In Jefferson County, just west of Denver, high school students have been leaving their classes and protesting against the school board since Sept. 19. The good news is, most of them seem to be doing it for all the right reasons.
The Jeffco school system has seen more than its share of controversy. Last November, an apparently coordinating slate of conservatives won three seats on the five-person school board. Since then, parents, students and teachers have too often found themselves at odds with the board.
The recent protests were sparked by events directly tied to education. At a meeting held earlier this month, Julie Williams, one of the three newer board members, proposed creating a committee to review curriculum, starting with Advanced Placement U.S. History classes. It was her reasoning that set off the students.
“Materials should promote citizenship, patriotism, essential and benefits of the free enterprise system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights,” Williams said. “Materials should not encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law. Instructional materials should present positive aspects of the United States and its heritage.”
The problem, of course, is that what Williams wants is indoctrination, not education. It would do nothing to impart critical thinking skills, only her particular take on patriotism.
Remember that what is at issue is AP History – a college-level class. Teaching that George Washington said he “cannot tell a lie” is fine in the third grade. But a college-level class should also ask students to explore the contradictions inherent in the fact that the father of our country owned slaves – as did Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence.
Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves and preserved the union. But the Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to areas under Union control, and some of the steps Lincoln took to win the war trampled on the Constitution.
Teddy Roosevelt was a progressive and a conservationist. College-level students can handle the fact that he was also an imperialist.
The College Board, the agency in charge of advanced placement courses, is trying to AP history less reliant on rote learning and more oriented toward critical skills. It is an approach that has been called “teaching historical thinking instead of historical trivia.”
To critics, however, it smacks of a political agenda and blaming America. Some complain it focuses too much on women, slavery and Native Americans.
Then again, perhaps it only seems that way because so little was taught about those topics for so long. History classes once touched on Native Americans only with the first Thanksgiving, the Little Bighorn and maybe a nod toward Jim Thorpe. Women were mentioned only as wives or mothers and any problems associated with slavery were deemed over in 1865.
Williams has said she shares critics’ concerns about casting U.S. history in a negative light with emphasis on things such as the bombing of Hiroshima. She thinks the district should mold good citizens, not “rebels.”
But the United States did nuke Hiroshima. A discussion in a college-level U.S. history class of the moral, military and cultural considerations that went into that is not only appropriate, but imperative. And if learning about the Boston Tea Party, Martin Luther King or the events leading up to the Ludlow Massacre will foster “rebels,” perhaps that is a good thing.
It is a testament to their parents and their teachers that the Jeffco students get that. What is disturbing is that their school board does not.
