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California first state to require ethnic studies for high school graduation
- sergiotapia 5y agoMy sympathies to those poor students for having to study all that bullshit before graduation. I hated history in high school as well.
- mkr-hn 5y agoWhat's actually wrong with California's high school ethnic studies program? Asking as someone without access to the curriculum and thus no way to comment on it one way or the other. All I've heard is abstract culture war venting with no specifics.
- imbnwa 5y agoCurriculum specifics are being left to individual districts in order to account distinct demographic differences between them if I'm reading this right, there's a link to the state's "Model Curriculum"[0] in the article [0]https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/esmc.asp https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/esmc.asp
- R0b0t1 5y agoIt's my understanding they dropped a lot of gifted program material and are adding this. Not as the same step, but shows you their priorities. They need to be pushing things useful when working. For what it's worth a lot of curricula include a "world history" already, so I'm unsure what exactly they added.
- mkr-hn 5y agoFrom my skim, this seems to be focused on the US, not the world, with special attention to learning about the many unique cultures a student will encounter growing up. I ended up atheist, but being exposed to all the world's religions--most with some presence even in rural Georgia--in an interactive way (temples, churches, etc) helped moderate my views. Exposure absent understanding breeds extremism.
- threatofrain 5y agoCalifornia is finalizing a proposal to remove math tracking, permitting Calculus to be taken only in the senior year, and de-prioritizing Algebra as a goal of middle school. It is doing so under the theory that the above promotes white nationalist ideology in math education.¹ [1]: https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11/1_STRIDE1.pdf https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11... It is notable that in a long multi-part document concerning racial justice, there is exactly zero mention of "Asian" but bountiful discussion on white nationalist ideology in math.
- mkr-hn 5y agoDid they make these changes to make room for this course? I know there's long been a movement to change priorities in math education to better meet modern needs.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y ago> change priorities in math education to better meet modern needs. Would those be the needs of the Eloi? Math remains the underpinning of everything that enhances life in the modern world. Blissfully regarding it with disdain doesn't change that.
- tablespoon 5y ago> Did they make these changes to make room for this course? I know there's long been a movement to change priorities in math education to better meet modern needs. Define "modern needs." My understanding is that American math education has long been affected by a tug-of-war between... 1) people (usually focused on K-12 education) who want to dumb it down to meet the needs of "modern day to day life" (e.g. algebra isn't important because common people don't use it every day), and... 2) people (usually focused on post K-12 activities at elite levels), who want to make it rigorous, because strong math skills are fundamental for high-level achievement in engineering and science. In America, #1 seems to be the dominant outlook unless there's some national competitive threat (e.g. the Soviets beating the US in the space race).
- dragonwriter 5y ago> It's my understanding they dropped a lot of gifted program material and are adding this. This is false on many levels. Th concept of industrial-style tracked education is generally falling out of favor and being displaced by individualized curriculum adaptation with ad hoc, temporary, subject-specific shared learning groups of similar ability, and in math particularly there has been a recent and controversial change both implementing that change in methods and a change in focus for advanced learning toward deeper concept mastery rather than rushing through more concepts. Which certainly can be (and on HN has been, though people want to seem to rehash it in this thread with no new arguments) its own debate, but is not deleting material and then adding this.
- threatofrain 5y ago> Th concept of industrial-style tracked education is generally falling out of favor and being displaced by individualized curriculum adaptation with ad hoc, temporary, subject-specific shared learning groups of similar ability... The Equitable Math proposal is not this at all. All children are required to be on the same level.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> The Equitable Math proposal is not this at all. It is exactly this minus ad hoc grouping, which is the least important and most subject-variable part. It explicitly and repeadtedly calls out the need for individualized opportunity, support, and expectations throughout, and explicitly cites as motivation concrete experience combining de-tracking with differentiated work and open-ended exploration improving performance outcomes for both more and less proficient students. I don't know if people criticizing it aren't reading it, or if the parts that depart from the industrial-style one-size-fits-all in predefined groups model are so foreign to some people that they are literally incapable of incorporating them into their mental model of the framework despite them being explicit in the text.
- threatofrain 5y agoIn classroom sizes of 30 to 40, which is typical of California, I don't know what kind of imagination you have for individualized learning, especially when all children must be in the same class without any opportunity for advancement, ever. And do you expect that a 9th grade teacher will have the range to teach Algebra 1/2, Trigonometry, Geometry, and Calculus? The ability to jump forward into Calculus is about an individual child's capability to do Calculus. The ability to jump forward in math is the opposite of one size fits all.
- matmann2001 5y agoHigh school history was awful for me as well. But a new course on ethnic studies doesn't have to fall prey to the same issues that have plagued US history education. Namely, who is defining the curriculum, what biases are they including (intentionally or not), how are educators trained to approach and teach the subject. If our education system hadn't failed so hard in these considerations for US history, it's arguable that a separate ethnic studies curriculum wouldn't be (as) necessary. Here's to hoping we can learn from our mistakes.
- gotoeleven 5y agoThis made me laugh. The whole point of these courses is to interject a bunch of grievance-related biases. The history of blacks in america, the history of native americans and of immigrants are all very very major parts of american history in general and any decent american history course is going to cover them. These new courses are going to have all the academic rigor of a BLM press release.
