By Mary Grabar April 22, 2014
In 2009, when I attended the
National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) conference, I learned that most of the
educators bristled at the idea of following educational “standards.” Most of
the sessions involved sharing strategies for formally adhering to standards,
while covertly turning students into activists for radical causes. Among these
were repeal of immigration laws, statehood for Washington, D.C., and acceptance
of Islam as superior to Christianity. Instead of being given a knowledge base
in history, civics, and geography, students were emotionally manipulated into
being advocates, attending protests, and lobbying legislators.
Flash forward to 2014. Now the
objectives of these social studies teachers are the objectives of Obama’s
Department of Education. The Common Core “standards” for math and English
Language Arts are the law in 45 states. Those for science and social studies have been
written, but are still voluntary.
Eschewing traditional forms of
knowledge acquisition and writing (the old standards), “The College, Career,
and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards: State
guidance for enhancing the rigor of K-12 civics, economics, geography, and
history” promote the idea of doing social studies.
Yes, “doing.”
The word “doing” appears frequently
in the guidelines, as it does in the Department of Education’s 2012 report, “A
Crucible Moment: College Learning & Democracy’s Future,” which was criticized roundly by the National
Association of Scholars (myself included) for using civics education
to promote radical activism and anti-Americanism in higher education.
In order to advance similar
activism, the authors of the K-12 “C3 Framework” caricature traditional
education as pouring knowledge into students who are passive vessels. But
traditional, classical education, founded on a firm base of knowledge, is the
kind that works and best prepares students for adult
life. It incorporates three levels of learning outlined by the Atlanta
Classical Academy charter school, as taken from their successful petition
before the Board of Education:
1. Grammar Stage (mastery of key foundational facts, rules,
and tools, imparted by teachers who are experts in their subject);
2. Logic Stage (mastery of relationships, categories, and
order to create coherent frameworks);
3. Rhetoric Stage (communication and reasoning).
Notably, Common Core skips the
first step, reducing it to a haphazard process of “discovery”–a hallmark of
progressive education. The cart is put before the horse through “experiential”
learning, where students “practice[e] the arts and habits of civic life.”
There is no sense that students
should first acquire a solid foundation of historical knowledge. Rather,
students are left to do “inquiry” with “Four Dimensions”: 1) “developing
questions and planning inquiries;” 2) “applying disciplinary concepts and
tools;” 3) “evaluating sources and using evidence;” and, 4) “communicating
conclusions and taking informed action.”
It can hardly be said that children
are capable of “taking informed action.” Yet the cover photographs of the report draft
(dated April 9, 2013) reveal the authors’ aims by showing children in a public
forum, looking at a globe (perhaps plotting their next business move in the
“twenty-first century workplace”?), and in a group leaning over plans
(mimicking modern-day advertisements of the corporate working world). The final
photo shows a street protest with signs saying, “No” to toxic waste.
Such photos belie the authors’
claim that “Advocates of citizenship education cross the political spectrum”
and are “bound by a common belief that our democratic republic will not sustain
unless students are aware of their changing cultural and physical environments;
know their past; read, write, and think deeply; and, act in ways to promote the
common good.” Rather, these advocates use children for their own aims, placing
adult burdens on them, while denying them a real education.
The Objectives
for Second Grade
Age-inappropriateness also becomes
evident in a table called “Suggested K-12 Pathway for College, Career and Civic
Readiness Dimension 1.” It states that “by the end of grade 2”
(emphasis added) the student will construct compelling questions and “explain
why the compelling question is important to the student” and “identify
disciplinary concepts found or implied in a compelling question.” (A note
explains, “Students, particularly before middle school, will need considerable
guidance and support from adults to construct questions that are suitable for
inquiry.” Of course, they would need “guidance.” That’s where the teacher can
impose her own, leading questions.)
The second-grader, furthermore, in
a mind-boggling quest, must “make connections between supporting questions and
compelling questions” and “identify ideas mentioned and implied by a supporting
question” and then “determine the kinds of sources that will be helpful in
answering compelling and supporting questions.”
Writing assignments do not follow
an age-appropriate progression, either. Dimension 4, “Communicating
Conclusions,” calls for second-graders to “construct an argument with reasons”
and “present a summary of an argument using print, oral and digital
technologies.” High school seniors are to do similar tasks in a slightly more
sophisticated form, for example, in constructing arguments, using multiple
sources, and acknowledging counterclaims and evidentiary weaknesses.
