School board meetings across Minnesota are experiencing an unusually heightened level of scrutiny.
From across the state, reports have emerged of meetings in overflowing gymnasiums, of enraged parents shouting at board members, and of disagreements between school board members.
At the center of this surge in interest is the term “critical race theory” – a legal theory that originated in the mid-1970s that seeks to critically examine U.S. law as it intersects with race through a social, cultural and legal lens and maintains that racism is embedded in the legal system. The authors include legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, who told the American Bar Association that the term is to be used as a verb and not a noun. She created the framework, along with Derrick Bell, Richard Delago and several others, to understand how racism is embedded in U.S. laws and institutions.
In the current national dialogue, some conservative outlets and organizations have conflated the theory with efforts in schools to teach students about systemic racism and diversity.
Here’s a look at what the social studies standards are for Minnesota’s public school students, and what the controversy is about.
Minnesota’s standards
In accordance with state statutes, the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) establishes academic requirements and standards for K-12 education for language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, physical education, and the arts.
MDE is now in the midst of a review of the state’s social studies standards that will set the framework for what students will learn in their social studies classes for the next 10 years. The revision process, which began last summer, occurs once a decade, with implementation of the revision taking five years after the process begins.
Currently, social studies includes four core disciplines: civics and government, economics, geography and U.S. and world history. But according to members of the social studies review committee, an additional core discipline, ethnic studies, will be added for an upcoming draft, as was instructed to the committee in June by the Department of Education.
Examples from the current standards
Standards from the last round of revisions were completed in 2012 and the 133-page compilation of current standards can be found here. Relevant examples from 2012 include the following for the U.S. history:
- “rivalries among European nations and their search for new opportunities fueled expanding global trade networks and, in North America, colonization and settlement and the exploitation of indigenous peoples and lands; colonial development evoked varied responses by indigenous nations, and produced regional societies and economies that included imported slave labor and distinct forms of local government.”
- “Regional tensions around economic development, slavery, territorial expansion and governance resulted in a civil war and a period of Reconstruction that led to the abolition of slavery, a more powerful federal government, a renewed push into indigenous nations’ territory, and continuing conflict over racial relations.”
The review process
The current review committee consists of 38 individuals from varying backgrounds and according to MDE is the most diverse committee group selected to date. Originally, the committee consisted of 44 individuals selected from a pool of 200 interested applicants from across the state. Per state law, selection of the committee must meet certain requirements and include parents of school-age children, teachers throughout the state, members of local school boards and charter schools, business owners and members of the general public.
Bobbie Burham, an assistant commissioner at the Department of Education, says the goal of the review is to “ensure each standard and benchmark aligns with the current college and career readiness standards, as well as up to date information in the particular subject area.”
Burham says the review committee follows a national framework called the College and Career and Civic Life Framework for Social Studies Standards, that is developed by the National Council for Social Studies, an organization affiliated with the regional and state social studies associations. And while the committee advises the education commissioner on standard revisions, it is the education commissioner that gets a final say.
The actual curriculum that is taught in schools is set up at the district or individual school level.
“We don’t have power or authority to dictate or design any curriculum; that’s up to the schools and the districts to do,” says committee member Danyika Leonard. “That’s not in our directive, nor is it in our ability to do it.”
Of particular note is the addition of ethnic studies as a new core discipline to the social studies curriculum.
What would ethnic studies entail?
Ethnic studies is the interdisciplinary and comparative study of the role that ethnicity, race and racism play in the construction of the United States history, culture and society.
“It promotes unity and cross-cultural understanding by teaching about the North American values of democracy, freedom and equality through the historical struggles of one nation to achieve liberty and justice for all,” Leonard said. “And so I say that intentionally, just because ethnic studies is a place where you get to learn multiple perspectives, it’s not just the Eurocentric perspective that has been taught in American public schools for decades.”
As a Black woman, Leonard says she received two educations.
“I had the one I went to school with, and then the one that my mom made sure augmented my learning. History for me was different because I had my mom at home who made me read books, watch movies and documentaries, the things that I was not learning in school. I would learn at home,” Leonard said.
That students aren’t being taught a wider spectrum of history is a disservice, Leonard said. “I really want our students to have access to all this information because it will help guide their critical thoughts and help them learn to become a world citizen.”
