Where Did History Go?

I recently read an article online with the title “Schools Using Fake 'History' to Kill America”. The opening paragraph of the article says, “Americans educated by government today are, for the most part, hopelessly ignorant of their own nation’s history – and that’s no accident. They’re beyond ignorant when it comes to civics, too. On the history of the rest of the world … Americans are generally clueless as well.”

The article goes into a fair amount of depth about how we got this way and how many are now peddling such things as the “1619 Project” as a replacement for the traditional narrative. I heartily recommend the article.

But even in parts of the country where these new concepts have not yet been introduced, we are just as vulnerable to their impact – and that’s the area I’d like to explore in a little more detail.

 

Where we were

When I was in elementary school, learning history was a key part of the curriculum. The first extended writing assignment I can remember was about the history of our hometown (Wolcott, CT). We had to write a series of papers about several aspects of that history, including Early Settlers (John Alcox), Famous People (Seth Thomas, Amos Bronson Alcott), Native Americans (they were still called Indians back then), Places in town (the story behind Potuccos Ring Road), etc. These stories were written on wide-lined paper so it was probably in 3^rd grade. (I still have them in my box of “things to keep” from my childhood.) Later we studied the history of the US, then in high school there was a second round that went into more detail as well as specific courses in Civics, etc.

 

Standardized Testing

One of the more significant items that led to the setting aside of teaching history (and all the other related “social studies” subjects such as government, etc.) was the increased emphasis on standardized testing. This can be illustrated in a summary of the NCLB (No Child Left Behind) legislation of 2001. A few quotes:

“[S]tates are required to test students in reading and math in grades 3-8 and once in high school. All students are expected to meet or exceed state standards in reading and math by 2014”

“NCLB requires each state to establish state academic standards and a state testing system that meet federal requirements.”

Whether or not you agree with the goals of NCLB, it’s important to notice what’s MISSING. With federal monies now tied to the teaching of reading and math, even if you as a teacher want to give a well-rounded education, your focus is going to be primarily on those two subjects. Your evaluation as a teacher is dependent on it, the administration is going to be measured on it! So, what is going to be set aside – among other things, HISTORY!

One of the other things missing from the original NCLB legislation was coverage of science. This was later added when the emphasis on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) was recognized as important. The ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) which replaced the NCLB now includes requirement for standardized testing in science as well.

As one source put it:

“States must test students in reading and math once a year in grades 3 through 8, as well as once in high school. They must also test kids in science once in grade school, middle school and high school.”

“ESSA encourages states and districts to get rid of unnecessary testing.”

This last quote is especially discouraging. Essentially, the federal government, with the weight of financial incentives as the carrot on the stick, is requiring schools to eliminate history and any testing related to it as “unnecessary” and to focus on only on the teaching/testing of reading/math/science!

More recently, some have begun the replacement of STEM with STEAM and adding an emphasis on Art to the other areas. But in all this, we continue to leave out History!

 

Pennsylvania – an example of the above

The standardized testing in PA is necessarily aligned with the above federal standards in order to receive federal funding. Testing in PA is called the PSSA (Pennsylvania System of School Assessment). As one of the websites of the PA Dept of Education notes, the PSSA

“includes assessments in English Language Arts and Mathematics which are taken by students in grades 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. Students in grades 4 and 8 are administered the Science PSSA. The English Language Arts and Mathematics PSSAs include items that are consistent with the Assessment Anchors/Eligible Content aligned to the Pennsylvania Core Standards in English Language Arts and Mathematics. The Science PSSA includes items that are aligned to the Assessment Anchors/Eligible Content aligned to the Pennsylvania Academic Standards for Science, Technology, Environment and Ecology.”

Similarly, the assessment page of the Department of Education (located here) says,

“The annual Pennsylvania System [of] School Assessment is a standards-based, criterion-referenced assessment which provides students, parents, educators and citizens with an understanding of student and school performance related to the attainment of proficiency of the academic standards. These standards in English Language Arts, Mathematics, and Science and Technology identify what a student should know and be able to do at varying grade levels.”

