 through early 2013, <a href="http://usu.academia.edu/RyanKnowles">social studies scholars Ryan Knowles</a>, <a href="http://missouri.academia.edu/GregSoden">Greg Soden</a>, <a href="http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Antonio_Castro20">Antonio Castro</a> and I conducted a thorough <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00933104.2014.999849#.VlRox7yMBE4">study</a> of state-mandated K-12 history standards across all 50 states and Washington, DC.</p>
<p>We analyzed the standards in two ways: 1) the percentage of standards that included content about indigenous peoples pre-1900 versus post-1900 and 2) how the standards presented the story of indigenous peoples in US history. </p>
<p>We found 87% of the standards placed indigenous peoples in a pre-1900 context. </p>
<p>In other words, these standards confined indigenous peoples to a distant past.</p>
<p>This pre-1900 time stamp is <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_vanishing_American.html?id=7qYrAQAAIAAJ&hl=en">significant</a> because the turn of the 20th century saw increased American military conquests of indigenous lands and peoples as the country expanded west toward the Pacific Ocean.</p>
<p>But the standards rarely, if ever, present these events and the loss of life and land from the perspective of indigenous peoples. </p>
<p>Other scholars have written about similar findings in their research. </p>
<p>For example, University of North Carolina-Greensboro’s <a href="http://uncg.academia.edu/WayneJournell">Wayne Journell</a> <a href="https://jaie.asu.edu/sites/default/files/482_2009_2_journell.pdf">found</a> that 10 states – California, Georgia, Indiana, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia – conclude their coverage of indigenous cultures and histories in US history standards around the “removal policies” of the 1830s. </p>
<p>Removal policies, led in large part by President Andrew Jackson, forcibly moved indigenous peoples off their lands. These policies, legalized under the <a href="http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Indian.html">Indian Removal Act</a>, opened territories to American settlers traveling west.</p>
<p>Our research on curriculum standards also found that while most states included the Indian Removal Act, many excluded any consideration of the consequences to indigenous peoples related to their forced removal.</p>
<p><a href="http://cech.uc.edu/programs/curriculum_instruction/employees.html?eid=chandlpe&thecomp=uceprof">Prentice Chandler</a>, who researches race and racism in social studies education at the University of Cincinnati, articulates the <a href="http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ887317">problem</a> of placing indigenous peoples in the distant past, in the following way:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The treatment of American Indians in history texts pushes them to the fringes of the story: Native Americans are seen as having cordial relations with whites, being obstacles for Manifest Destiny, and eventually succumbing to white progress, never to be discussed again, as though they never existed.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Perpetuation of stereotypes</h2>
<p>Along with controlling when indigenous peoples are included, standards and textbooks also dictate how their experiences are told. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.history.ucr.edu/People/Faculty/Trafzer/">Historians Clifford Trafzer</a> and <a href="http://csusb.academia.edu/MichelleLorimer">Michelle Lorimer</a> <a href="http://abs.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/08/02/0002764213495032">found</a> that California social studies textbooks failed to include critical content about the kidnapping, rape, enslavement and murder of indigenous peoples during the Gold Rush era of the mid- to late-1800s.</p>
<p>The texts instead focused on the exciting lives of American pioneers who traveled West in search of wealth. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103074/original/image-20151124-18227-c2vevl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103074/original/image-20151124-18227-c2vevl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103074/original/image-20151124-18227-c2vevl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103074/original/image-20151124-18227-c2vevl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103074/original/image-20151124-18227-c2vevl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103074/original/image-20151124-18227-c2vevl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103074/original/image-20151124-18227-c2vevl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Native Americans are generally stereotyped and shown with feathers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/s/native+american/search.html?page=2&thumb_size=mosaic&inline=246628351">Woman image via www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In yet another examination of textbooks published between 1991 and 2004, social studies scholar <a href="https://www.utoledo.edu/education/depts/ci/faculty/sanchez/index.html">Tony Sanchez</a> <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10665680701493565">found</a> that although the quantity of content related to indigenous peoples increased over time, the quality – in terms of how accurately cultures and histories are represented – is lacking. </p>