Talk of adding ethnic studies as a core to the social studies curriculum in Minnesota isn’t new and dates to before 2011, according to both Leonard and Carlstorm.
In October, a number of community members were asked to take an informal poll about whether ethnic studies should be added as a fifth core discipline or if it should be embedded into the current standard. Leonard says the overwhelming majority of the committee said that ethnic studies should either be embedded into the curriculum or be created as its own strand.
“There was an overall agreement that ethnic studies needed to be a part of this next iteration of the standard,” Leonard said.
[cms_ad:x104]
Until June, MDE had directed committee members to embed ethnic studies into the standard curriculum, but then reversed course and decided that it should be made into its own core discipline.
The current revisions include an addition of curriculum on the LGBTQ rights movement, an expanded curriculum on Minnesota tribes and the Native American perspective of U.S. history, in addition to more in-depth instruction on systemic racism.
The controversy
Conservatives and liberals alike have expressed disappointment in segments of a first draft that was released in December, with Minnesotans of varying ideologies expressing concern over the omission of key historical events from the examples in the draft, namely the Holocaust, World War I and II, and the Civil War.
The conservative Center of the American Experiment published a series of articles calling the draft “woke” and criticizing the parts of the curriculum that included recognizing bias and institutional injustice. In June, the organization organized a statewide tour of events in 17 cities, dubbed the “Raise our Standards Tour,” to push back on “critical race theory” and to “learn how parents can push back against the politicizing of our schools.”
Critical race theory emerged in the public discourse after the New York Times published the 1619 project, a series of essays that per the publication aims to “reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of the United State’s national narrative.”
Since the inaugural essays, lesson plans and reading guides using the 1619 project have been introduced to classrooms, and were met with swift backlash from conservative commentators and from former President Donald Trump.
But it wasn’t until the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent racial reckoning that the conversation spiraled, with the Trump administration sending a memo to the head of federal agencies instructing that they cease any training on “critical race theory.” The term then evolved into something of a catchphrase among conservative outlets and organizations using critical race theory as a term to refer to any attempt to teach equity and diversity. As of now, some 26 states have introduced bills or legislation that take steps to restrict the way educators can teach students about racism and sexism. The subject is gearing up to be an issue for the GOP in the upcoming midterm elections in Minnesota.
‘They’re not synonymous’
Matt Carlstrom, a veteran social studies teacher of 29 years and a co-chair of the social studies standards review committee, says prior to May he had never heard of critical race theory.
“I can say with a hundred percent full confidence that critical race theory is not in the K-12 social studies standards,” Carlstrom said. “But the standards we are currently working on will be more diverse than they have been.”
With the second draft set to be released soon, Leonard hopes that the public understands the difference between ethnic studies and critical race theory.
“They’re not synonymous; they’re not the same thing,” Leonard said. “Ethnic studies is broader and larger than race theory and also critical race theory comes out of legal studies, whereas ethnic studies, they come out of their own discipline. We’re talking about Asian, Latin, African African Americans. We’re talking about Indigenous studies.”
Carlstrom, who drew from his own experience in the classroom, says that it is important for all Minnesota students to see themselves reflected in the curriculum.
“One of our goals with this review of the social studies standards is to create standards that are more diverse because we know one way to engage kids in education is for them to see themselves in the teaching and in that education,” Carlstrom said.
The committee is not alone in this opinion of wanting more diversity. Last May, MDE sent out a survey to parents and teachers about how social studies standards can be improved.
“One of the big pushes coming out of the survey was that there needs to be more diversity. That we need to do a better job of being representative of the state as a whole,” Carlstrom said. “And it’s with an understanding that our state has changed in the last 10 years as it had changed in the tenth year before that. So the standards should not remain a static document, which is why by law we would need to review them every 10 years.”
My question is whether “academic requirements and standards for K-12 education for language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, physical education, and the arts” includes a good background in government and civics.
You can find links to the 2011 standards and drafts of the proposed 2021 standards by visiting the Social Studies standards web page at the MDE — https://education.mn.gov/MDE/dse/stds/soc/
From that page:
“Graduation requirements: State statute requires that all public school students in Minnesota satisfactorily complete all Social Studies standards and their corresponding benchmarks in order to graduate (Minn. Stat. § 120B.024, subd. 1(5)).
