United States | News & Politics

I reviewed this document, which seems to be the curriculum for the coming year. In it I saw 65 pages about slavery before I came to a quote that many seem to have issue with (the one about former slaves using skills they learned in slavery once freed), and there were at least 10 pages of other discussion on black history afterward.

History is messy, and I think it's important to show history that's not one-sided. We should teach Malcolm X alongside MLK Jr. We should show atrocities Americans committed in WW2 alongside the heroics of D-Day. We should show how close we were to nuclear winter during the cold war due to mistakes made by politicians, as well as successes of diplomacy in the same era.

The curriculum here seems to unambiguously communicate that slavery was absolutely atrocious and that the road to gaining civil rights was messy and hard fought, and I think there's enough background for students to understand why the black community continues to push for equality. I still see racism today, so we're obviously not done.

But to completely ignore any other valid narrative shortchanges our kids. They need to understand how each party in such a pivotal time saw things, and how the weaker party was able to succeed in the face of immense obstacles.

That said, the second link is absolutely atrocious. The only way Jewish people were able to rebuild was because of their ability to network after the war, not because they were forced to labor while malnutritioned. The Florida curriculum change is quite different, it doesn't attempt to downplay anything, it merely provides additional context to help students understand the success stories after emancipation.