US History teaching standards

[AENeuman]

Putting together a curriculum for my 11th grade US History class and I was looking at the California standards (what California wants the students to learn/know).

All that is said about the Civil War is:
11.1.4 Examine the effects of the Civil War and Reconstruction and of the industrial revolution, including demographic shifts and the emergence in the late nineteenth century of the United States as a world power.

For the Civil Rights:
11.10.1 Explain how demands of African Americans helped produce a stimulus for civil rights, including President Roosevelt's ban on racial discrimination in defense industries in 1941, and how African Americans' service in World War II produced a stimulus for President Truman's decision to end segregation in the armed forces in 1948.
11.10.2 Examine and analyze the key events, policies, and court cases in the evolution of civil rights, including Dred Scott v. Sandford, Plessy v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board of Education, Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, and California Proposition 209.
11.10.3 Describe the collaboration on legal strategy between African American and white civil rights lawyers to end racial segregation in higher education.
11.10.4 Examine the roles of civil rights advocates (e.g., A. Philip Randolph, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Thurgood Marshall, James Farmer, Rosa Parks), including the significance of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and "I Have a Dream" speech.
11.10.5 Discuss the diffusion of the civil rights movement from the churches of the rural South and the urban North, including the resistance to racial desegregation in Little Rock and Birmingham, and how the advances influenced the agendas, strategies, and effectiveness of the quests of American Indians, Asian Americans, and Hispanic Americans for civil rights and equal opportunities.
11.10.6 Analyze the passage and effects of civil rights and voting rights legislation (e.g., 1964 Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act of 1965) and the Twenty-Fourth Amendment, with an emphasis on equality of access to education and to the political process.

I get that the Civil Rights were important, but that is good month of instruction, while the Civil War should, according to this, get 1 or 2 days. The reasoning is that 11th graders already had the Civil War in 8th grade. So I guess my point is the average person has a 12 year olds understanding of the Civil War (and the Revolutionary War too).

Of course most, if any, teachers follow this exactly.

[saldana]

nothing else happened between 1865 and now except the civil rights movement that was pertinent in american history ?

[molson]

Maybe they think its better in terms of overall education to study one thing in depth, than to give an broad overview of everything. I can see that point of view - studying a specific topic more closely requires unique skills. In high school, skills will stay with the student longer than any fact.

My 9th grade history class was probably 90% Holocaust.

[Blade6119]

I think this really is more an effect of polital correctness as it effects our society. I took American History in 11th grade(3 years ago), and we basically followed this to a T. Nobody in the class quite understood why, as other events besides civil rights have shaped our country to a greater extent(not to say it hasnt, but is reckon the american revolution had a bigger part...we spend half of a class on the rev). I always assumed it was the school doing their part to educate the kids about racial history and why its a problem.

[King of New York]

Maybe they think its better in terms of overall education to study one thing in depth, than to give an broad overview of everything. I can see that point of view - studying a specific topic more closely requires unique skills. In high school, skills will stay with the student longer than any fact.

My 9th grade history class was probably 90% Holocaust.

Studying a few topics in depth rather than covering lots of material superficially makes some pedagogical sense, as long as the teachers can still provide enough coverage to prevent cultural illiteracy.

On the other hand, the folks drawing up the curriculum could just have easily decided to study the Civil War in as much detail as the Civil Rights Movement. Also, to develop skills through the in-depth study of a specific topic, you need to give the students exercises where they have to draw on lots of different sources, but the proposed curriculum just lists lots of content that the students are supposed to absorb.

All curriculum guidelines are thinly disguised political manifestos--they always have been. Here in Virginia, though, the agenda is a tad different. I know a fourth-grader who spent a lot of time studying the Civil War last year, and her final assignment was to write an essay explaining "why Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, and Jeb Stuart were great Americans."

The best service teachers (especially history teachers) can provide is to teach students how to recognize agendas when they come across them.

[clintl]

I get that the Civil Rights were important, but that is good month of instruction, while the Civil War should, according to this, get 1 or 2 days. The reasoning is that 11th graders already had the Civil War in 8th grade. So I guess my point is the average person has a 12 year olds understanding of the Civil War (and the Revolutionary War too).




Perhaps you should have mentioned that the 11th Grade California History Standards focus primarily on the 20th Century, and that's right in its heading:

http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/hstgrade11.asp

The 8th Grade Standards, for reference, which cover up to the end of the 19th Century:

http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/hstgrade8.asp

Honestly, I don't think it's a terrible thing to break up the history curriculum like this, and do each half of the nation's history in some depth, rather than covering the same ground superficially twice. It might be nice to have them closer together, but then you would have to push all of world history into the middle school years.

