I’m not much of a Catholic, but I send my daughter to a Catholic school. I find a lot of Catholicism/Christianity to not make a lot of sense, but the educational baseline was far superior to what she would have received in the Knoxville/San Antonio public school systems and for far less than the cost of the home it would take for us to live in a superior, well-funded school district in either city.
So I didn’t have a problem sending my daughter to a “social justice school” which didn’t completely comport with my values, UR, and neither should other conservatives.
People need to stop making their kids into copies of themselves, imho.
Here’s the dirty little secret about social studies: only 8 states include social studies on state tests. A school is not measured by how well its students know history or government–ironic, since the whole emphasis on uniform standards was raised by Lynne Cheney (future VP Dick Cheney’s wife) back in 1994 when she ranted that students were graduating from high school without knowing who James Madison was. I worked on state curriculum a few years later, and most social studies teachers were happy NOT to be on the state test because they wanted more flexibility on content and less pressure. (I was the exception.) There are Common Core standards for social studies, but they tend to be quite general.
Since schools aren’t measured by state tests, and budgets tend to be tight, social studies gets short shrift. Hey, why not include it in other content area, like English? Kids can learn (a little) about Martin Luther King, Jr. in their fifth grade reader! The elementary schools in my district used to teach state history for an entire semester in fourth grade; now they try to squeeze in a week at the end of the year. The content areas that ARE on state tests naturally become the focus. This is truenationally.
I checked the Minnesota state graduation requirements and the course catalog for Duluth high schools. MN requires 3.5 credits in social studies (Good!), but doesn’t require specific courses. That means that if the district can incorporate US history, world history, geography, government and citizenship (civics), or economics into other courses, it still meets the requirements.
Onlyeight states *don’t *require public schools to provide textbooks at no charge. Indiana is one of the eight but is considering changing that, which would leave 7 states. Hopefully that will change in your state, too.
Given the dreadful effect of state tests on teaching, I hesitate to call for adding a social studies test–but this is exactly right. Schools are under tremendous pressure to raise test scores, and when subjects like social studies and writing aren’t on the tests, teachers who want to teach these subjects can feel like they’re swimming up a waterfall.
My worry is that if they were tested, then instead of having kids study the civic issues and historical trends and figures that interest them, instead of having them learn about money by making and pricing and selling items at a tailgate market, instead of finding good performances and speakers to enrich their understanding of culture, I’d be required to follow a pacing guide through a textbook and issue countless standardized benchmark tests to prove that they were learning the things whose learning is easily quantified and standardized.
Oh, two further points on edit:
I know you’re not calling for state tests for social studies, so I’m not trying to ding you for that; I’m just riffing off your comment :).
I never knew of any comon core social studies standards. Turns out those don’t come on until sixth grade, and even then they’re just subsets of literacy standards. Individual states still set their own social studies curriculum.
I don’t think novels one reads in class are considered “textbooks”. They are supplementary materials: art supplies are a better analogy than textbooks. I’m not a fan of the practice, but it’s pretty widespread in advanced English classes, IME.
We test social studies in Texas, or at least we test US History, and it’s absolutely what you are worried about: a rote test of core facts.
Social studies is by far the most controversial area to make standards for: there’s almost nothing everyone agrees on, and every fight is really about something else.
And you think that is simply because of this? (By the way, this is a district wide initiative - its not the principal).
You don’t think it is perhaps because Edina is undergoing changing demographics? Which is one of the reasons they are addressing these issues.
Or perhaps its because Minnesota spent a few years with 100% ACT participation - so instead of primarily college bound Juniors taking the ACT, all Juniors took the ACT - so pretty much every district in the state has seen their numbers go down during the past four years?
Or perhaps its confirmation bias, parents who are not disposed to think that an emphasis on diversity and closing gaps is a good thing perceive that their schools are not as good when the school district addresses those concerns?
Or perhaps its funding related? Minnesota has really seen issues with K-12 funding and they kids who were really shorted by the recession and the state budget issues are high school students now.
Or perhaps its the No Child Left Behind? - I don’t know what it was like in Edina, but when my Senior in High School was in 3rd-5th grade, the focus was really on getting the kids who weren’t doing well up to meet minimum standards for testing - so there are some very bitter parents in my district who felt like their higher achievers got the short end of the stick.
So I went to find out which states and found this:
Urbanredneck might be interested to know that several states have passed minority representation laws. And it isn’t just the liberal strongholds you would think.
