By Naomi Bloom, Avi Shapira, and Melody Tang
MANAGING EDITOR, EDITOR IN CHIEF, ONLINE EDITOR
Some students have voiced concerns surrounding issues of misrepresentation and lack of diversity in the AHS history curriculum, and the social studies department has been working towards acknowledging student feedback while meeting the criteria put forth by Massachusetts law.
One highly-discussed issue has been the Eurocentric perspective of history courses. Abinaya Ganesh, a junior who is co-president of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Student Advisory Committee, said that Europe and America are a focus. “Usually, your history classes… are based on, ‘How did this thing affect Europe? How did this thing affect America?’” Ganesh said.
Additionally, some students have noticed that their freshman year history course covered a variety of world regions, but their sophomore year course mostly focused on Europe. “My freshman year World History teacher did a really good job of truly teaching ancient civilizations, especially in Asia,” said senior Diya Ganesh. “Modern World is more focused on the West.”
Several teachers interviewed echoed these concerns and are working to make their courses less Eurocentric.
There used to be only two required history courses at AHS, World Civilizations in freshman year and 20th Century Studies in sophomore year. Several years ago, the two required courses were expanded into three: World History (freshman year), Modern World History (sophomore year), and US History (junior year). These courses are taken by current AHS students.
“A lot [of content] was lost,” said US History and Race and Membership teacher, Kathryn Reusch. With only two years to cover the entire high school history curriculum, there was not enough time to cover as many topics as they felt they should. So, the classes were split up. She said that the intent of the department splitting up the courses over three years instead of two was to create a Modern World class that would “allow teachers and students to be able to explore more parts of the modern world and explore more diverse stories of the world,” which resulted in the restructuring of the classes.
Mary Robb, who teaches US History and Democracy and Media Literacy echoed this. “It’s allowed us to be far more… inclusive, because we have more time,” due to there being three required history courses instead of two.
A lot of the AHS history department’s curriculum is based on Massachusetts educational standards rather than teachers’ decisions. Massachusetts standards include topics that must be covered, most of which focus on European history.
The Massachusetts guidelines include instructions for two courses, World History I and World History II (similar to freshman and sophomore history at AHS). While World History I includes some global history, the vast majority of content required to be taught in World History II is European history, or how European imperialism impacted other world regions.
“The state gives us a general [curriculum] that’s a little bit broader than ours… [outlining] major themes you should talk about, and then we often add to that more than anything,” World History teacher Nicholas Rand said.
The curriculum also depends on department-wide standards that “spell out the most important topics that [current AHS social studies teachers] collectively, or past groups in our department, have decided over the years,” said Rand.
Despite the split in classes, it is a challenge to incorporate much outside of the set curriculum. “We have work to do, and one of the struggles of a history teacher is always, ‘How do we find the time to do all of the things that we think are important?’” said Reusch. “Because when we add one thing, we need to take something out. And, clearly, issues of identity and diversity are incredibly important, and figuring out how to incorporate those in an authentic way with the time that we have is always a challenge.”
Another issue aside from the required parts of the curriculum that can result in differing experiences for students with some topics is that different teachers cover different topics in their classes based on their expertise in the subject. “It’s mostly about how we learned about it [and] our connection to these topics,” said Rand. “I will say that, as I’ve grown as an educator, I continue to add where I find new interesting things.”
Even when the curriculum is expanded, the way the content is taught can affect the lessons students take away and the experiences of the students in the class.
“Sometimes students… feel like they have to represent [their] culture in a discussion,” said junior Ellen Chou.
Abinaya Ganesh recommended that teachers facilitate discussions about sensitive topics, and provide the class with resources so students of color don’t have to defend their culture to their classmates. “Make a space where your students of color can speak, but don’t make them the resource for the class,” said Abinaya Ganesh. “Part of it [is] being able to crack down and know when you have to step in and facilitate.” They also noted the importance of providing students with resources to hear the perspective of people of color outside of their classmates.
Some students described the way they were taught about their own cultures’ history in class as uncomfortable.
“When we were learning about the British Raj in India… the documents and videos we watched romanticized the imperialistic nature of Britain in India and didn’t take into account how people that were in India felt,” said Diya Ganesh.
