Have you ever been in a position in your adult life where you learned about a historical event for the first time or found out the truth about an event where you had the facts wrong without knowing and asked yourself, “why didn’t I learn this in school?”
This seems to be an increasingly common question in the modern era. With a consistent flow of new documentaries, continued interest and protest of the United States’ domestic and foreign affairs and news coverage of conflicts overseas, there seems to be a new part of history unveiled every month that the general public has an overall limited knowledge on, but why is that?
Deciding the best way to handle general education of those in grades K-12 has always been a point of contention between educators, their respective state governments and the federal government.
The disconnect between all three parties involved in the development of educational standards and curriculum leads to unclear educational values and ultimately leaves the children to suffer due to a lack of a well-rounded education.
Though the federal government has no say in deciding what is included in the K-12 public school curriculum, they are the ones to blame for standardized testing.
The No Child Left Behind act passed by Congress in 2002 and supported by former President George W. Bush was the first act to mandate standardized testing in primary and secondary education. However, it only tested students in English and math.
NCLB was later replaced by the Every Student Succeeds act in 2015, signed by former President Barack Obama. This act “requires every state to measure performance in reading, math and science,” according to the Department of Education’s website.
There are many issues with standardized testing in general. But, if we have to have it, why is history missing from the list?
If the point of standardized testing is to gauge where students are in their education and show where more funding may be needed, students’ overall knowledge and understanding of history should be tested alongside all other subjects.
In an ideal world, there would be no standardized testing, since often it leads to teachers feeling as if they need to “teach to the test.” This means that instead of teaching the curriculum in a way that may be more beneficial to the students, they end up teaching the students only what is on the test and how to take it. This is because their performance is judged on how well the students do on the test.
This creates a double-edged sword. Standardized testing has many flaws and is likely not the answer to increase students’ understanding and knowledge of history. However, being the only subject left out of standardized testing means it gets put on the back burner compared to other subjects and there is no calculable way of knowing what historical knowledge students are leaving schools with.
Another prevalent issue that causes the overall lack of student knowledge and understanding of historical events and what contributes to many events being glossed over in the curriculum is the American-centered way of thinking.
Since curriculum is decided within state and local educational boards, it’s not fair to generalize that every state or town has an issue with teaching history through only the American lens or not teaching certain events, but it may be the case for some and is a likely explanation for the overall lack of knowledge of foreign history or negative U.S. history.
Only learning history through an American perspective leads to leaving so much history out because the U.S. had nothing to do with it. This leaves students with a limited understanding of the rest of the world and the inability to connect with people from other countries and understand current day conflicts.
There are also many topics that tend to get less attention in overall general history education because they show the U.S. in a negative light. Events like the Vietnam War, Order 9066 during World War II or the anti-Irish sentiment following Irish immigration to the U.S. in the 1840s and 50s, often are glossed over, not explained to the fullest extent or even at times not mentioned at all, depending on where someone attends school.
On the other hand, events like World War I and the Revolutionary War are taught everywhere and in full because the U.S. is on the winning side and is fighting for better causes. Of course these events are important to U.S. and world history, and should be taught as much as they are. But, the other events are just as important, they just don’t tend to receive the same treatment since the U.S. is not the savior or the victor.
Even without a standardized test for history, teachers still have to stick to the curriculum that they are given, and if they stray, there’s a chance that parents would get involved and call it indoctrination, which is an increasingly more common accusation towards history teachers by the day.
History is just as important as any other subject in middle and high school. Learning about American and World history is part of reviving a well-rounded education and sets students up for success in the future by helping them understand the past.
It is up to students, parents and teachers to advocate for change to their local and state school boards and advocate for any change in curriculum they want if they feel as if something important is missing from their history education.