Students are also required to satisfactorily complete three and one-half (3.5) credits of social studies, encompassing at least U.S. history, geography, government and citizenship, world history, and economics sufficient to satisfy all of the academic standards in social studies.
A one-half credit of economics taught in a school’s agriculture education or business department may fulfill a one-half credit in social studies if the credit is sufficient to satisfy all of the academic standards in economics (Minn. Stat. § 120B.024, Subd. 2(a)).
Grade-specific benchmarks in grades K-8 are mandated by law. Thus, they must be addressed in the specific grade where they are assigned. The Social Studies Standards contain grade-specific standards for each of the four main disciplines.
The high school social studies standards are banded and must be taught within the grade span of 9-12.”
As a former High School SS teacher I can vouch for the fact that all students graduating from any district I worked in were required to take a Civics/Government/Citizenship course that adhered to the standards. Bear in mind though, that these topics were being taught to teenagers between 14-18 years old. And much like the proverbial horse, you can offer a teen education, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to learn.
As it happens, there’s currently up on YouTube an example of something that’s generally not part of any American history curriculum; . I taught American history for 30 years in suburban St. Louis, and though I did what seemed like my best to supplement district-approved textbooks that barely mentioned slavery, generally spoke approvingly of the Indian Wars, and the thousands of square miles of territory added to the United States through treaties often not understood, or signed at the point of a gun, similarly barely mentioned the denial of the franchise to women until well into the 20th century, barely mentioned Hispanic natives and immigrants at all, and so on. “The victors write the histories,” and most American history textbooks provide ample evidence of that cliché. To do otherwise is to risk the wrath of tax-paying parents and school board members who bring their own prejudices to the table, and who often want their children’s horizons expanded only so far, and no farther.
And yet, there are many common experiences that every ethnic and racial group shares. Not everything that happened in the U.S. over the past couple centuries was repressive, or discriminatory. The hard part is distinguishing intention from achievement, or the lack thereof, or drawing attention to the uncomfortable ways in which we’ve not lived up to our ideals without losing sight of those ideals. Focusing primarily on the ways the culture has failed – and at many levels it has failed – does not strike me as a constructive approach in the long run to achieving the success that most of us would prefer. Perhaps due to necessity, Germany seems to have done a better job of admitting to the warts on its national story than we have. This is a thorny issue that ought to provoke some uncomfortable conversations in classrooms, schools and neighborhoods.
Good statement, Ray.
While it’s “important for all Minnesota students to see themselves reflected in the curriculum,” it’s quite different and a bit outrageous to demand to “reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of the United State’s national narrative” when Black people are less than 15% of the population.
When white people make up 72% of the population, you’re kind of expecting to hear the white perspective on things. Danyika Leonard is right when she recounts how her mother gave her the Black perspective on things after she came home from school, just as my mother gave us the Indian perspective on things after we came home after hearing about the white perspective on the Indian wars. But that’s the way it should be. You should learn the specific cultural, racial or ethnic perspective on things at home, from your family and not expect the majority to bend to your minority view out of guilt, or worse, pity-based bigotry.
A good history teacher would tell you his version of events and then follow up with the old “others say that” or “the Indians would tell you …” disclaimers. No one has a monopoly on the truth.
My friends who grew up on the rez used to say that when they played cowboys and Indians, everybody wanted to be on the cowboys’ side. Also, one of the kids had a Cleveland Indians baseball cap that everyone thought was really cool and we all wanted to take turns wearing it. They didn’t know they were supposed to be offended by it all. My friends and I laugh about it today because it’s funny, not heart attack serious as some people would want you to believe.
I often wondered what Mexican people think when they watch “The Alamo” with John Wayne.
So you subscribe to the ‘history as written by the winners’ theory?
Parents don’t usually have the same resources as teachers — leaving instruction in the unpleasant realities to them will not result in effective instruction.
And whether the majority or the minority benefited from events, it’s still part of history, and should be taught.
History is written by the majority culture.
So had the “majority culture” succeeded in doing what was intended to YOUR culture, that being it’s complete erasure, you’d be A OK with that then? Or are you speaking with the benefit of the more culturally sensitive minds who later determined that maybe that wasn’t such a great idea?
“I often wondered what Mexican people think when they watch ‘The Alamo’ with John Wayne.”
