When my older kid was a sophomore in high school, she and hundreds of her classmates walked out of school to protest gun violence that turned so many schools like hers across the nation into killing fields.
She carried a sign. “Why such a big gun? Overcompensating?
Clever girl. Two years before the walkout, she used another kid’s cellphone to tell me her middle school was being evacuated due to a threat. I walked out of my house to the sound of wailing sirens. I drove toward the evacuation location, Lowe Park, not knowing what was happening.
The threat was fake. Still, she was scared. I was terrified.
So, smart kids such as my daughter, who pay attention to the news, are interested in history and have their own informed views about the state of the state and nation, understood the need to walk out and speak up. No one told her to do it. She just did.
Now, Iowa House Republicans are telling me it’s radical leftists in our schools who used civics instruction to push my kid into activism. Clearly, they have not met her.
But they have a bill to fix it. Because of course they do. It cleared the House this week.
House File 2544 prescribes what sort of civics and history should bet taught to Iowa students. Politicians writing detailed curriculum. What could go wrong?
One thing they want to do is ban “action civics.” So, what’s that?
According to Education Week, action civics’ goal is “not only to teach students how their government works but to harness that knowledge to launch them into collective action on issues they care about. And its lofty goal is to revitalize democracy with a new generation of informed, engaged citizens.”
Well, we’ve got to outlaw that.
The Education Week article talks about kids in Oklahoma who lobbied for accurate HIV and AIDS instruction, and middle school students in California who tested water in their school drinking fountains and convinced their principal to install a filtration system. Chicago kids convinced the transit authority to move a bus stop to a safer spot, and some more Oklahoma kids led the charge for an $11 million bond issue to renovate their school.
Sounds great. But the last thing a bunch of middle-aged, cranky conservative legislators want is kids involved in public policy. They have so many funny ideas about guns, racial equality, LGBTQ rights and environmental protection. After all, children should be seen and not heard. Maybe not even seen.
No Iowa school, under the bill, can teach action civics. And no state university can give credit for any course that teaches the value of activism.
Iowa is following the lead of ruby red Texas, which outlawed any assignments involving direct communications between students and federal, state and local officials.
Backers of the Iowa social studies bill would bury civic engagement in facts to memorize, documents to study and heroes to revere. Lawmakers get to choose.
Middle and high school students will learn about “Christian liberty” in England and the American colonies. They’ll learn about the civic virtues of famous people. Only two women make the cut, Susan B. Anthony and Abigail Adams. Although the list includes Ronald Reagan, Franklin Roosevelt is nowhere to be found. Nor is the nation’s first Black president.
The Holocaust is included in history curriculum, but not the failures of Reconstruction or the violent theft of land from indigenous people. The Civil Rights movement is mentioned, but not Jim Crow, or anything about structural racism that has survived to this day. Neither the Vietnam War nor Watergate is mentioned, although I’m pretty sure they happened.
Students will learn “The United States’ exceptional and praiseworthy history.” Same goes for “Western Civilization.” Somewhere, former Congressman Steve King is smiling.
Do truly exceptional nations really have to keep saying they’re exceptional?
Students will learn “The concept that United States history shall be viewed as factual, not as constructed, shall be viewed as knowable, teachable and testable, and shall be defined as the creation of a new nation based largely on the universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence,” the bill states.
I have no problem with teaching from source documents, focusing on big events, discussing our guiding ideals and introducing key figures. But the idea that American history can’t be questioned seems, well, un-American.
A lot of the language in the bill is cribbed from suggested legislation put forward by the America First Policy Institute, the Civics Alliance and the National Association of Scholars. Trumpers’ fingerprints are all over this stuff.
Permitting a radical right-wing Legislature to dictate what kids learn about history and civics is an astoundingly bad idea. They have no interest in turning out well-informed citizens who know how to think and are ready to take part in selecting the best leaders for our democratic institutions. They want citizens who will not question conservative orthodoxy, patriotic mythology or our current leaders, waving flags. We’re exceptional, so everything we do is magic.
Our founders were clearly practicing action civics. Now, activism is a dirty word, unless you’re trying to ban books, trample the rights of transgender kids or dictate civics and history curriculum.
One way to know for sure someone doesn’t really understand history is when they tell you there’s one, accurate version of our past. Anyone who studies history knows the more you learn, the more questions arise. You’ll find orthodox explanations don’t seem to fit as you peel back the layers.
Imagine someday when the history of our time is studied. Is there one clear, factual version? Yeah, no.
I can only be thankful that my kids won’t have to endure this transformation of history and civics programs into farm teams for the Heritage Foundation.
And why such a big bill? Overcompensating?
(319) 398-8262; todd.dorman@thegazette.com
www.thegazette.com
She carried a sign. “Why such a big gun? Overcompensating?