(Kentucky, California, Florida, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Alaska, Louisiana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oregon, South Carolina, and Tennessee all have some sort of law that says public schools must either have non-discriminatory materials and/or have curriculum that represent diverse contributions to society)
The states that do not require free textbooks are Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Utah, South Carolina, Illinois, Kentucky and Colorado with other states permitting deposits or charges for damages.
Well again, when I was in school we covered different topics such as the environment, unemployment, poverty and health issues. Sometimes all the way back to first grade. In high school we covered alot of current issues just by reading thru the newspapers or Time magazine.
It also depends upon where the school is at. When I went to a rural school a big issue was matters relating to the farm economy.
Question: how do you get a kid to feel passionate about a topic? Frankly from what I’m seeing is the kids can feel pretty nervous about expressing themselves especially if they know other students have different points of view.
Also how can you have a discussion on a social issue without it turning into a big fight? Look at the current focus on “microaggressions”.
What should a student do if they are afraid their opinion could set off a fellow student or the teacher?
What do you think schools SHOULD do? Every time I ask that, it seems like you respond with an anecdote about either your own experiences or your child’s experiences, but I can’t tell if you are suggesting they are the ideal, they were adequate, or they were wrong.
All those questions you asked are things you fix with good teaching. It’s like asking a heart surgeon “What do you do about bleeding? And reattaching the skin and muscle after? And what if someone has a heart attack while you are operating?”. They are hard, thorny problems, and all the training you do is to help you over come them. That’s the heart of the task.
Well thats alot to talk about. Frankly none of those would be wrong.
Now I want to ask you, would the kids be interested? Are the topics still relevant? Really when you get down to it, all those topics above come down to one group was doing some bad things to another.
The real world - The kids ALREADY get that! Why keep hammering them on the same stuff?
Are you going to bore the kids to death going on about social issues when they REALLY want to learn the cool stuff in history?
For example my son says he is bored in history class because for example, on WW2, they never discuss battles, generals, or weapons. Its all the social issues like the holocaust, women working, and racial segregation.
In the later 1800’s they never discuss cool stuff like gunfighters or the wild west but spend all the time on issues like jim crow and womens rights.
Are you looking at the kids interest? You got a bunch of kids playing say Assassins Creed Black Flag, which touches on the conquistadors. Would you incorporate that into a lesson?
Again, you mention the holocaust above (which is covered in my sons history books). Wouldn’t the students be more interested in comparing say German panzer tanks vs American Sherman tanks? Wouldnt they rather discuss the developments in fighter aircraft including early jets? Lots of STEM in that.
Are you making history REAL? For example, do the kids get to taste hardtack, hold a viking sword, or travel in a covered wagon? Heck would they even know how to use a dial telephone?
So in conclusion, I’m saying none of the above topics you mention are bad. Its just that I dont think the kids are interested, it has little relevance to what to the kids lives, doesnt teach them to love history or seek to study it further, and is frankly counter-productive because it bores the kids to death and drops their interest in the topic.
PS.
On the topic of things we are not taught, we had lessons about the civil war all thru school and in college but nowhere did they mention Order 11. I was in my 30’s when I learned about it. Why was that?
In a civics course, what the war was about is more important than how the war was fought. Sorry, UR, but if your kid wants to learn the differences between two tanks, he can go to Wiki.
What I’m saying is social issues ARE taught and always have been taught.
The big question though is to;
what degree should they be taught
whos interpretation?
how much should they be the focus.
PS. I am big on teaching kids to be good writers. But does a kids writing HAVE to be about social issues or be their only focus? Can they write about things like motorcycles or sports?
Well… yeah. Because one of those things actually matters.
I mean, don’t get me wrong. The Extra History episodes that spend a half-hour or so talking about the hunt for the Bismarck is excellent pulp history (and seriously, these guys rock and are worth a look if you’re at all interested in history). It’s fun to watch.
It’s just… it didn’t really matter. I mean, okay, at the time, for the purpose of “we need to do this to not lose the war”, it was pretty important. No doubt about that. But the cultural reverberations of the hunt for the Bismarck do not reach through to today. Naval warfare isn’t even fought like that any more. Basically nothing about that event other than the outcome mattered. The same is true of basically every single major battle in history. The outcome mattered, but unless it’s a modern battle that changed the way we do war to this day… It probably doesn’t matter that much beyond who won and who lost.