Until a year ago, our grandchildren here in PA were attending Seven Generations Charter School in Emmaus. As their mission statement notes, they are “an academically rich educational community creating generations of stewards who embrace our world and each other.” Further, it states that they are “committed to a public education alternative that promotes sustainability and citizenship with an interdisciplinary, individualized, project-based curriculum.”

To be honest, they do an excellent job of living up to that mission statement. But now look at the curriculum behind that mission. Their core curriculum talks about their English Language Arts program and their Mathematics program. As an environmentally-focused school, they have separate webpages for each grade on that subject. For example, the fourth grade page says they “study the relationship between a community’s resources and its impacts on the waste stream, types of energy and alternative energy source, and pest management practices.”

Again, they are very good at what they do and very mission-focused. But the curriculum is deficient in the same way as all other PA public schools – there is NO HISTORY!

 

What We Did

Our daughter was increasingly noticing that the attitudes/language that our grandsons were bringing home from school was not always appropriate. And with the oldest one approaching middle school, we knew that it was going to be getting worse as he interacted with the other public-school students. So, this past fall we pulled all of them out of SGCS. They are now being home schooled, but under the auspices of Liberty University Online Academy (LUOA). LUOA has five subjects in all the elementary/middle school grades – Bible, Literacy/Language Arts (English), Mathematics, Science, and History. The first of these will help address the attitudinal problems we were experiencing, and the last will address the deficiency being discussed in this blog.

I had been doing some supplementing in the history area before this. I have a passion for the intersection of genealogy, geography, and history and have written a number of “genealogy stories” in my blog. When I go to visit our grandchildren in Florida, one of the things that I get asked at least daily is “tell us a Grampa story!” This is always met with enthusiasm by me and is a chance for them to get a history/geography education. And I sometimes do it as well with our grandchildren here in PA.

But with the change to this new curriculum, our grandsons here are getting a much broader exposure to history than I could provide on my own. And by “history” I include the subject areas of civics/geography/culture that make up what I used to know as “social studies” when I was growing up. One of the major end-of-year projects for our 5^th grader this year was an extensive PowerPoint presentation on the State (Commonwealth) of Pennsylvania – with slides coving history, government, geography, culture (PA Deutsch), and food. And our 3^rd graders are now thoroughly versed in the three branches of government (legislative, executive, and judicial) and its application in federal, state/commonwealth and local governments. They have also looked at Chinese history.

 

Conclusion

The article referenced at the beginning of this blog is about the teaching of what the author refers to as “fake history.” It concludes with the following paragraph:

“Whether the rot and corruption that has taken over the teaching of history and civics in America’s government schools can be reversed remains to be seen. But diagnosing an illness is the first step to treating and curing it.”

I agree with that statement. But it is also helpful to understand why we had an environment into which this “rot and corruption” could take hold. While we can all point fingers at the current liberal left (mostly Democrats) for the 1619 Project and Critical Race Theory, we need to realize that the NCLB “passed Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support in 2001 and was signed into law by President George W. Bush” (see article in EdWeek). The US Government probably had the best of intentions when Congress passed this legislation. But by focusing solely on Reading and Mathematics (and later Science), one of the unintended consequences was to eliminate any emphasis on other subjects (like History). That void was created 20 years ago and it was into this void that the current “fake history” has now come.

George Santayana is credited with saying (in 1905), “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This has been transformed by many into “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.” Regardless of which wording you choose to use; this quotation has a lot of merit to it.

So, amid the current anger about those who are introducing this “fake history” into our schools, let’s not forget that part of the solution must be to reinstate the historical narrative that we pulled out 20 years ago. To quote an idiom attributed to Aristotle, “nature abhors a vacuum.” If we continue to leave the prior historical narrative out, then there will be some other form of “fake history” that we will have to deal with in the future!