Because of the limited exposure students get to cultures beyond Europe in their education, history classes sometimes give a stereotypical view of a certain culture to students.
“Every time I see Africa, in any context, in the AHS curriculum, [it] is always described as this destitute place that is actively being conquered by white colonizers,” said junior Aisosa Oviasogie. “It’s never been presented as a place with a society that has a complex government… It’s never presented that way… Because when I go to Nigeria, I’m not walking around barefoot and living in a hut. There are cities in Africa with amazing architecture, and that are sleek, teeming with all this new technology. And nobody ever gets to see that. Nobody ever gets to see what I see when I go to Nigeria.”
“I also think that we need to be more cognizant [that] yes, these events [such as colonialism and slavery] happened. But how does that affect students’ view of different cultures in the process?” said Oviasogie. “If you were constantly portraying cultures like they’re struggling, and they’re not free, then what does that make other people think?”
If you were constantly portraying cultures like they’re struggling, and they’re not free, then what does that make other people think?
However, Robb said that finding media that focuses on marginalized groups can be challenging because they have been marginalized in every aspect of US life, including media. “Marginalized groups have been treated horribly throughout US history,” she said. “They’ve also thrived, they’ve also created, and invented, and learned, and developed, and grown in spite of really poor treatment, and that’s what I hope to find.”
Diya Ganesh emphasized the importance of what kind of media is shown in class. “I really think it goes back to the materials and preparation on talking about these specific topics,” she said, recommending that teachers have class discussions on the perspective of certain sources and how complicated an issue is when there are no other options of sources to show, rather than “just watching the video, having an assessment, and pretending like it’s not a big deal, when it actually is.”
Rand described how he approaches covering difficult topics in class. “I tried to make it well known that this is important… I try to spend at least a couple of days really digging into sources, really trying to set a serious tone so that students, again, remember those connections, remember that’s part of world history, as well as this part of our history.”
Some students also expressed concern over a cater towards the white population of students. Oviasogie noted that the way she was taught about racism in her history class was often focused on getting through to white students rather than making students of color comfortable. “[People] felt a need to protect their actions or their ancestors’ actions… Then we have to make them not feel bad for their ancestors’ actions when the purpose of learning isn’t to make anybody feel bad. It’s learning so that we don’t ever have [the Holocaust] happen in the future.”
When interviewed, students continuously expressed interest in learning about different cultures they hadn’t learned about in social studies classes.
“It feels like year after year we continuously go over the same material,” said senior Rachel Irza. “Instead of re-learning the American Revolution again, I think it would be much more beneficial to learn about more countries that typically don’t get much representation in traditional history courses.”
Reusch said the history department is having conversations on adding elective courses on cultures not heavily covered in the core courses, such as Asian, Latin American, and Native American history. “There are so many other cultures that deserve attention,” said Reusch. Currently, the only social studies elective that focuses on a region other than Europe or the US is Modern Middle East.
“We can always do better, there’s always a striving to do better,” said Reusch. “And I think that’s a mark of a good teacher, that you do your best but always recognize the room for growth. And I think that we are, as a department, open to that.”
“Being always open to feedback is really important,” said Abinaya Ganesh. “You can teach sensitive topics and genuinely believe that you are doing everything you can… You wouldn’t be able to know that if students don’t feel comfortable sharing [their opinions on a lesson].” They also mentioned the importance of teachers making it clear to students that they welcome student feedback.
Rand also discussed the importance of student feedback, encouraging students to let him know if there is something that they disagree with or if they’ve heard something different because they’re closer to a certain piece of history.
Oviasogie encouraged students to speak up if they have an issue with the way a topic was presented in their class. “Go to any teacher, literally any teacher, and they’ll talk to another teacher, they’ll talk to their program head. And something will happen. Emails can be sent and meetings can be had, but not if you don’t say anything.”
Robb emphasized the importance of having these discussions and continuing to make pushes towards increased diversity and representation in history classes. “There are folks from every corner of the world living in the United States, be they residents, be they citizens, and people of every faith, every culture… and I think that’s something that makes the United States unique, I think that it’s something that makes the United States strong, and I also know that it’s something that creates a lot of challenges for us,” she said. “But we can’t understand where we are today, can’t work toward having a more compassionate and healthy future, if we don’t understand the past.”
