I have been writing a lot on facebook for the past four years focused on politics. I don’t post on such topics here because most issues don’t have immediate relevance to education. The topic I address here does. The issue I address here is dated by a few weeks, but the way political controversies have been going I have not had time to address all topics that concerned me.
As part of a midsummer September address, President Trump addressed the teaching of history and had some very negative things to say. He described certain curricula such as the New York Time’s 1619 Project as “toxic propaganda”. Classroom materials from this source were designed to teach Black History and explained the slavery and ongoing discrimination that Black people face. Similar issues might come up in discussions of the “discovery” of America, the camps holding Japanese-American citizens during the Second World War, the treatment of Native Americans, and many other negative acts and policies that are factually accurate parts of the history of this country. I have provided additional content related to this topic in an earlier post.
Somehow the interest of those who study and teach history in providing an accurate representation of reality have been labeled as leftist and anti-patriotic. This was the President’s message in labeling the teaching the reality of our past as toxic propaganda. Academic fields like history and science have a way of self-correcting their facts and their ideas. Participants in these fields work from the data to constantly challenge and refine the positions taken by others. This attention involving argumentation is a good thing. The ideas and descriptions that come from striving for an honest representation of reality assumes that truth and accuracy are better than fiction. If there is something wrong with a theory of science or a representation of the way we think about ourselves, efforts to improve require an accurate understanding of the present or preferred view. Challenge educators based on issues of facts or disputes over instructional methods if you must. Meddling in the purpose of knowledge development to argue for a flawed representation of the truth misses the point of education.