Genocide in 1st Grade
At my school, I am often treated as the curriculum head for social studies. That has led to some interesting question I would never have to answer at a large public high school. The biggest question has to do with Scope and Sequence.
Background on the situation: My school is PK-12 with two social studies teachers. As the first one hired, and the one teaching more periods, I am often considered the head of the department. (Yeah for my resume, not so yeah for my actual job). Therefore, any curriculum questions or special events go to me first.
Throughout the year I receive information on Scope and Sequence. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of dealing with Scope and Sequence, Scope refers to all the topics being covered and depth of topics and Sequence to the timeline of coverage of topics. Now every school has its own Scope and Sequence, often based off of textbooks and state standards. Most do not question it, but we should be questioning it. As the department head I have had the freedom to create my own Scope and Sequence for the classes I actively teach and have coordinated the process with some of the other teachers who touch on my subject. But this process raises some interesting questions:
What should we be teaching? Some of my students have jokingly referred to me as “the killer of dreams” in that I often have to correct the lies, misrepresentations, and omissions they have learned in previous classes.
My favorite is Thanksgiving. What should we be teaching our students about Thanksgiving? I am sure that since it is November, my children will be coming home one of these days with a pretty happy story about how the Indians and Pilgrims sat down and had a meal together at the first Thanksgiving and gave thanks for the blessings that had received.
Now I have no problem with the message their teacher is trying to impart about giving thanks and appreciating your blessings and the people around you. I do have a problem with the story being presented. How is that an accurate picture of history???? The high schoolers get so disappointed when I dispel their fairy tale image of the native Americans and the Pilgrims. They didn’t have a meal together, let alone a happy meal. While it’s true that the native tribe did help the Pilgrims through that first tough year by providing some food and showing them planting techniques, they did not have a good relationship with many skirmishes throughout and a general disdain of the natives by the Pilgrims. Later the Pilgrims had no problem pushing the natives off their land and in some cases killing them.
But is this what we should teach my 6-year-olds?
No, I don’t think we should get into the graphic details of the “messier” aspects of history at that young of an age, but we shouldn’t lie to them either. I find it amazing that we openly lie to children about certain topics. I find it even more amazing that we do this in my school where we have a commandment on the wall about not lying. Isn’t that a major contradiction??? I think we need to examine the topics we are covering.
When should we be teaching it? Continuing with the Thanksgiving theme, at what point do we clue students into the messy aspects of the events. I would say in this instance that upper elementary students could handle the topic and start to think about the complex relationship between the American settlers and the native tribes. I should not be correcting the lies for the first time as juniors in high school. I have found that students in general can handle many of the messy aspects of history just fine in my classes. They are presented the real facts of the event and then contemplate the implications of the events and importance to that time period in history. In many instances we even debate the opposing viewpoints of the the topic.
By never cluing students into the “truth,” we are robbing them of the real history of the world. They can handle it, just not as 1st graders.
How should we be teaching it? Specifically the depth. I simply cannot teach all of U.S. History in one year. It cannot be done. So what do I leave out? How in-depth do I go for any specific topic? I find myself constantly picking and choosing the areas, usually based off of my own personal interests. For example, I gloss over some of the political fights during the robber baron era of industrialization to spend some more time on the Progressive Reforms. Can you guess which era I specialize in? Every teacher, no matter what subject they teach, has to pick the depth for each topic. It’s a no win situation.
What’s the solution to Scope and Sequence? Start from scratch. Reorganize the entire system. Now they (politicians) attempted to do this with State standards, but those are inconsistant and in some places wrong. We need to put teachers together and let them decide what, when and how to teach all the subjects. A sample proposed solution: teach English and Social Studies together weaving literature and writing with history. Another sample solution: Cover the entire U.S. history timeline throughout elementary school, focusing on a time period each year, but overall generalizing it. Once into middle school, teachers can slow down and focus more on specific topics, and start exploring the ambiguities within history, the tough issues. Some schools do this, but the practice is so inconsistent I never know what is going to be taught or not be taught and when.
The system cannot be changed piecemeal. I, as a single teacher, cannot fix the problem, but I bet wiping the slate and starting over could have the desired effect. Then maybe my children will learn about the concept of Thanksgiving when its appropriate and learn the truth about the uneasy relationship between colonists and natives when they can handle it. All without having them dress up and play a fairy tale.
P.S. I do like fairy tales, just not when they are taught as fact.
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