25% More

While researching things to do in Philadelphia in April, I saw an advertisement noting that we are quickly coming up the nation’s 250^th birthday – an anniversary which goes by high-falutin’ names such as semiquincentennial and sestercentennial. Big names for a big number. Thoughts about the impending 250^thquickly shifted to memories of the 200^th, the Bicentennial, in 1976, which occurred between my junior and senior years in high school – that was a fun summer. And then my thoughts, as at a certain age thoughts tend to do, shifted to how much time has passed since then.

So much has happened in the half century since the Bicentennial, so much new U.S. history has been made – not to mention all of the “old” history that has been recovered (e.g., Juneteenth), reinterpreted (e.g., Hiroshima and Nagasaki), and/or reconsidered from different and multiple perspectives in that time. The country is 25% older, meaning that there is at least 25% more U.S. history since I last took a U.S. History course in 1976.

But here’s the thing. Although there is 25% more U.S. history to deal with, that 11^th grade U.S. History course must fit into the same 180-day school year as it did in 1976. Seems like a tight fit.

To be fair, it was already a tight fit in 1976. The textbook that we used ended in 1964. In the world of our textbook, Martin Luther King, Jr. and RFK were still alive. The Beatles were still a band. We had the Super Ball, but not yet the Super Bowl. The climax of the Civil Rights movement (in the literary sense of the word climax), the end of the war in Vietnam, man taking a giant leap so that we could watch a man walk on the moon, and let’s not forget Woodstock and Watergate – to name a few major things that occurred between 1964 and 1976 – were current events, not history.

It was certainly already a tight fit in 2011 when my daughter’s AP History teacher made the strategic decision not to devote class time to events after the 1960s because those never appear on the test. A calculated gamble that didn’t pay off when the essay question that year called for a discussion of the impact of the domestic and foreign policies of Richard Nixon.

Some states long ago divided U.S. history into two segments, or courses: colonial times through Reconstruction in Part 1, and the Industrial Age through some point close to the present time in Part 2. Often, however, Part 1 is relegated to elementary and middle school; and even when it isn’t, very few students take more than one U.S. History course in high school.

Placing the onus for teaching the history through Reconstruction in K-8 became more problematic with calls for a more critical and discriminating look at the events that took place since 1776, 1619 or 1492.

So how do curriculum designers, creators of instructional materials, designers of state content standards, and teachers make it work?

One of my most frightening memories from my days as an independent consultant is of watching a high school history department divide the state’s 100+ content and sub-standards across the approximately 145 class periods in a school year.

There are 5 standards related to World War II.  It gets 5 class periods.

Frightening perhaps, but those teachers and department chair were making a good faith effort to make sense of the task in front of them.

The Common Core State Standards brought us an interdisciplinary approach, spreading the responsibility, but the issue of 25% more is not limited to U.S. History, or even social studies, in general.

English Language Arts

How many new books and poems have been written since 1976, works of fiction and nonfiction, literary masterpieces or books that must be read, or simply books that will be read because they are engaging?

How many “new” authors and perspectives who either were not considered worthy of consideration in 1976, or at best included in “Appendix B – optional readings” have been moved to the front of the bus.

How many ways of communicating ideas that weren’t even imagined in 1976 are now commonplace?

Natural Sciences

Again, how much of science is new in the past 50 years?

How many things (some minor, some major) that we thought were true about the way we and the world worked are no longer true?

Since I was a student in the 1960s and 1970s, the pendulum in science curriculum and instruction has swung between a focus on inquiry and the scientific method and a focus on science content. The pendulum in perpetual motion, never settling on one, the other, or finding the happy balance between the two.

Big ideas and core ideas, practices and practicalities: How do we make it work?

Mathematics

Of all the subjects in the PK-12 curriculum, mathematics (as a discipline) has probably changed the least in the past 50 years. Of course, the tools for teaching it have probably changed the most, and we have never quite figured out why we are teaching mathematics, how best to teach it (is there a “science of mathematics”), and to whom it should be taught.

Sorry, the answer was never Algebra II for All, and the idea that all of the “best and brightest” kids are taking AP Calculus simply to get into a good college and not because they have any interest in advanced mathematics is a crime against mathematics and humaneness (if not humanity).

The good news is that we are so far behind in figuring out how and what to teach in mathematics that we might be ahead of the curve when we finally sit down and ask ourselves the questions:

• • What is mathematics?
  • Why are we teaching it?
  • What knowledge, skills, and competencies do we need a mathematically literate individual and society to possess?

At some point, we will finally realize that mathematics, like reading, needs to be taught as a powerful tool to be used and applied and not simply as a set of skills to be accumulated. When that day comes, there will be very little historical baggage, few cherished traditions that we are unwilling to jettison, and there will be no limit on what we can make the teaching of mathematics.

The Arts, World Languages and Cultures, Physical Education, Health, Finances, Practical Living and Vocational Skills, etc.

In other words, the things that make people people and make life worth living, and to which we can apply our literacy and numeracy. We cannot afford to continue to give them short shrift because they are not assessed or part of an accountability system.

I could continue to list subject after subject after important subject and there will always be more and more.

But the system and students cannot handle more.

It’s clear that we cannot continue to treat these subject areas as independent domains and dominions, each with their own standards, assessments, and curriculum.

So, now we have to be more thoughtful about how we make use of the precious time that we are given with students.

We’ll have to make hard choices.

Less is More, More or Less

Which brings me back to history.

Spurred by a presidential candidate’s awkward response to a question, people are bemoaning the fact that nearly half of American adults and nearly all high school seniors are unaware of the cause of the Civil War.

How troubled should be we by this state of affairs?

What do students need to know about wars and war? What is teaching about war good for?

Do they know that there was a Civil War? When it took place? Who fought and who won?

Do they know about causes of the war to end all wars and the endless wars that followed?

Do they know that war is hell?

Do they know that “in war, events of importance are the result of trivial causes”?

There are lots of questions that a high school senior should be able to answer, such as who wrote the book of love, can music save your mortal soul, and why the trees change in the fall.

And even more than questions they can answer, there are important questions they should know to ask.

As we are reimagining education, we need to give more thought to what it is we want to be able to say about what high school seniors know and are able to do.

A whole lot more.

Image by Piyapong Saydaung from Pixabay