Probably “¡Tres horas de mi vida – desperdiciadas!”
That movie is laughable for its historical inaccuracy.
“Everyone wanted to be on the cowboys’ side.”
It seems reasonable that the reason everyone wanted to be a cowboy was because all of the ‘cowboys and Indians’ media portray the cowboys as noble and the Indians as savages, does it not?
I agree that there’s too much focus on guilt in contemporary discourse, but it’s pretty clear that there’s still a huge bias towards treating whiteness as the default and it’s something we need to fix.
You know DT, that is kind of like going to church, (I don’t) and then getting the real gospel according to mom and pop when you get home! How would they know reality, they went through the same bull-whacky 20-30 years earlier? So 20-30 years the real story is going to be T**** won the election?
Any honest teaching of American history or politics is going to have to deal with race, and have to address the fact that so much of that history has a racial subtext.
Just to take one example, the story of the Alamo was always presented when I was in school as the heroic resistance of freedom-loving Americans to the tyranny of Mexico. The inconvenient parts – the parts that tell how the Mexican province of Tejas was a part of a foreign, sovereign nation settled largely by expatriate southerners fleeing their creditors, wo were attacked because they refused to comply with Mexican law that outlawed slavery, or that the Mexican soldiers spared, as much as possible, the lives of the slaves held in the Alamo – always seemed to be left out. Is it an accurate story to leave it out? Or is it just mythology?
Do we want children to know the truth? I always thought indoctrination in schools was something looked down upon.
It matters less what is in the lessons, as to who is teaching the lessons. CRT is pushed by teachers, whether it is in the lesson planner or not. If the school district gets alerted to a teacher pushing CRT and tries to stop it, the teachers response is “take it up with the union”…. Actually happened in western suburb school.
CRT is just Marxism tied in a different bow. With Marxism it was bourgeoisie versus proletariat used to divide the people, with CRT it is skin color. Same exact principle, divide the people up to cause division and claim one person is predestined to fail, one to succeed. The only way to solve this, according to Marxist theory, is bring “advantaged” group down and act like that will elevate the oppressed group. Ask Cuba how that has worked!
I hear the usual chatter here at Minnpost that children of color are at a disadvantage when it comes to learning because they are hungry. Multiple school programs address the food issue, that doesn’t fly anymore. All 30 kids get the same lesson taught to them, it is up to the individual to learn, not a group. Unfortunately for kids, they are hearing from teachers one group is destined to succeed, the other group destined to fail. So in the end it matters just as much as to who is teaching, as to what is being taught.
Meanwhile China has built thousands of miles of new highways and we have done nothing but spend ourselves into the poor house. China laughs.
China is building highways and not spending any money to do it?
Perhaps a better comment would be that industrialized countries all over the world are outdoing the US educational system with fully government-funded schools and unionized teachers, while in the US, a big fight is raging about something that isn’t happening because a few loud voices have captured the imaginations of the unthinking.
They are spending real money, not IOU’s.
Totally agree about the education system. This is all just noise and distracts us all from the real goal of education.
Good Grief, every article about Critical Race Theory needs to begin with this line: “Critical Race Theory is NOT and NEVER has been taught in our schools.” Anything else just does the work of the wingnuts driving this brouhaha. Judd Legum and Tesnim Zekeria did a dive into the funding behind this insanity and found that the bulk of the money is coming from the Thomas W. Smith Foundation which is associated with the Manhattan Institute. They’ve donated more than $12.7 million to 21 organizations attacking Critical Race Theory. Their goal, as stated by Christopher F. Rufo, one of the wingnuts behind all this is “to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think “critical race theory.” Its an old play and as we can see in the media and these comments its working.
But remember, its all smoke and mirrors, Critical Race Theory is NOT taught in our schools, all this time and energy is being spent on a lie. Where have we seen THAT before? Its the foundation of everything Conservatives do in this country. Lie to the rubes, collect money and push through legislation that solves a problem that doesn’t exist. MinnPost should be ashamed of itself for playing along.
I’ll have to, somewhat sheepishly, admit that I should have read through this article before admonishing MinnPost, it does a better job that most explaining things. Having said that I did not find anywhere in the piece where is explicitly states that Critical Race Theory is not taught in our schools, it does beat around that bush, but it needs to be clearly stated so that there is no misunderstanding.
