The new Social Studies standards are in the news. They have been written by one person, William Morrisey a professor emeritus from Hillsdale college in Michigan. These proposed standards are under attack for a number of excellent reasons.
First, they are supposed to be South Dakota State standards. One would think therefore that they would be written by South Dakotans rather than by one out-of-state retired professor and then just simply presented at a committee meeting, fait accompli, for rubber stamping. I’ve been involved in adopting curriculum and writing standards many times over the course of my nearly four decades in the classroom. I’ve presented at national social studies conventions and been involved in the leadership of the South Dakota Social Studies Council. Of course, we consulted national trends and looked at what other states used for standards before writing our own. However, in the end, it was South Dakotans writing South Dakota Standards and then revising them after input from other South Dakotans before their final adoption. At no time in the past were they the political football that the social studies generally and history specifically has now become.
Second, the proposed standards are under attack and for good reasons beyond being written by an out-of-state personage with no input from South Dakotans until long after they were completed. The public comments and hearings have opposition running more than 10 to 1 against these proposed new standards for a multitude of reasons. Unfortunately, it is becoming clear that no matter what South Dakotans think, worry about, or object to, it will be the dictate of a lone retired professor from Michigan that will ultimately prevail.
Third, the proposed standards are atrocious both in terms of subject matter at grade level specifically and the content of the standards generally. There haven’t been any social studies to speak of in the elementary grades since No Child Left Behind came into being. Once the regimen of testing English and Math (and now Science) came about, any untested subjects were thrown under the bus and that included the Social Studies. In Mitchell, “social studies” at the elementary level has been reduced to an occasional children’s book about some significant historical figure or other. People are right to be concerned about the lack of social studies at the elementary level. However, do kids in the lower grades really need to know about the membership, powers and function of the Supreme Court or should that more properly be taught in middle and high school? That’s one example of the proposed standards’ faults, there are dozens and dozens more.
Fourth, the underlying purpose of these proposed new standards is to sanitize American History and to make sure no one is “offended or made to feel uncomfortable”. I taught American History for thirty-six years and to teach the truth about America, there is plenty to be offended and uncomfortable about. Don’t get me wrong or misquote me because America really is the greatest nation on the face of the Earth. That’s a fact and should be taught in the classroom. This is the best time (perhaps not a great time but certainly the best time) to be a woman, trans, gay or a person of color in this country. America is a beacon of freedom, a magnet for all those around the world escaping oppression, seeking opportunity or a better life for themselves and their families. That’s a fact that students should learn as well.
However, there are also truths about the United States that are not so pleasant. It is also a fact that America had slavey for nearly four hundred years. After slavery was ended by the bloodiest war in American history it was followed by another one hundred years of racist oppression of African Americans culminating in the Civil Rights Movement. White Americans committed cultural genocide and attempted an actual physical genocide of the various tribes and bands of Native-Americans. Speaking of genocide, during World War II in Europe (before the US became involved) Jews were fleeing the horrors of the Holocaust. They tried to come here. The Franklin Roosevelt administration had a plan, named for FDR’s Secretary of Interior called the “Ickes Plan”, which would have relocated refugee Jews to Alaska. In the end it didn’t matter because the US didn’t want them, refusing them entry and ultimately sending them back to Germany to face excruciating death in the camps.
There was also tremendous and terrible discrimination against Asians, primarily people of Chinese and Japanese descent living in California. On our other shore, Italian and Jewish immigrants weren’t considered as desirable immigrants to America either. That’s because they weren’t thought of as “white” people, as strange as that may seem to us today. Italians and Jews weren’t treated quite as badly as Black people, but they weren’t “white” for general societal purposes, marriage for example. Catholics were reviled in this country right up until John F. Kennedy was elected president in 1960 as the first Catholic to hold that office. The list of America’s sins goes on.
The Declaration of Independence states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” When Thomas Jefferson wrote that, only white men over the age of 21 who owned property had any political rights at all. It wasn’t unusual for women to have no property rights in addition to having no political rights, along with no right to initiate a divorce and some religious denominations didn’t even allow women speak in church. Of course, people of color generally had no rights and were usually considered only as property at the time Jefferson penned those soaring and inspirational words.
The greatness of America lies in our aspiration to live up to our founding documents. White men without property got the right to vote in time for the presidential election of 1832. Black people became “African Americans” with the passage of the 14th Amendment in 1868 when they were granted citizenship. African American men got the right to vote in 1870 with the passage of the 15th Amendment. Women were granted the right to vote with the ratification of the 19th Amendment, just in time for the presidential election of 1920. Using the theory that if one was old enough to be drafted, go to war and die for one’s country then one should be old enough to vote, the 26th Amendment went into effect in 1971 making 18-year-old citizens eligible to vote.
We’ve had numerous movements to achieve equal rights for various groups in this country, for example, Civil Rights for people of color, Equal Rights for women, marriage and other rights for gay people and now the trans movement to name a few. America is evolving and forever seeking that elusive “more perfect union.” There have been bumps in the road and problems along the way throughout our history. They are a part of our story as much as the Founding Fathers, our groundbreaking founding documents, the greatness and sacrifice of Americans in defending liberty and opposing tyranny and so forth and so on. It’s all “history”, not just the good and glorious parts.
The old Soviet Union used to revise, whitewash and air brush history. Whenever someone fell out of favor, they were photoshopped out of pictures and erased from Soviet history books. The proposed social studies standards under discussion seek to impose the same Soviet style approach to history as the communists used. South Dakotans deserve better. Young people in Japan today have a difficult time understanding why the folks in China and Korea still have such a hard time letting go of World War II and the atrocities the Imperial Japanese committed. In large part that’s because Japanese history books don’t talk about those harsh and unpleasant war crimes because, like the proposed South Dakota social studies standards, the Japanese establishment doesn’t want to offend or upset their people with the facts about their collective past.
South Dakota students ought to learn the truth. Why was there a Civil Rights Movement; because the defeated South found a way in Reconstruction and beyond to preserve the indignities and depravations of slavery without perpetuating the institution itself. Why is there a 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote? Why didn’t women have the vote from the get-go? The reason lies in the belief that women weren’t considered as equal to men, supposedly were the “weaker sex” and not as competent in business or as informed in public affairs as men, that’s why. The list goes on and on. The past explains the present. In order to understand the present, one must have an appreciation for the past, the complete past and not just the fame and glory bits.
It was a mistake to farm out South Dakota standards to a single out-of-state retired professor, no matter what his credentials were. It is a mistake not to take into consideration the widespread, thoughtful and considerable public opposition to these “standards” that whitewash history and seek to impose a “Lake Wobegon” (A Prairie Home Companion’s place where “All the men are strong, the women good looking and the children are above average”) philosophy of history. One only has to look at the old Soviet Union’s past and Japan’s present approach to history to see how dangerous teaching selective and only positive history really is, as these proposed new South Dakota Social Studies standards seek to do.
South Dakotans are tough and smart. We are tough enough to learn about the less favorable and even sordid portions of our past and smart enough to learn from them, if we are given a chance. Let’s not cheat our children out of the marvelous historical journey our country has taken trying to live up to the principles of the American Revolution and our founding documents. It’s time to scrap these woefully inadequate, Pollyanna proposed social studies standards and replace them with rigorous, truthful ones instead.