Editorial: Truth in teaching history

The Island Now

“Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past,” wrote George Orwell in “1984.”

The truth of Orwell’s words can be seen throughout American history in the teaching of Native Americans, the disinformation of Holocaust deniers and the teaching of race and slavery.

We are now watching in real time the attempt by former President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans to rewrite the results of the last presidential election and the insurrection that sought to overturn the election and our democratic system on Jan. 6.

And the lie that the election was stolen from Trump through widespread fraud has been the basis of Republican state legislatures across the country passing laws to suppress the vote, especially of people of color, and potentially subverting elections.

So we applaud the state Board of Regents’ call for school districts to have a more honest presentation of history that more fully covers the role racism plays in America as well as efforts to diversify school staffs and teach in ways that respond to the increasing diversity of student bodies.

“Discussion of racism and bigotry is part of the American experience. How do you talk about the development of this nation without talking about that?” asked Lester W. Young Jr., a former educator in Brooklyn who became the first African-American elected Regents chancellor in June.

School Superintendent Michael Hynes said the Port Washington school district is currently engaged in a “forensic audit” to determine what is being taught, why certain populations of its students are not excelling and how to better serve them.

Presenting an account of history with the blemishes is not without controversy.

The Texas Legislature, yes them, approved a so-called “critical race theory” bill last week that is intended to restrict how race and history are taught in schools. This includes the role of slavery in Texas, which fought on the side of the Confederacy during the Civil War, and slavery’s role in the founding of the United States.

Sorry, Texas, but the acceptance of slavery appears at the beginning of the U.S. Constitution when it discusses the basis of determining the number of representatives and how taxes are paid.

Representation, the Constitution states, “shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.” Those other persons being slaves.

In true Orwellian fashion, the term “critical race theory” has become a rallying cry of people opposing changes in the teaching of history.

In reality, critical race theory is a body of legal scholarship that critically examines the intersection of race and U.S. history. It is taught in law schools, not elementary schools.

That hasn’t stopped discussions about critical race theory from becoming the subject of heated discussions at school board meetings on Long Island.

Mike Simonelli, a Suffolk County PBA official with a child in Smithtown schools, said in an email to Newsday that he supports diversity programs, but rejects what he called critical race theory “concepts of institutionalized racism, police violence, white privilege, white fragility, implicit bias, and that America is not a meritocracy.”

He described those ideas as Marxist and said they were being infiltrated “under the guise of diversity, equity and inclusion.”

Sorry, but an honest account of history is not Marxism. It is the truth. To whitewash that truth turns schools into vehicles of propaganda.

Our founding fathers were flawed men who despite their limitations produced perhaps the greatest system of government the world has known.

Even at the outset, they did not live up to the words in the Declaration of Independence that “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

But they offered a road map for a more perfect union based on the democratic process.

The women’s suffrage movement that led to a woman’s right to vote in 1920 and the civil rights movement in the 1960s, which provided Blacks with access to the ballot box, were two important steps in fulfilling the words of our founders.

Knowing this history helps us understand the world we now live in today as Republican-controlled state legislatures attempt to suppress votes, often aimed at Blacks and other people of color.

History teaches us that this is nothing new. In fact, efforts to suppress the vote of Blacks and other minorities have been the rule rather than the exception in this country.

There is certainly room for debate in some areas of history. And we need to be wary about going too far as with calls for removing statues of Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers who owned slaves. They ignore the system of governance they produced despite their flaws.

But calls to remove Confederate battle flags from state houses and the naming of schools and military bases after Confederate generals – traitors who waged war against the United States in an effort to preserve slavery – was long overdue by any fair reading of history.

Roger Tilles, Long Island’s representative on the Regents board, pointed out that Long Island’s schools remain among the most segregated in the nation, with majority-minority districts such as Wyandanch and Hempstead – among the poorest in taxable revenue – operating next door to mostly white, wealthier districts such as Half Hollow Hills and Garden City.

“As a Regent, if you don’t see the responsibility for equity to make sure others get the same chance at excellence, then you’re not doing your job,” Tillles said.

With the new prevalence of social media, we would add to the state’s goal of providing students with an honest account of history a greater emphasis on teaching critical thinking and the skills needed to separate fact from fiction.

Social media platforms like Facebook have now become sources of vast misinformation on everything from race to COVID vaccines.

So giving students an honest account of history is important, but even that is no longer enough. Students must also understand how to distinguish between reliable sources of information and those trying to mislead us.

As Orwell understood, knowing the truth is essential to keeping us free.

 

 

 

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