“We oppose attempts to ban critical race theory and/or The 1619 Project.” This from the NEA, then deleted from their website after it made headlines. This was not the product of “wingnuts”, but of the NEA.
“We oppose attempts to ban” is not the same as “we are promoting” or “we advocate the teaching of.”
I oppose attempts to ban marijuana. That doesn’t mean I’m ever using it again.
Please. Most would find no subtlety in their statement. And the NEA didn’t zap it from their website for nothing. In any case, those opposed to CRT have a right to be alarmed, and not called wingnuts.
“And the NEA didn’t zap it from their website for nothing.”
If I had to guess, it would be to stop the wingnuts from annoying them.
“n any case, those opposed to CRT have a right to be alarmed, and not called wingnuts.”
Your comment is only half right. I’ll leave it to you to decide which half.
Powerful organizations don’t delete posts, without explanation, because they’re annoyed. Not their best moment.
Or maybe they’re sick of hearing about it, and see no percentage in participating in a squabble with the ill-informed.
Then they lack guts. Or integrity. Or… Whatever the reason, it ain’t good.
Exactly!
As an occasional visitor to the right wing PowerLine blog I can report that their founder and President of the Center for The American Experiment, John Hinderaker is full blown, foaming at the mouth crazy over CRT with relentless pieces on its evils.
And Hinderaker, while now retired, used to be a very accomplished and experienced attorney. He is certainly not stupid. And he understands empathy as a critical tool to understanding what all sides are thinking and trying to do. In other words, completely cynical and doing everything with the resources at his disposal to drive their newest wedge issue.
And the followers are lapping it up. One offered the definition of CRT as being “the assumption that skin pigmentation determines one’s role in society”. And, of course, they believe it never has. Really? Ever hear of the Voting Rights Act of 1965? They believe Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s has no role in American history education because it is one more insidious example of CRT.
Reality has left the building…
Quite right, Henk. The full quote from Mr. Rufo is: “The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think ‘critical race theory.’ We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.” In other words, the specific tactic was to take an existing, unexceptional academic concept and re-define it as a basket for miscellaneous white grievance. By grouping the flotsam and jetsam of white grievance under a single, appropriated term that sounds scary to the always fearful base, the propagandists create a conjure term with its ominous, encompassing conspiratorial aura – like communism, socialism, cultural Marxism, BLM, Antifa, ad nauseum … the formula is predictable and stale.
Stale, yet always successful. It is interesting that Mr. Rufo can declare quote openly that he is about to interject a fabrication into the civic discourse, and it is interesting that the above quote is from March 15, 2021. The Right can lay a proposition in front of us, declare openly that it is a lie for the purpose of poisoning the civic realm, and yet in four months have it dominate the cultural and political space as a seemingly credible assertion that has the whole span of decent civic society back on its heels. All it takes is the concentrated wealth and disciplined messaging of the authoritarian Right; the mainstream media prime directive to launder into legitimacy, and then normalize, anything that comes from the Right; and the unending fecklessness of the liberal in the realm of public debate.
Thanks for this excellent reporting.
CRT is just a nonsense right-wing bogeyman term, which basically just means “anything that I don’t agree with.”
I agree CRT is a nonsense term. But right wing? It was coined by the activist and academic Kimberlé Crenshaw, who’s further left than anyone you ever met.
It is not a “nonsense” term, unless you’re untroubled by racism. What is “nonsense” is the way it is being thrown around by people who have no idea what it is, but they know it must be bad because some right-wing media figure told them so.
I agreed with Pat that CRT is undefinable, and therefor a nonsense term. And the rest of your comment is a SDTP (Standard Democrat Talking Point), and conjecture.
Since you refer to Kimberlé Crenshaw, you must know, or have conveniently forgotten, that she has defined the term.
It is “undefinable” only in the sense that the people who throw the term around have no idea what it means. Call it a standard talking point if you like, but it’s no less accurate for that.
Go ahead and define it. But skip the nonsense buzz words like “intersectionality” and “structurally”. CRT is vague, senseless, undefinable. It’s splendid flim-flam, one more way to fling race, race, race at one’s conservative opponents, in itself a reprehensible maneuver, but we’re in the age of anything goes.
