When we send our children off to school, I bet most of us don’t give much thought to all the training, research, and just difficult brain work that has gone into preparing that professional teacher standing in front of the classroom and all the professional administrators and staff that support her or him behind the scenes.
But if you would like to get a glimpse into just a narrow slice of the inner workings of public education, I would encourage you to read the Kansas History, Government and Social Studies Standards. These have been in the news lately because of the brouhaha over Critical Race Theory.
Spoiler alert: Critical Race Theory is not a part of the standards. But if you don’t believe me, or think there is something related to CRT in those standards, please read them because how else are you really going to know? Here is a link to the standards.
What you will find is nearly 250 pages that cover broad topics, such as “Individuals have rights and responsibilities,” and then benchmarks on what students will learn, such as “The student will recognize and evaluate the rights and responsibilities of people living in societies.”
Then the standards go into what are the best practices for teaching. Remember when people used to complain that history classes were just a boring recitation of dates and events? Educators heard you and the Kansas standards promote the idea of going beyond rote memorization into a more comprehensive understanding of history through analysis and evaluation.
Along with best practices, the standards provide suggested scope and sequences of teaching for each grade level.
Of course, the standards are simply guidance and it is up to local school boards and districts to decide on the specific curriculum. As a non-educator, I had difficulty understanding this difference until I heard someone provide a simple explanation, although this applies to math (yes, there are math standards, science standards and English standards too and all are on the Kansas State Department of Education website). Basically, standards may say a student should be able to multiply five times five in the third grade. The curriculum is whatever program is used by the district to get that student to that level.
So, if you have concerns or questions about curriculum, you should contact your school.
But if you are concerned about what our students are learning in history, or social studies or civics classes, I think a good place to start is looking at those standards, which have been put together by Kansas teachers, curriculum coordinators, professors, professional organizations, school administrators and others.
The standard’s Mission Statement is to “prepare students to be informed, thoughtful, engaged citizens as they enrich their communities, state, nation, world and themselves.”
Informed citizens ask questions and probe deeper into issues; thoughtful citizens recognize different points of view and make up their own minds, and engaged citizens try to improve their communities through voting and participating in civil activities.
Aren’t these great goals for our Kansas children that will help them develop the critical thinking foundation they will need as they become tomorrow's leaders?
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