<p>For example, Sanchez found most descriptions of indigenous people’s clothing were stereotypical. Instead of including a variety of examples of cultural dress, the texts used generalizations, such as showing indigenous peoples wearing feathers and breechcloth. </p>
<h2>Boarding school experiences</h2>
<p>There are many other such glaring omissions.</p>
<p>My own <a href="http://www.infoagepub.com/products/Doing-Race-in-Social-Studies">research</a> looked at how textbooks published between 2011 and 2013 wrote about the <a href="https://content.lib.washington.edu/aipnw/marr.html">“boarding school era”</a> – the period after the Civil War and into the 1900s during which the federal government used legal means to remove indigenous children from their homes. </p>
<p>Six of the eight textbooks I studied wrote that these education policies were peaceful reforms. </p>
<p>These texts presented, above all, the perspectives of white American reformers. These reformers believed boarding schools should be used to Christianize and educate indigenous children in the white American way of life. </p>
<p>The perspectives of indigenous peoples affected by this education policy were largely ignored. The textbooks did not include the stories of indigenous parents’ efforts to fight the removal of their children. Very few of the texts featured testimonies from indigenous children themselves – either positive or negative. There was little discussion of the lasting effects of these policies today. </p>
<p>Even when indigenous peoples were included in the textbooks, it was only as short, simplified sidebars or at the end of chapters. </p>
<h2>Bringing this to Thanksgiving</h2>
<p><a href="http://evergreen.edu/faculty/instructor/rainsf">Francis Rains</a>, a scholar of Native American studies and history at Evergreen State College, and Karen Swisher, an education scholar and former president of Haskell Indian Nations University, have <a href="http://www.socialstudies.org/system/files/publications/se/6301/630108.html">asked</a> teachers to consider the following when teaching about indigenous peoples:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We believe that we should be asking what should be taught, when it should be taught, and how it should be taught. Perhaps most importantly, we should be asking, Why are we teaching about “Indians” or “Native Americans”? </p>
</blockquote>
<p>My own students, all education majors, regularly talk about how they learned Thanksgiving as children. We discuss how the story many of us grew up learning in school neglects the voices and experiences of the indigenous nations whose lands were invaded by Europeans, including the Pilgrims.</p>
<p>The late <a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/%7Elibrary/collprog/cdp/nascdp.html?mswitch-redir=classic">Michael Dorris</a>, first Chair of Native American Studies at Dartmouth, <a href="http://www.rethinkingschools.org/ProdDetails.asp?ID=094296120X">articulated</a> the problem with Thanksgiving in this way:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If there was really a Plymouth Thanksgiving dinner, with Native Americans in attendance as either guests or hosts, then the event was rare indeed. Pilgrims generally considered Indians to be devils in disguise, and treated them as such.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This Thanksgiving, let us hear and learn the story of indigenous peoples – their past, present and future – through <em>their</em> voices and not through the voice of Manifest Destiny.</p>
<p>As Francis Rains <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=N5JtR56v_bgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=critical+race+theory+perspectives+on+social+studies&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMIsfaD86WdyQIVAVU-Ch1rGwdX#v=onepage&q=critical%20race%20theory%20perspectives%20on%20social%20studies&f=false">reflected</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In social studies we have an opportunity to invite students to rethink things, to offer alternatives, even of past events, as a means of learning. As citizens of a country that prides itself on justice and democracy, we have an opportunity to help students understand the consequences of when justice and/or democracy fails.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51089/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah B Shear does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>American textbooks confine the history of indigenous peoples to a distant past.
Should history textbooks be revised to include Native American voices?Sarah B Shear, Assistant Professor, Social Studies Education, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.