Even though I know you won’t pay attention because it doesn’t fit your contrarian line for the day:
Critical race theory looks at how race is embedded in legal and political institutions, so that racism is perpetuated. It does not pretend that racism is the provenance of a few bad people, but it is systemic.
“It’s splendid flim-flam, one more way to fling race, race, race at one’s conservative opponents, in itself a reprehensible maneuver, but we’re in the age of anything goes.”
And you would just rather not be bothered with the whole idea.
It doesn’t bother me. Just seems like we’ve always done it. At least since the ‘Sixties. It’s actually a very old card. Sorta like… Communist! You’re a Communist! That was once mainstream. Considered good sense. Don’t think that one won’t be used again, either.
Almost as reprehensible as ignoring racism in order to position oneself as “above the fray” of we mere rabble. But by all means, continue.
Race, race, race. You’re making my point.
“Critical race theory looks at how race is embedded in legal and political institutions, so that racism is perpetuated. It does not pretend that racism is the provenance of a few bad people, but it is systemic.”
Hmmm, Remember a few weeks back when you were insisting on the importance of keeping the Mitch McConnell filibuster? And how things like the 1965 Voting Rights Act made it past the talking filibuster, but would never get past a Mitch McConnell filibuster?
Would you describe literacy tests, property ownership to vote, grandfather voted to enable the grandson’s vote, and estimating jelly beans in a jar as “race being embedded in legal and political institutions”?
Are you so nostalgic for these kind of things that you take heart in recent legislation that targets things like “souls to the polls” or making it more difficult for voters in heavily populated urban areas to vote and rejoice in the Mitch McConnell filibuster protecting these new restrictions?
It’s “race, race, race” because you insist that it is.
Would you describe literacy tests, property ownership to vote, grandfather voted to enable the grandson’s vote, and estimating jelly beans in a jar as “race being embedded in legal and political institutions”? Yes I would. And I know no place this exists. Using past discrimination, long since addressed and corrected, makes for a very weak argument.
“Using past discrimination, long since addressed and corrected . . .”
I was laughing too hard at that one to read the rest of your comment.
Do you honestly thing racism has been corrected by perhaps 60 years of legislation? Or do you not know what racism means?
As you’re making mine.
“If it doesn’t affect me, I don’t want to hear about it. Quit bringing it up.”
If it has nothing to do with an argument, quit bringing it up.
It does, even if you don’t care to admit it.
“Yes I would. And I know no place this exists. Using past discrimination, long since addressed and corrected, makes for a very weak argument.”
Thank you for agreeing that CRT is validated by past events and part of a fair and balanced approach to teaching American history. From 1619 to 1965 is 346 years or 84% of our collective history to date.
Do you agree that a Mitch McConnell filibuster would have enabled these “long since addressed and corrected” past events to have lived a longer life? It would have saved Strom Thurmond from having to talk 24 hours straight.
And you find no evidence of any race based thought in the formulation of the 28 new voting restrictions passed in the last 6 months? Moving a 11:00 Sunday poll opening time to 2:00 PM had nothing to do with tamping down “souls to the polls”?
At this point I’m attributing it to a “lack of life experience”, if not, it’s a more than troubling example of extreme naivety.
Not “standard Democrat talking point.” “Democrat” is the noun form. The adjectival form is “Democratic,” as in “Democratic Party.”
Whenever I see someone using “Democrat” (or worse yet, “DemocRAT”) as an adjective, I think, “There goes someone who is under the influence of right-wing propaganda.”
You know you just have to wonder when or if some of these people can pull out of this dive into facile absurdity?
Here we an article that clearly explains the nature of CRT as a LEAGAL concept that is not part of the social studies curriculum (Maybe because our public schools are not law schools do you think maybe?). And bam these conservative debate gamers blow right by the relevant facts and try to debate CRT as part of the curriculum. Whatever.
Be all of this as it may what we see here is an example of how our education curriculum remains hostage to the dictatorial impulses of conservative mindsets. This goes all the way to the First Great Awakening back in 1820 or so when Thomas Jefferson thought national education standards of some kind would be a good idea, shot down by religious zealotry.
Personally I think the spectacle of modern participants in a contemporary Great Awakening complaining about someone else being: “woke” is almost ironic comedy. Alas the oppressive nature of these complaints robs them of their comic potential.
