Critics attack plans to adjust curriculum
Posted on Sunday, July 15, 2007
Mayflower Middle School teacher Tim Latham usually spends his summer honing his American and Arkansas history skills. But now he’s trying to catch up on how to teach world history to seventh- and eighth-graders as schools statewide face changing the order in which those subjects are taught.
Arkansas students have traditionally learned about state history in the seventh and eighth grades; however, recent changes in history and socialstudies guidelines now place a greater focus on teaching those students world history instead.
“World history has its place, but you need Arkansas history first, then American history. To me they’ve turned it upside down,” said Latham, who joined other teachers, university professors and state historians at a news conference Saturday condemning the Arkansas Department of Education’s guideline revisions.
Critics called for a moratorium on implementing the new standards this fall.
“I think [a moratorium is ] very practical. It will actually simplify things a lot because right now, if the frameworks stay in place, the teachers are going to be expected to implement them, and it’s going to be a nightmare to do so,” Latham said.
Tom Dillard, president of the Arkansas History Education Coalition, said it would be a nightmare, because there’s a lack of age-appropriate books on teaching world history in middle school. He also said newer Arkansas history books are geared toward younger students and not high schoolers.
Dillard, who will meet for the first time with state education officials next week, also called for Gov. Mike Beebe to appoint an independent panel of state historians and others to review the history guidelines and concerns that have popped up since the state board of education approved them in the spring.
A spokesman for Beebe could not be reached Saturday, but Julie Johnson Thompson, a spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Education, said a moratorium would be up to the state Board of Education. The board, which has final approval over the frameworks, meets next in August, just weeks before school starts.
Thompson said she was surprised to hear the criticism now, because surveys were posted last year before the frameworks were revised, a process that included at least 43 educators. However, Dillard and other historians criticized that committee, because they operated in secrecy, signing a confidentiality agreement not to talk about the guidelines.
The confidentiality agreements were to prevent the wrong information from making it into lesson plans, as draft math guidelines did in 1992, Thompson said.
One of the reasons the curriculum was changed was to create grade-specific guidelines, Thompson said. Previously, the guidelines lumped several grades together, she said.
Thousands of high school students already take Arkansas history classes, Thompson said, so materials should be available to them.
“So it’s not that that’s an impossible thing either, because it’s obviously been done,” she said.
She has not heard any concern previously about the availability of world history books for younger students, Thompson said Saturday.
Neither has there been any discussion about changing the state’s Smart Core curriculum, which requires three units of social studies.
Arkansas history is not one of the required classes, and educators Saturday said they were concerned older students would choose easier classes over an additional history class.
“You hate to say it, but they will,” Latham said.
State law requires a unit of Arkansas history to be taught between the seventh and 12 th grades, but with a new emphasis on world history in middle school, educators fear students will graduate from high school without an appreciation of their local history.
“It’s important for kids to know where they came from,” said Tom DeBlack, president of the Arkansas Historical Association board and an associate history professor at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville.
Another glaring omission from the new Arkansas history guidelines are lessons about slavery, said Jeannie Whayne, chairman of the history department at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.
“I know it’s difficult to deal with,” said Whayne, but in order for students to understand the civil-rights movements in the 1950 s and ’ 60 s, they need to learn about the institution of slavery.
“We haven’t heard that,” Thompson said about a lack of lessons on slavery, adding that the new guidelines have yet to be tested.
“Teachers can always go above and beyond those frameworks,” she said.
FEEDBACK:
Something to say about this topic? Submit a Letter to the Editor online