Now compare that to millions of women going to work in the factories, and to Rosie the Riveter, and to the Holocaust. These are things that have had a massive reverberation in culture, and continue to do so to this day. Why is the Israel situation so intractable to this day? Why is feminism such a substantial movement to this day? Why are people talking about the so-called “two-income trap” to this day? All of these things are important to understand why the world is the way it is, in a way that even the most crucial battles like D-Day simply are not. It’s extremely rare that there are exceptions to this rule - Verdun, for being an introduction to the concept of trench warfare and chemical weapons may qualify - and so, most battles, while interesting, just don’t make the cut. It may not be as fun (or arguably, people are not as good at teaching it), but these subjects are ones that matter.
I think you perhaps misunderstood me. I may not have been clear, so I apologize.
The topics I mentioned above aren’t social issues. They’re history. As such, they are currently being taught in history classrooms all over the country.
You said this:
So my questions to you are:
How do you define “social issues?”
Given your statement that schools should not be “go[ing] into social issues,” what specifically do you feel should be off topic when teaching any or all of the above topics?
I just thought about something. The above issues happened 50 or more years ago. However the themes are with us today. Why not instead study their modern equivalent?
Jim Crow. That was where blacks were prohibited from going to certain places or using public accommodations. Isnt that similar to the “safe spaces”? How about the push for places where white people are not allowed?
Why not study the antifa movement and violence from the left?
Again, these are current, modern issues students can get first hand knowledge about. They can talk to the people. The can watch videos. This isnt just something in a black and white picture in a history book.
Fuck no they’re not similar. The anti-free-speech movement on college campuses today–at least the one you’re talking about–is similar to the far fringes of the antiwar movement of the sixties. Which usually isn’t taught today. You want to teach the equivalent of McCarthyism (that is, the fear of secret Communists who are trying to destroy our country)_, you gotta figure out whom the establishment fears most today–that is, Muslim terrorists–and figure out who gets accused of being a secret Muslim. Who would that be?
Fuck no: a safe space doesn’t involve terroristic murders. You know that, man. If you want to teach about the new Jim Crow, well, there’s a book for that.
Because they’re totally insignificant, that’s why. I mean, look at civilians killed or beaten unjustly. If you’re actually interested in studying this issue, you could look at police brutality or unjustified military strikes or attacks by racist gangs.
Or, of course, you can try to turn our schools into a hobbyhorse for your pet political causes. But isn’t that what you claim to argue against?
Well… No. Not really. Not at all. The key thing about McCarthyism was not that sometimes, you could get kicked out of college for wrongthink (let alone that you could lose an invitation to a speaking arrangement, or have angry students yelling at you). The key thing about McCarthyism was how fairly baseless accusations of affiliation with communists could get you persecuted at the highest levels of government, and the atmosphere of fear this created throughout the country. These things aren’t really particularly comparable, and perhaps more importantly, there’s still very much an open question whether this trend of chilling speech at college campuses will affect the outside world (FWIW I’m more open to this argument since seeing the things happening at Google), or whether it will continue. The comparison to McCarthyism is… not great.
No. No, it really isn’t. It’s not even remotely in the same ballpark. You’re fundamentally misunderstanding something here. The comparison is so bad that I honestly don’t even know where to start.
Even at its most uncharitable, in the form that is most convenient to your argument, safe spaces are a reality of small spaces on specific college campuses that certain activists have taken over in order to do certain things with them. That really doesn’t nail the concept in any meaningful way, mind you, but you could characterize certain safe spaces in that way without being totally off-base.
By contrast, Jim Crow was essentially a half-century-long reign of terror for African-Americans, where they were legally cemented in their status as second-class citizens, constantly reminded of how they were a separate - and lesser - class of human beings, relegated to poverty and the margins of society, and murdered if they tried to do something about it. Or, for that matter, murdered if they looked at a white woman funny, or if they tried to vote, or if they tried to run businesses successfully…
Safe spaces, the new Jim Crow? Seriously? No! No, sorry (not sorry), this is like comparing the holocaust to that time a jewish banker denied your home loan extension. There’s just no comparison.
Because antifa is, politically and socially, virtually a non-entity. An interesting conversation piece, useful for signaling at best. So a nazi got punched, and some political events got rowdy. This is important because…? This is like asking that history textbooks talk about those assaults at Trump rallies - not in the historical context of “how Trump became president” and the factors leading up to it, but just in terms of the violence. It’s negligible. The so-called “violent left” is nowhere near as significant as you and right-wing pundits make it out to be. It’s about as meaningful a political force as the “violent alt-right” - i.e. not really.
And most of them are trumped-up culture war fodder that are nowhere near as important as the things you compare them to when it comes to actually understanding where we are and how we got here. They may be your personal hobby-horses, but pretending that they’re horribly important just doesn’t work.