Basically what you have here is the ongoing (and somewhat uniquely American phenomena) of conservative dictatorial attempts to control what people think clashing with liberal impulses that make it possible to think.
Meanwhile on different back 40 we’ve got these guys who don’t believe in history at all. There is no REAL history, just whatever a majority people decide to teach in history classes. If a majority of people want to teach everyone that Native Americans enthusiastically volunteered to surrender their culture and land to appreciative Europeans who only participated in those acquisitions reluctantly… than that is what should be taught. OK then. The concentration camp at Fort Snelling was just temporary housing for some Indians looking for a place to stay after giving their land to some appreciative settlers. Nothing to see here… move along.
Yes, in the upside-down world of the right-wing, being a “social justice warrior” (SJW) is a bad thing, so I suppose that being a SIA “social injustice advocate” is a good thing.
Similarly, being “woke” is bad, so I suppose being “asleep” with respect to the governmental and commercial and societal forces that make your life difficult is a good thing.
“with Minnesotans of varying ideologies expressing concern over the omission of key historical events from the examples in the draft, namely the Holocaust, World War I and II, and the Civil War.”
No one here seems to think that’s a problem. I do not know that much about WWI, even though my grandfather was in it, but am very well versed in the others. My father died from his exposure to radiation during his service, cancer at 30, same cancer at 55. 400,000 plus Americans gave their lives during WWII. Plus the Holocaust and Civil War. We will have schooled a generation of historical dummies. I fear we are close now. Replacing impactful US and globally important events with a curriculum designed to make every white person now and in the past look bad is very short sighted.
As a country, it’s easy to look back and say we did things that should not have been done. As can every country in the worldhas done and many continue to do. We did bad things but it’s also easy to judge from 2021 perspective. We are still the best nation in the world.
If you think that the purpose is “to make every white person look bad,” then you have fallen for right-wing propaganda.
What would you say if Germany decided that teaching about the Holocaust (something they do) made Germans feel bad about themselves so they omitted it from their school textbooks?
What do you say about Japan, which tends to gloss over the unfavorable parts of World War II history and emphasize how much Japan suffered, so that a lot of people talk as if they think that the world just happened to gang up on poor little Japan for no reason in the 1940s?
One of my translation projects was a book by a Japanese journalist who went to China in the 1970s and interviewed survivors of the Nanjing massacre of 1937. He both documented the horrors that Japanese troops visited upon Chinese civilians from the first landing on the coast and blamed the military commanders for telling the troops to “live off the land” (i.e. steal from the Chinese) because it would be too hard to maintain food supply lines. The higher-ups also told the troops that it was no big deal if they killed Chinese people, since China had no national record keeping system, and it would be hard to prove that any individual had ever existed.
The author also interviewed veterans of the China campaign, who admitted to committing atrocities and were wracked with guilt about it, but they said that their fellow veterans ostracized them or even threatened to kill them for talking about those events.
It is not true, as Nicholas Kristoff has claimed, that “no one” in Japan knows about the Nanjing massacre, but it is not part of the school curriculum. Should it be? i know that there is a significant amount of racism against Koreans, another nation that felt the heavy hand of Japan’s imperialistic period. Would at least some Japanese people feel differently about Koreans if they knew about the 35 years of attempted cultural genocide (1910-1945) and the fact that the despised ethnic Koreans who live in Japan are the descendants of people who were brought over as slave labor and who are not considered Japanese citizens, despite being second- or third-generation residents?
To be truly educated about one’s own country, one has to take the good with the bad. Otherwise, one ends up as what I call a “grade school patriot,” conditioned to worship the flag, to think of America as “the best country in the world,” and to consider Americans with other opinions to be traitors.
“We are still the best nation in the world.”
Thanks for illustrating the problem. Perhaps one should not be so quick to make such pronouncements while in the same breath decrying the desire to examine the, “things we should not have done”. How exactly do you plan to encourage “historical literacy” whilst literally ignoring the very real and pervasive evils that existed and continue to exist in this “best nation in the world”. Quite literally no one cares if examination of those evils makes you feel bad, they make the victims of their machinations feel much, much worse.
Why do conservatives get so bent out of shape over teaching American history — good, bad, and ugly? Looks to me that they’re trying to deny some really bad things done by mostly white people over the course of our country’s past. I just don’t see the harm in it.