Time To Fix The Texas Social Studies Curriculum

I've sounded off on this point a couple of times before, but today's Houston Chronicle editorial on some proposals for revising the state's social studies curriculum leads me to bring it up again.

But first, the Chroncle's silly, error-ridden editorial.

Last week, Stephen Colbert tipped his ironic hat to the Texas State Board of Education. The board had already allowed creationism to be considered in Texas biology classes, the comedian said approvingly, and now it was pushing for more Christianity to be taught in U.S. history. But why stop there? Colbert asked. What about math? Five plus two doesn't have to equal seven — not if you're Jesus. And for that matter, what about penmanship? Why not teach students to really CROSS their T's?

There's truthiness in those jokes. Of the six people who the board appointed as “experts” to review the current curriculum, three are on record as Christian soldiers, battling to bring back a golden age of God in American government.

Evangelist David Barton founded WallBuilders, which aims to rebuild America's Christian ramparts in the way Old Testament Jews rebuilt Jerusalem's walls. Daniel Dreisbach, a professor at American University, takes a similar (if anti-wall) position: He's known for arguing that the Supreme Court misunderstood Thomas Jefferson's ideas about a “high wall” separating church and state. And then there's Peter Marshall, the head of Peter Marshall Ministries, who preaches that Watergate, the Vietnam War and Hurricane Katrina were God's wrath, ignited by the nation's sexual immorality.

Those three reviewers, in their recommendations to revamp K-12 social studies, aim to emphasize the early years of American history — the era in which the U.S. was almost entirely a Christian nation. Barton, for instance, advocates teaching kids not just about the major founding fathers, but some 250 others, such as Richard Henry Lee, Benjamin Rush, John Witherspoon, and Gouverneur Morris. All three of the conservative reviewers urge intensive study of original documents such as the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, the Pennsylvania Charter of Liberties and Frame of Government, and the Virginia Declaration of Rights.

But the problem is, teachers don't have enough time to teach everything intensively. And if they spend a large part of the school year parsing the fine points of the Pilgrim and Revolutionary eras, they'll have to skim lightly over the rest of American history — as in, those years when slaves were freed, when women won the right to vote, and when minorities fought for their civil rights. Those parts of American history are important, too.

Christianity undeniably influenced the European settlement of North America and the founding of the United States. That said, some of the founding fathers would have described themselves as deists rather than Christians, and thanks to the separation of church and state we've never been an officially Christian country. Though about half of our citizens are Christian, we are no longer only a Christian nation — just as we're no longer a nation run solely by white male property owners.

It would be wrong not to teach our kids about America's Christian roots. But it would be just as wrong to pretend that the rest of our history matters less. In Texas schools, five plus two should always equal seven — whether or not that answer matches the curriculum reviewers' goals.

When the Houston Chronicle cannot even get correct the percentage of Americans self-identifying as Christian (it is over 2/3 of Americans, not half), it is probably best to dismiss the piece. And the belittling comments about the three "Christian soldiers" (one a respected historian, another the former vice chairman of the Republican Party of Texas) shows a significant bias against the beliefs of a majority of Texans (I'm curious -- does the editorial board "look like Texas" in terms of the religious affiliations and beliefs of its members, or is it shockingly lacking in both the diversity of the state and its reflection of the public it serves?).

But the reports attacked by the paper are not the end of the process, and there is a long way to go in re-writing the standards, including much more input from the public and educators in the field like myself.

But where I am disturbed is that the editorial -- and the state of Texas --might once again miss the chance to deal with what I and a number of other social studies teachers see as a serious flaw with our state's sequence of courses in the field.

What, you may ask?

How about the scandalously absurd sequencing of courses from grade 6 through grade 12?

Currently, the sequence of courses from middle school to graduation looks like this:

• Grade 6 -- World Cultures
  
• Grade 7 -- Texas History
  
• Grade 8 -- US History through Reconstruction
  
• Grade 9 -- World Geography
  
• Grade 10 -- World History
  
• Grade 11 -- US History since Reconstruction
  
• Grade 12 -- US Government & Economics
  

What's the problem? The sixth grade course is a rather amorphous amorphous blend of geography, history, and current events. It is then followed by the parochial Texas history course. The founding of America and the Civil War are taught in eighth grade, but then the rest of the American experience doesn't follow for another three years!

We would do better to re-sequence the entire thing, perhaps as follows:

• Grade 6 -- Texas History
  
• Grade 7 -- World Geography
  
• Grade 8 -- World History through the Middle Ages
  
• Grade 9 -- World History since the Renaissance
  
• Grade 10 -- US History through Reconstruction
  
• Grade 11 -- US History since Reconstruction
  
• Grade 12 -- US Government & Economics
  

The benefit? More time to pursue the richness of world history, continuity in American history, and a more logical flow of content from the beginning of middle school through graduation.

Texas -- we have a chance to fix our social studies curriculum so that it makes more sens in terms of scope and sequence. Let's not continue with the current sequence because "we've always done it that way". Let's instead have our classes build upon what came before, with courses that logically follow one another grouped together to increase both retention of material and the development of related concepts.

Posted by: Greg at 01:10 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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