[saldana]

i guess things have changed in 15 years...our 11th grade history classes were not nearly as specific, and there were history electives for seniors that were subject specific and lasted half a year, so you could get a ton more information if you wanted it

[JonInMiddleGA]

I think this really is more an effect of polital correctness as it effects our society.

Gee, ya think?

[GoldenEagle]

I am a huge History buff and enjoy about the Civil War.

Bu honestly, in today's world, learning about Civil Rights instead of the Civil War is much more important.

[clintl]

Gee, ya think?

I suppose everything else in the standards is driven by political correctness, too. Especially things like early twentieth century monetary policy.

[caspanky]

I think that part of the issue, is that you've got a few really large detailed topics. You can't possibly fit all of the details about the Revolutionary War, Civil War, World War 1&2, and Civil Rights into one class, not to mention all the events in between. My class in 11th grade spent a lot of time on pre-revolutionary, early 20th century, and the depression through civil rights. Sure we touched on events in between, but not too detailed.

When you move on to college here in California, you get US History again. This time it's split into 2 semesters, first up to and including the Civil War, the second post Civil. It used to be required to take both, but recently they changed it to the first one, and a couple choices for your second class.

[Passacaglia]

nothing else happened between 1865 and now except the civil rights movement that was pertinent in american history ?

I assume he left out the stuff in the middle, and was just comparing these two subjects. He never said the standards skip right to the civil rights movement.

[clintl]

I assume he left out the stuff in the middle, and was just comparing these two subjects. He never said the standards skip right to the civil rights movement.

Correct. For those who didn't click on the link I posted, here what's in between the two:

11.2 Students analyze the relationship among the rise of industrialization, large-scale rural-to-urban migration, and massive immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe.

1. Know the effects of industrialization on living and working conditions, including the portrayal of working conditions and food safety in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle.

2. Describe the changing landscape, including the growth of cities linked by industry and trade, and the development of cities divided according to race, ethnicity, and class.

3. Trace the effect of the Americanization movement.

4. Analyze the effect of urban political machines and responses to them by immigrants and middle-class reformers.

5. Discuss corporate mergers that produced trusts and cartels and the economic and political policies of industrial leaders.

6. Trace the economic development of the United States and its emergence as a major industrial power, including its gains from trade and the advantages of its physical geography.

7. Analyze the similarities and differences between the ideologies of Social Darwinism and Social Gospel (e.g., using biographies of William Graham Sumner, Billy Sunday, Dwight L. Moody).

8. Examine the effect of political programs and activities of Populists.

9. Understand the effect of political programs and activities of the Progressives (e.g., federal regulation of railroad transport, Children's Bureau, the Sixteenth Amendment, Theodore Roosevelt, Hiram Johnson).

11.3 Students analyze the role religion played in the founding of America, its lasting moral, social, and political impacts, and issues regarding religious liberty.

1. Describe the contributions of various religious groups to American civic principles and social reform movements (e.g., civil and human rights, individual responsibility and the work ethic, antimonarchy and self-rule, worker protection, family-centered communities).

2. Analyze the great religious revivals and the leaders involved in them, including the First Great Awakening, the Second Great Awakening, the Civil War revivals, the Social Gospel Movement, the rise of Christian liberal theology in the nineteenth century, the impact of the Second Vatican Council, and the rise of Christian fundamentalism in current times.

3. Cite incidences of religious intolerance in the United States (e.g., persecution of Mormons, anti-Catholic sentiment, anti-Semitism).

4. Discuss the expanding religious pluralism in the United States and California that resulted from large-scale immigration in the twentieth century.

5. Describe the principles of religious liberty found in the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses of the First Amendment, including the debate on the issue of separation of church and state.

11.4 Students trace the rise of the United States to its role as a world power in the twentieth century.

1. List the purpose and the effects of the Open Door policy.

2. Describe the Spanish-American War and U.S. expansion in the South Pacific.

3. Discuss America's role in the Panama Revolution and the building of the Panama Canal.

4. Explain Theodore Roosevelt's Big Stick diplomacy, William Taft's Dollar Diplomacy, and Woodrow Wilson's Moral Diplomacy, drawing on relevant speeches.

5. Analyze the political, economic, and social ramifications of World War I on the home front.

6. Trace the declining role of Great Britain and the expanding role of the United States in world affairs after World War II.

11.5 Students analyze the major political, social, economic, technological, and cultural developments of the 1920s.

1. Discuss the policies of Presidents Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover.

2. Analyze the international and domestic events, interests, and philosophies that prompted attacks on civil liberties, including the Palmer Raids, Marcus Garvey's "back-to-Africa" movement, the Ku Klux Klan, and immigration quotas and the responses of organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the Anti-Defamation League to those attacks.

3. Examine the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution and the Volstead Act (Prohibition).

4. Analyze the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment and the changing role of women in society.

5. Describe the Harlem Renaissance and new trends in literature, music, and art, with special attention to the work of writers (e.g., Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes).

