Teaching History in Schools

Teaching history in schools has become a heated subject in America, and it’s gaining steam during this election year, 2020. The inequities in our educational program have been highlighted this year due to the changes from COVID 19. When we shut down the country and sent everyone home including all of the kids. Work from home and home-school for the last half of the year, we were not ready for that pressure and it illuminated all of the gaps in our current systems. And, the subject of history came straight to the forefront of our conversations as we experienced a great deal of social unrest and injustice.

We have been slowly taking important education out of our schools — such as music, art, physical education, civics, home economics, and basic life skills. According to the NY Times, in 1993, we began to cut school budgets for music and art programs, it was considered a “frill”, not necessary. Since schools are receiving less funding, and in order to keep essential, core programs in place and pay employees, the funds for art and music programs within the schools have been cut drastically. As a result, many schools nationwide have lost their art and music departments altogether.

The standard argument for taking music and art out of schools is to force kids to focus on the essentials, the core classes — reading, writing, arithmetic, and sciences. The core classes are more important than cultivating creativity. Across the country, 1.3 million elementary schools do not have access to music programs for their students.

History, music, and art

Many believe music and art programs should be mandatory in schools because these activities help build the brain, imagination, curiosity, focus, and discipline. Art and Music programs are also culturally valuable and offer the students an opportunity to enrich their history lessons through art and music.

Currently, the big discussion about our education curriculum has become American History, what is real history? Our age-old teaching style and programs have not evolved as much as we have as a country. The African American communities have not been equally represented in our current history curriculum and that needs to be corrected, the question is how? Who will design the new curriculum and where do we begin?

Some ideas being considered:

The 1619 Project
1776 Unites
White Fragility
Critical Race Theory

The truth is much of our approach to teaching needs an update. We have to look at our results over the past 50 years and admit that we are growing sicker as people, our overall health is in very poor shape. Our children and citizens are overwhelmingly obese and unhealthy as a result of poor eating habits and lack of movement. Our schools need to make health and wellness a priority for the body and brain. And, building a well-rounded educational program for our children will benefit this country in many ways for generations to come.

A well-rounded education includes:

Health, fitness, and wellness
Music and the arts
Local, national, and global history
Politics, civics, and business
Home economics and basic life skills

Revamping our national educational program is essential to the health of this country. In addition, this type of engagement will aid our young people to develop a strong work ethic, discipline, and imagination that will go a long way to foster innovation. Innovation, creativity, and focus are what is going to keep this country strong.