Texas is rewriting history

When I went to school in Texas, I received an education that I now see as having been unusually progressive for the political context of the time.

In fourth grade social studies, I was taught that American Indians had been treated abominably by US government and were forced onto reservations after decades of resistance.  We read a historical fiction biography of Quannah Parker, chief of the last tribe of Staked Plains Indians to go onto the reservations.  For a comprehension assessment of the reading, we were assigned an essay:  we had to write the speech that Quannah Parker might have made to his tribe to persuade them to go to the reservation.  Such an assignment required not only the learning of factual information from the book we had read, but also required us to attempt to empathise with Parker, in a political climate that overwhelmingly erases the history of American Indians from school curricula altogether.

When we covered the American Revolution, we were taught about the role played by American Indians.  When I studied the American Revolution at school in the UK, not mention was made at all of American Indians, and when I raised the matter with my teacher, she shrugged and said that she had never heard of “Red Indians” in the American Revolution.

In fifth grade science classes, we were taught about marine ecology, and the damage done by oil spills.  We were taught about whale hunting and endangered marine species.  In social studies, we read a biography of Sandra Day O’Connor, and we were taught about the Great Depression.

In sixth grade science, I was taught Darwinian evolutionary theory.  In social studies, we talked briefly about world religions.  In sixth grade I did a presentation on Phillis Wheatley.  I was also taught about slavery, racial segregation, the KKK, and the Holocaust.

It wasn’t all perfect, mind you.  I remember that my mother was pretty scandalised by some of the things we were taught at school about American Indians — the extent to which it was Othering and exoticising and “weird-ising” of American Indian people.

I’ve been following the coverage of the Texas State Board of Education plans to make drastic changes to the social studies curriculum and textbooks.  Among the changes, from the NYTimes article:

• calling into question the separation of church and state
• students must study the “violent philosophy” of the Black Panthers alongside the non-violent protest of MLK.
• Congress votes on civil rights legislation that were supported by Republicans will be included
• students must study the “unintended consequences” of affirmative action and Title IX legislation
• students must be taught that the internment of Japanese people during WWII in the US was not racist because Germans and Italians were also interned.
• the word “capitalism” is replaced with “free-enterprise system” to counter the negative connotations of “capitalism”.
• students must be taught ‘“the importance of personal responsibility for life choices” in a section on teenage suicide, dating violence, sexuality, drug use and eating disorders.’
• Thomas Jefferson is to be removed from the list of figures “whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century”.  Jefferson’s writings are support the secularity of the state.  He is to be replaced with St. Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin.

Proposals that did not make it include trying to change “the slave trade” to “the Atlantic triangular trade”.  Also, efforts to increase the number of Latino/Hispanic figures did not pass.

Look, our past is our past, for better or for worse.  We shouldn’t try to cover it up or brush it with a new coat of paint.  We should teach the bits we’re ashamed of alongside the bits we’re proud of.  If “capitalism” has a negative connotation, students should be encouraged to think about why that might be.  If accusations of racism were made with regard to the internment of Japanese people, students should be encouraged to think about why that might be.  We can’t, and we shouldn’t try, to make our history sound all pink and fuzzy.  We shouldn’t make it all White either.  And moreover — it’s everyone’s past:  we can’t just write textbooks for White kids, pretending that everyone in the history of Texas or the US or the world is White.  It saddens me, although if I’m honest, it doesn’t shock me, that people would try to make history White-centric and pink and fuzzy.  But it’s dishonest and it doesn’t equip kids to follow current public policy debates that are grounded in the recent past.

Kids need to know real history.  Not some propaganda version, and not some indoctrinated version.  It’s only with an accurate grasp of actual history that we can sensibly interpret current politics.  We shouldn’t lie to kids so that they’ll grow up to be “proud of their country”.  We should teach kids the truth.  A faked, made-up history is nothing to be proud of.  A good education is something to be proud of.  Facing up to past mistakes and moving on from them is something to be proud of.

Texas has disproportionate influence with regard to school curricula because the majority of states purchase textbooks that are based on the Texas curriculum.  Check out the ACLU’s campaign on this issue, and write to textbook publishers to oppose the rewriting of history.

–IP

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