6. Trace the growth and effects of radio and movies and their role in the worldwide diffusion of popular culture.

7. Discuss the rise of mass production techniques, the growth of cities, the impact of new technologies (e.g., the automobile, electricity), and the resulting prosperity and effect on the American landscape.

11.6 Students analyze the different explanations for the Great Depression and how the New Deal fundamentally changed the role of the federal government.

1. Describe the monetary issues of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that gave rise to the establishment of the Federal Reserve and the weaknesses in key sectors of the economy in the late 1920s.

2. Understand the explanations of the principal causes of the Great Depression and the steps taken by the Federal Reserve, Congress, and Presidents Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt to combat the economic crisis.

3. Discuss the human toll of the Depression, natural disasters, and unwise agricultural practices and their effects on the depopulation of rural regions and on political movements of the left and right, with particular attention to the Dust Bowl refugees and their social and economic impacts in California.

4. Analyze the effects of and the controversies arising from New Deal economic policies and the expanded role of the federal government in society and the economy since the 1930s (e.g., Works Progress Administration, Social Security, National Labor Relations Board, farm programs, regional development policies, and energy development projects such as the Tennessee Valley Authority, California Central Valley Project, and Bonneville Dam).

5. Trace the advances and retreats of organized labor, from the creation of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations to current issues of a postindustrial, multinational economy, including the United Farm Workers in California.

11.7 Students analyze America's participation in World War II.

1. Examine the origins of American involvement in the war, with an emphasis on the events that precipitated the attack on Pearl Harbor.

2. Explain U.S. and Allied wartime strategy, including the major battles of Midway, Normandy, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and the Battle of the Bulge.

3. Identify the roles and sacrifices of individual American soldiers, as well as the unique contributions of the special fighting forces (e.g., the Tuskegee Airmen, the 442nd Regimental Combat team, the Navajo Code Talkers).

4. Analyze Roosevelt's foreign policy during World War II (e.g., Four Freedoms speech).

5. Discuss the constitutional issues and impact of events on the U.S. home front, including the internment of Japanese Americans (e.g., Fred Korematsu v. United States of America) and the restrictions on German and Italian resident aliens; the response of the administration to Hitler's atrocities against Jews and other groups; the roles of women in military production; and the roles and growing political demands of African Americans.

6. Describe major developments in aviation, weaponry, communication, and medicine and the war's impact on the location of American industry and use of resources.

7. Discuss the decision to drop atomic bombs and the consequences of the decision (Hiroshimaand Nagasaki).

8. Analyze the effect of massive aid given to Western Europe under the Marshall Plan to rebuild itself after the war and the importance of a rebuilt Europe to the U.S. economy.

11.8 Students analyze the economic boom and social transformation of post-World War II America.

1. Trace the growth of service sector, white collar, and professional sector jobs in business and government.

2. Describe the significance of Mexican immigration and its relationship to the agricultural economy, especially in California.

3. Examine Truman's labor policy and congressional reaction to it.

4. Analyze new federal government spending on defense, welfare, interest on the national debt, and federal and state spending on education, including the California Master Plan.

5. Describe the increased powers of the presidency in response to the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War.

6. Discuss the diverse environmental regions of North America, their relationship to local economies, and the origins and prospects of environmental problems in those regions.

7. Describe the effects on society and the economy of technological developments since 1945, including the computer revolution, changes in communication, advances in medicine, and improvements in agricultural technology.

8. Discuss forms of popular culture, with emphasis on their origins and geographic diffusion (e.g., jazz and other forms of popular music, professional sports, architectural and artistic styles).

11.9 Students analyze U.S. foreign policy since World War II.

1. Discuss the establishment of the United Nations and International Declaration of Human Rights, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and their importance in shaping modern Europe and maintaining peace and international order.

2. Understand the role of military alliances, including NATO and SEATO, in deterring communist aggression and maintaining security during the Cold War.

3. Trace the origins and geopolitical consequences (foreign and domestic) of the Cold War and containment policy, including the following:
* The era of McCarthyism, instances of domestic Communism (e.g., Alger Hiss) and blacklisting
* The Truman Doctrine
* The Berlin Blockade
* The Korean War
* The Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis
* Atomic testing in the American West, the "mutual assured destruction" doctrine, and disarmament policies
* The Vietnam War
* Latin American policy

4. List the effects of foreign policy on domestic policies and vice versa (e.g., protests during the war in Vietnam, the "nuclear freeze" movement).

5. Analyze the role of the Reagan administration and other factors in the victory of the West in the Cold War.

6. Describe U.S. Middle East policy and its strategic, political, and economic interests, including those related to the Gulf War.

7. Examine relations between the United States and Mexico in the twentieth century, including key economic, political, immigration, and environmental issues.