This op ed was published in the Worcester T&G today
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Keep MCAS out of history class
AS I SEE IT
By Bill Schechter
Do we need more history instruction in our schools? Yes. Is history the most important subject students can study? Please forgive this history teacher if he thinks so.
As those who know me will attest, I live and breathe history. If there is a historical marker in the highway, my wife has to beg me to keep going and not stop to read it. I also had the privilege of teaching the subject for 35 years at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, and organized mural projects, magazines, and innumerable field trips to deepen student interest in the past. It’s because I love history that I oppose adding it to the state MCAS exam lineup.
True, any piece on this subject has to acknowledge historical literacy is low in this country. A recent national report card has described the depth of this ignorance. What goes unsaid by many commentators, however, is that the same sad statistics have been showing up in national studies for 40 years.
Why is MCAS not the best way to address this problem? Most obviously, we already have too much testing and too little data demonstrating that all this mandated testing leads to real learning gains. A recent National Academy of Science study reached this very conclusion. Do we really want more test prep masquerading as education?
Moreover, history is not the same as math. Essentially, history is an argument about what is important to know and what conclusions can be drawn from “the facts.” We don’t all agree about the past. We discuss, debate, and disagree about it in ways that we don’t, say, with the Pythagorean theorem.
When this sense of argument is removed from history, as standardized exams invariably do, the subject is drained of its lifeblood. The conflict, the drama, the ambiguities, the meaning of the subject become reduced to tedious lists of facts that themselves are quite arbitrary. What was your history class like? The complexity that characterizes history also underlies this debate over a history MCAS.
Some of the most vociferous proponents of yet another MCAS test have an underlying agenda and motive, which was subtly expressed in their opinion pieces. They favor an MCAS solution to the “history crisis” because they hope test-enforced state frameworks will give them an opportunity to shape and even determine what students will learn about the past.
Among these advocates are the Pioneer Institute and other conservatives who don’t much like how they claim history is taught. They prefer to look at the past through their ideological lens. Here’s the giveaway: In an op-ed titled “Why history and civics matter” (Telegram & Gazette, July 5), Robert Holland and Dan Soifer of the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va., tell us that “as problematic as a lack of formal history training is the proliferation of a radical strain of ‘social-justice multiculturalism’ prevalent in many university schools of education.”
That’s an opinion. Here’s a fact: When I went to high school, a half-century ago, there was no controversy about multiculturalism because the official New York State Regents curriculum simply ignored the histories of African-Americans, workers, and immigrants, among other controversial topics. Forget that my classmates and I were largely from immigrant families and a working-class neighborhood. Do we really want to go back to that narrow view of history?
Do we need more history instruction in our schools? Yes. Is history the most important subject students can study? Please forgive this history teacher if he thinks so.
Sadly, most high school students will not become history majors. Nor will they remember much of what they study in their high school classes. For these reasons, history classes must be vibrant and inspire in our students — these young citizens — a lifelong interest in democracy and in our amazing collective story.
Teachers have to encourage discussion, debate, rigor, and critical thinking that go well beyond the memorization of lifeless lists. Students need the chance to see why history poses problems that demand both analysis and imagination. A history MCAS exam will take us in exactly the wrong direction.
Because we need a greater emphasis on history and civics, the state should simply raise the number of years of study required for graduation. At my school, students had to take three years of history, and most chose to take four. This is also the cost-effective solution.
What we don’t need are more tests, or political lobbying by interest groups about what should be taught, or mind-numbing MCAS-prep worksheets.
History becomes memorable when it can be taught in a thoughtful and creative manner. Above all, teachers need the time and freedom to help students understand what William Faulkner meant when he said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
Bill Schechter of Brookline taught history for 35 years at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School in Sudbury.
Interesting points you raise. Inevitably, at whatever level history curriculums* are codified, politics will get involved. If not at the state level for MCAS, then at the town level for the local curriculum. On one hand, there’s more potential for dishonest codification of world or American history at the local level, but there’s also more potential to be happy with general frameworks. Instead, the state frameworks are simultaneously too detailed and too general. The description of history in pre-Eurocontact Africa is atrocious, and thoroughly missing for pre-Eurocontact Australia. Only two Chinese dynasties are worth mentioning.
However, there is another problem. With no history MCAS, there is frankly almost no history in public schools before high school. It’s basically gone from all but the more affluent elementary schools as a par with math and literacy, and it’s disappearing fast from middle schools. It’s quite a confluence — since it’s not on the MCAS, since history teachers are often rabble-rousers, since it causes controversy (no parent ever calls the superintendent about what their child is being taught in math), it’s just easier to eliminate the subject. At the same time, Americans’ understanding of their own history gets worse day by day.
