Social studies: social science or indoctrination?

“Every child in America should be acquainted with his own country. He should read books that furnish him with ideas that will be useful to him in life and practice. As soon as he opens his lips, he should rehearse the history of his own country.”  -Noah Webster

Last year, an election year, I served an internship at a small, rural, conservative school.  As a Social Studies teacher.  I was forcibly reminded by family, friends, and acquaintances that the community, the school, and my mentor teacher were very conservative and very religious, particularly in contrast to myself. 

The picture of militarism.

To put it a better way, in contrast with the community, school, and most of the staff, I appeared to be some kind of militant, feminazi, evangelizing atheist.  To be clear, I am moderately more moderate than any of those things but I think everyone, except for myself, was braced for conflict.

I found the community, one in which my family has ties that run both thick and deep, to be welcoming.  Most of the parents and the veteran staff at the school remembered me from my childhood and not unkindly.  Many of the parents and staff knew my younger siblings and my parents.  My mentor teacher was patient, kind, and supportive.

So despite visibly choking back apoplexy while the students watched Romney's nomination acceptance speech (and tears during Obama's), I did not deliberately foist my political or religious viewpoint on my students.  I was mindful of my commentary and of the Alaska Code of Ethics of the Education Profession, particularly Sections 20 AAC 10.020.b.2 and 20 AAC 10.020.c.2 which admonish educators not to suppress or distort information for personal reasons and to distinguish personal political beliefs from those of the educational institution.

Official code of ethics aside, what sort of horrible, demagogic monster would deliberately indoctrinate children with their personal political or religious beliefs, anyway?

Noah Webster, author of the famous Blue Back Speller or Primer

Noah Webster, one of the founder's of the United State's system of education, believed that a woman's greatest charm should be her modesty, that Democracy led to the empowerment of the ignorant and intemperate, that children should be taught submission to a higher authority above all else, and whose lack of commitment to the separation of church and state was probably directly responsible for the Philadelphia Bible Riots of 1844.

The Bible Riots pitted Irish Catholic immigrants against "Nativists" who sought to enforce Protestantism on school children.  The shaming and punishment of Catholic children in public schools became so severe that parents pulled their children despite legal and social sanctioning.  Protestant anti-immigrant groups attacked Irish Catholics in the street and burned their churches and private schools.  This series of conflicts left at least 20 people dead and are the reason public schools do not allow religious favoritism. 

While Webster hoped to enforce an "American" way of speaking, spelling, thinking, and worshiping that would distinguish the population of the United States from its European forebears, his methodology of indoctrination left little room for cultural pluralism or critical thinking.  

This tension in the field of Social Studies Education exists today.  For instance, all major publishers of history textbooks in this country publish a separate edition for the state of Texas.  The conservative government of Texas knows that controlling what public school children learn in Social Studies class will influence the way they vote when they become adults.  But whose best interests are the lawmakers serving?  Texas, the United States, the people, the students?

What, then, is the job of a Social Studies teacher?  Do we teach History as a narrative beginning with writing or agriculture (to skate around the problematic million or so years of human existence which predate the Christian bible) and ending with the terrorist attacks of 2001?  Are the histories of Asia, India, Russia, and Africa to be relegated to their own units or even merely chapters, separated from "Western Civilization" as if only Greco-Roman influence legitimizes a culture?

If a linear narrative, with a clear beginning, middle, and end, leading to a seemingly inevitable conclusion is how we choose to approach History, what of it's "losers?"  How do we treat those cultures and ideas that were trammeled by "Western Civilization?"

The best example of this conundrum is the period of United States' history often called The Age of Expansionism.  How could I face a classroom of 7th & 8th graders, 30% of whom were Native Alaskans, and glorify Manifest Destiny?  I was distinctly uncomfortable with that proposition.

You will note the unhappy figures in the bottom left.

Despite their "tender" age (although there was nothing tender about that particular class of brilliant little ruffians) I felt compelled to introduce the concepts of historiography, how interpretations of history have changed over time, sociological imagination, how our own culture informs how we judge others and ourselves, and cultural relativism, how "normal" changes over time and from place to place.  The students responded well to the change in perspective, many were enthusiastic about voicing their disapproval over the behavior of such historical figures as Andrew Jackson and James Monroe.  

One student was immediately on to my game and busied himself challenging my revisionism.  He ended  his description of his final project, a toothpick log cabin representing the childhood home of Andrew Jackson, by admonishing the class and myself that, "Things had to happen how they did or we wouldn't be where we are now!"  This statement led to a lively debate among the class about the virtues of "where we are now" and whether or not we had to do what we did in order to get here.  

"Andrew Jackson: Most Terrifying Man Ever Elected President"
The funniest not-classroom-friendly video ever created about a president.

If I had kept other viewpoints to myself and taught a linear history strictly out of the textbook, would that very conservative student have engaged like he did?  Would have the rest of the class?  What about the chronically off-task and under-enthused student who piped up from the back of the room, "Hey!  I'm an Indian and I think that sucks!" which led to the polarization of the rest of the class about the building of the transcontinental railroad?

These were 7th & 8th graders.  Who were VERY engaged in Social Studies class.

Many people remember Social Studies as the most boring part of their school day; the most hated class in their academic career.  I wonder how much of that boredom had to do with the way we approach social science as an ideological narrative to be "recited" as per Noah Webster.  I contend that approaching Social Studies scientifically, by weighing evidence, comparing examples, and scrutinizing competing viewpoints, we will better engage students, allow them to practice necessary critical-thinking skills, and comply with universal moral and ethical directives that prevent classroom podiums from becoming pulpits.