The document was approved in October 2002, as an adaption of something written in 1997, and was written with the help of teachers and administrators from throughout MA, museums and historical societies, professors and public officials. Clearly the MA state board of education tried to eliminate the struggle over history, as explained in Tyrell's Historian's in Public, by drawing from all possible sources.
I have to say the beginning of this document surprised me. I could not believe how clearly they stated the goal of their entire curriculum through three points:
"First, that democracy is the worthiest form of human governance ever conceived.
Second that we cannot take its survival or its spread - or its perfection in practice - for granted. Indeed, we believe that the great central drama of modern history has been and continues to be the struggle to establish, preserve, and extend democracy - at home and abroad...
Third, we are convinced that democracy’s survival depends upon our transmitting to each new generation the political vision of liberty and equality that unites us as Americans - and a deep loyalty to the political institutions our founders put together to fulfill that vision."
This assertion seemed more in line with trying to convey a kind of heritage rather than exact truth. According to the document, encouraging the children of Massachusetts to believe in democracy as practiced in the United States is the most important goal of history. The introduction to this document, based off of
Education for Democracy: A Statement of Principles. Publication of the Education for Democracy Project, a joint project of the American Federation of Teachers, the Education Excellence Network, and Freedom House (Washington, D.C.: American Federation of Teachers, 1987) which is a standard for the entire country seemed to convey the message that this particular patriotic idea about the American founding, its government, and its goals, is an idea that is common to all of the US.
While they did provide a disclaimer about specific policy implications, I thought the message conveyed was quite clear and I was honestly surprised. If the entire curriculum is about a certain idea, even a bias...how can the students hope to learn history "exactly as it happened" or as close to it as possible? One of the major problems with history curriculum arose during WWII and the issue was that "the youth of America, in colleges and schools, knew little about their country's history." What Allan Nevins called "cultural suicide" (Tyrell 111). This introduction emphasizes that Massachusetts was trying to avoid a problem like this--they want their students to know their past, but also, and seemingly more importantly, their heritage.
Tyrell also mentions how schools migrated from just history to a more comprehensive curriculum that also includes more aspects of the social sciences like economics and civics--both of these arerequired electives in high school in MA.
Moving onto the specifics of the curriculum itself, Massachusetts provides standards for each grade starting with Pre-K through 12th. Some of these standards are very specific such as 3rd grade which specifies that the entire year will be spent learning the state history of Massachusetts. In the 6th year, however, they just have to learn a set of standards. Further, I noticed that "real history," as opposed to heritage, is not really insisted on until 4th/5th grade when students began to learn geography and concrete facts about US History:
"The purpose of the grade 5 curriculum is to give students their first concentrated study of the formative years of U.S. history."
Each grade level also provides a description of the skills the students should have acquired and what they should learn in that current year. I don't think MA provides lesson plans at all, in fact, it seems they strive to give lots of flexibility. In fact, they say specifically: "The standards in themselves are not intended to be the curriculum, nor do they indicate the whole curriculum." This flexibility is especially demonstrated in the 8th-12th grade levels in which school districts can choose to follow different 'pathways' while achieving the same goals. The guidelines also note that history should not only be based on facts, but should have an element of drama. To achieve this, the document encourages teachers to sort of be creative in how they convey the information. It seems the entire document tries very hard to give guidelines, but not specific instructions.
Finally, I especially enjoyed all of the appendices and found them helpful, or at least would if I was trying to teach. The lists of primary documents were exciting as MA clearly wants students to be able to learn certain skills of history which we emphasize on college campuses, such as being able to learn about history not just from those who have written about it for us, but from those people who experienced it themselves. I also happened to notice McCullough's John Adams book on the list of readings that one can use to help instruct. This fact furthered my thoughts about MA being open to history as heritage, or at least not specifically from historians themselves. I also enjoyed the very extensive list of museums, historical sites, archives available to teachers as well as websites. It seems as though Massachusetts wants to stimulate historical discussion that is anything but the stereotypical sitting in a classroom reading about dead people.
I felt the curriculum was far more extensive and comprehensive than what I learned as I went through school, but I wonder how much of this is taught verbatim, or how much is aspirtaional? Either way, I appreciated Massachusetts's attempts to bridge the gap between traditional history, fun history, and heritage.
I think its fantastic that MA encourages teachers to use resources like museums. One thing I have learned in my museum studies courses is that museum education needs to supplement traditional learning. The biggest reason for this seems to be to increase a museum's audience. Because of lack of school fundings, teachers will not bring their kids on field trips to museums or other places if they can not justify the expense. I think museums can be a great place to learn history and I am glad that MA appreciates that fact!
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