The recent events in Jefferson County concerning the school district’s history curriculum have led me to reconsider American patriotism and educational censorship.
Years ago I emerged from the Washington, D.C., Metro subway staircase onto the National Mall and saw on my left the Washington Monument and on my right the U.S. Capitol. Goosebumps of patriotism spread up and down.
For a social studies teacher, this was like a pilgrimage to Mecca.
I ran to the Smithsonian American History Museum. The Star-Spangled Banner greeted me at the doorway — not the song, but the actual Star-Spangled Banner. Lincoln’s top hat was there; so were Muhammad Ali’s boxing gloves, Dorothy’s ruby slippers, Ike’s D-Day message to troops, all the cool stuff. I was in awe.
Then there were exhibits of the lunch counter where the sit-ins occurred, Suffragette banners, Japanese internment camps, and a crippling, short-handled hoe that spurred protests by migrant workers.
Oddly, my sense of patriotism grew even stronger. Here I was in a museum celebrating our heritage, and displays of our failings were front and center. Why was I feeling more patriotic? These were exhibits of shame, of America’s faults. But yet, patriotism was seeping through my pores. Why? Because we learned from our mistakes; America got better at upholding its ideals.
These exhibits were examples of what spurs us to move ever closer to our shared idealistic goals. They were exhibits that highlight the hope of America. The kind of hope that motivated the Tuskegee Airmen to risk their lives in World War II despite being treated as second-class citizens at home. Patriotism, indeed.
As for censorship, the Jeffco student protests over the past week have contained virulent charges regarding the history curriculum. These charges of censorship have been somewhat troubling to me. Not that students are taking a role in their education and engaging in active citizenship: that is most welcome and encouraged. What has been disturbing is the lack of thorough analysis.
I am reminded of the quote from French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, “Film is truth 24 times a second, and every cut is a lie.”
School boards, curriculum committees and classroom teachers censor history all the time. We have to; there is only so much time, and we can’t cover it all. So we pick and choose which stories to tell our students, which events to cut, which heroes to highlight, and which villains to vilify. We sort out which historical portraits to put on our walls and which to leave in our closet. It is all censorship. It is unfair and misleading to point the finger of censorship at others without recognizing our own censorship choices just because we like our decisions and detest theirs.
Our students deserve a better lesson. They deserve to know the thinking behind our choices. And if we are going to support challenging authority, let us not be surprised or indignant when students question our texts, assignments and grades.
Even the widely beloved and trusted historian Ken Burns says, “All storytelling is manipulation.” I support a manipulation that guides students to analyze viewpoints, including their own, and teaches them to express their views in multiple forms. That kind of critical thinking doesn’t seem to be what the Jeffco Board of Education has in mind.
I welcome the public examination of curricular choices; it is at the heart of public education. The decisions about which lessons we wish to pass on to the next generation demand serious public debate. Well-informed students of schooling know our educational history is full of these deliberations.
But let’s not run to our ideological corners and hurl insults and accusations at each other. Let’s do a better job of listening, and maybe we will rediscover a common belief in America and a common commitment to our ideals. A belief that highlights our spectacular achievements, most brought on through painful protest, and a renewed shared commitment to spreading these ideals to the next generation through public education. Let’s make America better by making all our students better protectors of our ideals.
Kent Willmann of Longmont taught high school social studies in Longmont for 32 years. He is an instructor at the University of Colorado School of Education.