I don’t think there should be a history MCAS. I don’t think there should be a science MCAS. In no way are these tests authentic, or equitable. That said, consigning history as a second- or third-tier subject does little good in the long run.
Not sure codification at a local level is necessary, at least to the same extent, with the same specificity, as state exam frameworks.
Let the state mandate the need to teach/take non-MCAS subjects. That might mitigate some of the corrosive effects on education of MCAS.
about the Pythagorean Theorem, or other mathematical ideas.
I suspect that part of the reason so many editors & journalists elevate climate nonsense to the same level as established climate science is that they did not do enough discussing, debating, and disagreeing about mathematics in their schooling.
But Bill, you are right about avoiding an MCAS test for history.
History is usually the one subject (along with math) that I cite as a reason FOR standarized tests. Students absolutely must start with a basic grounding in facts, names, dates, etc before they can get into any intelligent debate or discussion. MCAS has both multiple choice and open response questions, the former for just the facts and the latter for thought process. I took Advanced Placement United States History and my teacher proved it IS possible to cover the facts AND have a vigorous discussion about what it all means. As I recall my class all passed the AP exam by comfortable margins without the teacher teaching to the test. A test is absolutely essential to make sure kids are learning which has proven all the more needed for history in particular in light of the false history people are swallowing in our political discourse.
Thank you for your frank disagreement. I guess all I can say is that my perspective comes from my experience teaching this material for almost four decades, working with other colleagues who taught history, and observing/hearing what interested students, most of whom chose to take 4 years of history at our school. I might add I was also a student who was exposed to several approaches, including that required by the NY State Regents exams. There was an AP course the school I taught in and mostly hyper competitive sophs took it–largely for transcript reasons—and many later regretted their choice after taking rigorous independent courses. There are big problems with the history AP exam, which have been acknowledged even by the College Board, which now promises to come out with a new version. Many AP teachers in all subjects are extremely frustrated with the pace they must maintain. Most don’t feel they have plenty of time for “vigorous debate” and thoughtful exploration. I don’t discount the possibility that some teachers can teach a great AP course, but this isn’t the rule. I also realize that some students love to crunch facts. However, I don’t think this approach is generally well-suited to inculcate a love for history or retention of the material. I salute the uber competitive Scarsdale HS for doing away with AP. So too Fieldston HS in the Bronx. As for MCAS having free response questions, they are graded in how many seconds? You most interesting comments bear on “making sure kids learn” and “false history.” Let’s reflect on what learning means and the different forms that “false history” can take. By the way, I taught lots of “content.” I also gave lots of tests (yes, they are important!) and other assessments, but no one of them was good enough to be “high stakes.” least of all the standardized variety in a discipline that essentially involves argument and interpretation. Years ago a survey showed history was the least favorite of all subjects among h.s. students. There is a reason for this. MCAS would only institutionalize the kind of pedagogy that leads to such negative feelings. An emphasis on lists, memorization, and regurgitation does not nurture a love for history. Quite the opposite. When history is taught as a problem requiring analysis, in-depth study, and critical thought, kids begin to understand what’s at stake in history class and why it is important.
…if it weren’t so darn sanitized. I’ve read some history as an adult which makes me think if only THAT story were told in school it WOULD be more interesting. I just cringe when I read that x% of students can’t name the first President or y% can’t place the Civil War in the correct half century. I figure you test people on basics like this if for no other reason to assure we don’t have idiot-citizens. I am a firm believer in the notion that those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat. I’ve had as much fun as others laughing at Michele Bachmann’s historical gaffes for example, but unfortunately most Americans probably wouldn’t do much better. I just feel there are basic things you have to know and the way to insure that is to test it. We need skilled teachers like in any subject who can both teach the facts AND make it all interesting and relevant.
We certainly don’t want “idiot citizens. I too am appalled by the kind of ignorance you cite. We certainly want everyone to know Washington’s name and perhaps also that he was not, as Bachmann would have it, an abolitionist, but was in fact extremely concerned that his slaves who ran away to the British side during the war, be returned to him. (They weren’t). I think we both agree that kids need more history, and this is why I suggest that the state require more. I would add that teachers do test material currently and did so before MCAS. But long term retention of material is best ensured by making the material interesting and important. Here is the paradox: if the state gives an MCAS exam, which let’s say, embraces a host of basic facts, you can be sure that that is what will be taught and time will not spent on “more interesting things.” This is particularly true as we move into a world where teachers are evaluated based on student test scores. “If we insist on measuring everything we value, we will end up valuing only what can be measured.” It’s kind of like the way Gresham’s Law works with money. In this case the tested, super basic material will drive the rest out. Nor do I think this material will be remembered because there will be no larger conceptual framework to hang it on. Anyway, I do think we agree on the main point: the need for more history.