- retrac 5y agoThe framing makes me worry. Presumably the mainstream whiteish culture is, uh, not ethnic? In other words, white remains normal; the standard from which others deviate. It is necessary to talk about and bring awareness of difference, but hopefully not highlighting and emphasising it in the process. Would it not be more appropriate to incorporate this into history generally? I got the 90s revision curriculum here in Ontario, Canada and the indigenous peoples, waves of European conquerors, peasant refugees, and the modern immigration system, and just the origins of the peoples of this country was thematic from first grade. (And not all with rose-tinted glasses. Jewish refugees sent back to Europe. Cash payments for indigenous scalps. The "reasonable" compromise that ended slavery by slowly phasing it out. Mass detentions by race in WW II, among other things. Though any mainstream account ends up distorting and streamlining.)
- mkr-hn 5y agoI would like to see some treatment of the history of subsuming many diverse cultures under a single near-homogenous "white" identity. There's so much history, art, and culture there. It's not just white-washed-by-time Roman buildings.
- 908B64B197 5y ago> peasant refugees There's an attempt at painting criminals of the American Revolutions as "refugees" when they fled north. Interesting the history courses are building up this narrative. > Cash payments for indigenous scalps What's often omitted from history books is that indigenous people fought a lot even before Europeans arrived.
- Apocryphon 5y agoLoyalists were not criminals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyalist_(American_Revolution) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyalist_(American_Revolution)
- retrac 5y agoThe American traitors were the criminals, obviously. /s. Mostly. I'm told that, well into the 20th century, the American Revolution was often taught in the British Empire as the War of American Rebellion. And it had its own mythology/didactic purpose. First, a cautionary tale on what to do if you want to lose a colony. After all the Americans overreacted but they had a point. It also served as an exhibit for the dangers of deviant American republicanism. Populists overthrowing constitutional government. Causing a nasty war. And for no reason. After all, in this historical mythology, the UK would have granted self rule to America as it soon did Canada. etc. if only the Americans had been reasonable. (And they weren't reasonable because they were republicans: see France.). It even served as proof that anti-imperial and republican sentiments held back human liberty and progress. (Slavery was banned in the British Empire long before the USA. Of course, the region with the plurality of slaves under British jurisdiction had just seceded...) I almost wish it were still taught this way today, if only for the perspective shift.
- chuckee 5y ago> These included Jewish and pro-Israel advocates, who asserted that the original draft of the model curriculum was anti-Israel and defined Islamophobia but not antisemitism. > The final version deletes the lessons and references that offended some Jewish groups. Does anyone know what those lessons and references were? The article doesn't say.
- Jensson 5y ago> In California, 70% of students are students of color. They go through 12 years of an education — taking everything from mathematics to biology — and yet it’s taken 53 years to get a single course in something that is relevant to their own personal historical trajectory. They included Asians in that figure. I wonder how they will explain college admission here, "We can see that Asians were discriminated heavily against historically in USA, but things changed so now we too must discriminate against Asians or they will dominate our colleges!". The discrimination in admissions is bad enough, but now they will force every Asian kid to sit and listen why it is good that the state discriminates against them even though history didn't favor them.
- pgcj_poster 5y ago> they will force every Asian kid to sit and listen why it is good that the state discriminates against them What gives you that idea? Also, isn't California the state where public universities aren't allowed to use affirmative action in admissions?
- novok 5y agoThere is a push to remove that
- 908B64B197 5y agoThey won't. That's the magic of getting rid of scores based admission and replacing it with opaque "lotteries" or "holistic" admissions: You can't prove there's any discrimination because the process is completely opaque. The only thing these policies will achieve, is to put the label of "potentially the bar was lowered for this person - risky hire" on someone if they aren't white or asian.
- Factorium 5y agoThese studies just reaffirm tribal and racial differences between Americans. If you were Russia or China, eagerly awaiting the strategic downfall of America (which can only come from within), you'd happily champion and fund these sort of studies. What is life like in Armenia, Israel, Africa, Punjab? Poorer, less free, less liberal (in the original sense of the word) than America. This is not an education, its indoctrination.
- 908B64B197 5y ago> These studies just reaffirm tribal and racial differences between Americans. The term you are looking for is multiculturalism. It's a feature, believe it or not.
- 71a54xd 5y agoYeah, I've mostly lived in Boston MA and New York as an adult and I'm not religious. That said, even as a liberal if I have children they will not be educated in the United States. I'd happily move to France, Norway or Switzerland even if it meant taking a financial step down career wise.
- tablespoon 5y ago> These studies just reaffirm tribal and racial differences between Americans. If you were Russia or China, eagerly awaiting the strategic downfall of America (which can only come from within), you'd happily champion and fund these sort of studies. It's worth noting that this isn't the only dysfunction that will likely lead to the "the strategic downfall of America (which can only come from within)." It's just another instance of the broader problem of a comfort with (and even preference for) disunity and the inability for factions to come together and compromise for the greater good. Another recent instance is the debt-limit brinkmanship. I think what underlies is it a lazy assumption that America's position is forever secure, so internecine ideological squabbles can take priority.
- motohagiography 5y agoIt seems provocative, but it wasn't clear what the graduation requirement was for basic financial literacy, logical reasoning, negotiation, management and leadership, legal and civic government literacy, some basic actuarial, economics knowledge, and other things that would improve life outcomes for every student. If those were included, this would be a less polarizing story.
- tomohawk 5y agoThe new ABCs: Anywhere But California
- calimac 5y ago[dead]