The Texas Education Agency’s social studies committee recently recommended updates to the standards for teaching the state’s students. For a history major like myself, taking a look at this document is a lot of fun. It lists the historical figures that must be taught at various grade levels. For example, Joseph Stalin is in, but Vladimir Lenin is out.
Some of the names are required, designated as “including,” others are merely examples of a type of person to be discussed, designated by “such as.”
Now, to the fun part.
A few quick observations:
1. They’re cutting out the tall tales. Goodbye to Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill.
2. Mary Kay Ash is someone that third-graders need to learn about? But Stanley Marcus can wait until grade 4.
3. Intellectual history seems less important than political and military history. Goodbye to Copernicus, Galileo, Archimedes, Einstein, and Eratosthenes of Cyrene.
4. Phyllis Schlafly? Oprah Winfrey is required?
5. In high school U.S. history: Martin Luther King Jr. but no Malcolm X? “Such as” W.E.B. DuBois but not Booker T. Washington?
(H/T Education Week)