What can a
“college-ready” senior do?
While second-graders are asked to
“think like historians,” the high school senior is asked to perform unscholarly
tasks, such as presenting “adaptations of arguments and explanations that
feature evocative ideas and perspectives
on issues and topics to reach a range of audiences and venues outside
the classroom using print and oral technologies
(e.g., posters, essays, letters, debates, speeches, reports, maps) and digital
technologies (e.g., internet, social media, digital documentary).” Even essays
and reports get buried amidst posters, social media, and digital documentaries.
The authors refer back to the
English Language Arts (ELA) standards for guidance, but these are vague and
loose, for example, Standard 7, which “focuses on ‘short as well as more
sustained research projects based on focused questions.” The social studies
standards also go back to the ELA’s emphasis on “Speaking and Listening
Standards,” wherein “students engage one another strategically using different forms
of media given a variety of contexts in order to present their knowledge and
ideas.” As if these were really vigorous, the authors cite “examples,” such as
participating in a “range of conversations and collaborations with diverse
partners” and making “strategic use of ‘media and visual display’ when
presenting.”
This is hardly preparation for
college work in the traditional sense. Traditional work would involve sifting
through historical material knowledgeably, and compiling it in the
well-reasoned format of a scholarly paper. Were the Common Core authors serious
about “college-readiness,” they would have taken their cue from retired teacher
Will Fitzhugh, who for decades has been swimming against the tide of downgraded
writing standards (blogging, journal-writing, video-producing). To this end, he
has been holding contests and publishing impressive student papers in his
scholarly journal, The Concord Review. The new standards, to
Fitzhugh, enable “students to be ignoramuses who may be able to talk glibly
about their instant New Deeper critical analysis of selected test passages.”
They will, however, “not have enough knowledge to do them a bit of good in
college or at any workplace.” They are effectively being taught the art of
propaganda through multimedia rather than the art of writing through a
knowledge base in history, civics and geography.
The new social studies standards
are not surprising, considering the work of social studies teachers behind the
scenes at conferences and elsewhere. They now have an administration that
supports their radical aims. Consider the members of the “writing team” of this
report, including this large majority:
Kathy Swan,
lead writer/project director: associate professor of curriculum and instruction
at the University of Kentucky, and coauthor of And Action! Doing
Documentaries in the Social Studies Classroom. Her research focuses
on “standards-based technology integration, authentic intellectual work, and
documentary-making in the social studies classroom.”
Keith C. Barton,
professor of curriculum and instruction and adjunct professor of history at
Indiana University and co-author of Doing History: Investigating with
Children in Elementary and Middle Schools and
Teaching History for the Common Good.
Flannery Burke,
associate professor of history at Saint Louis University who specializes in
environmental history, the history of the American West, and gender studies.
Susan W. Hardwick,
professor emerita of geography at the University of Oregon and co-host of the
Annenberg/PBS series The Power of Place.
John Lee,
associate professor of social studies education at North Carolina State
University and co-director of the New Literacies Collaborative, http://newlit.org
(connected to Linda Darling-Hammond).
Peter Levine,
Professor of Citizenship & Public Affairs at Tufts University, author of Engaging
Young People in Civic Life, and a proponent of left-wing “civic
engagement.”
Karen
Thomas-Brown, associate professor of social
studies and multiculturalism at the University of Michigan-Dearborn with
research interests in “neoliberalism and the impact of globalization on the
operation of secondary urban centers in developing countries.”
Cynthia Tyson,
professor in the College of Education and Human Ecology at The Ohio State
University, “where she teaches courses in multicultural and equity studies in
education; early childhood social studies; and multicultural children’s
literature.”
Bruce
VanSledright, professor of history and social
studies education at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. His research focuses on “doing history.”
Merry
Wiesner-Hanks, professor of history, University
of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, with a special interest in women’s and gender
history.
This appeared here and I wish to thank Mary for allowing me to publish her work. Mary Grabar,
Ph.D., has taught college English for over twenty years. She is the founder of
the Dissident Prof Education Project,
Inc., an education reform initiative that offers information
and resources for students, parents, and citizens. The motto, “Resisting the
Re-Education of America,” arose in part from her perspective as a very young
immigrant from the former Communist Yugoslavia (Slovenia specifically). She
writes extensively and is the editor of EXILED.
Ms. Grabar is also a contributor to SFPPR News
& Analysis.
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