Clever girl. Two years before the walkout, she used another kid’s cellphone to tell me her middle school was being evacuated due to a threat. I walked out of my house to the sound of wailing sirens. I drove toward the evacuation location, Lowe Park, not knowing what was happening.
The threat was fake. Still, she was scared. I was terrified.
So, smart kids such as my daughter, who pay attention to the news, are interested in history and have their own informed views about the state of the state and nation, understood the need to walk out and speak up. No one told her to do it. She just did.
Now, Iowa House Republicans are telling me it’s radical leftists in our schools who used civics instruction to push my kid into activism. Clearly, they have not met her.
But they have a bill to fix it. Because of course they do. It cleared the House this week.
House File 2544 prescribes what sort of civics and history should bet taught to Iowa students. Politicians writing detailed curriculum. What could go wrong?
One thing they want to do is ban “action civics.” So, what’s that?
According to Education Week, action civics’ goal is “not only to teach students how their government works but to harness that knowledge to launch them into collective action on issues they care about. And its lofty goal is to revitalize democracy with a new generation of informed, engaged citizens.”
Well, we’ve got to outlaw that.
The Education Week article talks about kids in Oklahoma who lobbied for accurate HIV and AIDS instruction, and middle school students in California who tested water in their school drinking fountains and convinced their principal to install a filtration system. Chicago kids convinced the transit authority to move a bus stop to a safer spot, and some more Oklahoma kids led the charge for an $11 million bond issue to renovate their school.
Sounds great. But the last thing a bunch of middle-aged, cranky conservative legislators want is kids involved in public policy. They have so many funny ideas about guns, racial equality, LGBTQ rights and environmental protection. After all, children should be seen and not heard. Maybe not even seen.
No Iowa school, under the bill, can teach action civics. And no state university can give credit for any course that teaches the value of activism.
Iowa is following the lead of ruby red Texas, which outlawed any assignments involving direct communications between students and federal, state and local officials.
Backers of the Iowa social studies bill would bury civic engagement in facts to memorize, documents to study and heroes to revere. Lawmakers get to choose.
Middle and high school students will learn about “Christian liberty” in England and the American colonies. They’ll learn about the civic virtues of famous people. Only two women make the cut, Susan B. Anthony and Abigail Adams. Although the list includes Ronald Reagan, Franklin Roosevelt is nowhere to be found. Nor is the nation’s first Black president.
The Holocaust is included in history curriculum, but not the failures of Reconstruction or the violent theft of land from indigenous people. The Civil Rights movement is mentioned, but not Jim Crow, or anything about structural racism that has survived to this day. Neither the Vietnam War nor Watergate is mentioned, although I’m pretty sure they happened.
Students will learn “The United States’ exceptional and praiseworthy history.” Same goes for “Western Civilization.” Somewhere, former Congressman Steve King is smiling.
Do truly exceptional nations really have to keep saying they’re exceptional?
Students will learn “The concept that United States history shall be viewed as factual, not as constructed, shall be viewed as knowable, teachable and testable, and shall be defined as the creation of a new nation based largely on the universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence,” the bill states.
I have no problem with teaching from source documents, focusing on big events, discussing our guiding ideals and introducing key figures. But the idea that American history can’t be questioned seems, well, un-American.
A lot of the language in the bill is cribbed from suggested legislation put forward by the America First Policy Institute, the Civics Alliance and the National Association of Scholars. Trumpers’ fingerprints are all over this stuff.
Permitting a radical right-wing Legislature to dictate what kids learn about history and civics is an astoundingly bad idea. They have no interest in turning out well-informed citizens who know how to think and are ready to take part in selecting the best leaders for our democratic institutions. They want citizens who will not question conservative orthodoxy, patriotic mythology or our current leaders, waving flags. We’re exceptional, so everything we do is magic.
Our founders were clearly practicing action civics. Now, activism is a dirty word, unless you’re trying to ban books, trample the rights of transgender kids or dictate civics and history curriculum.
One way to know for sure someone doesn’t really understand history is when they tell you there’s one, accurate version of our past. Anyone who studies history knows the more you learn, the more questions arise. You’ll find orthodox explanations don’t seem to fit as you peel back the layers.
Imagine someday when the history of our time is studied. Is there one clear, factual version? Yeah, no.
I can only be thankful that my kids won’t have to endure this transformation of history and civics programs into farm teams for the Heritage Foundation.
And why such a big bill? Overcompensating?
(319) 398-8262; todd.dorman@thegazette.com
Opinion: Iowa Republicans are trying to dictate history curriculum. It’s a historic mistake
Several hundred Linn-Mar High School students cross Seventh Avenue after leaving school during the ‘Walkout for Change’ on Friday, April …
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