“APUSH” in the right direction
27 February 2015 – Adina Langer
Photo credit: Evan Graff, Flickr.
As public historians, we like to think we know something about narrative. We know that human beings construct meaning through stories, and that history is the art of constructing compelling stories from the traces of the past. Psychologists have demonstrated the emotional and inspirational power of “hero’s journey” narratives in which protagonists overcome great odds through self-sacrifice and determination, and return from the journey with wisdom and gifts to improve the world. Such narratives emphasize the hero’s “exceptional” qualities, the ability to triumph over adversity and to serve as a guiding light to others.
Thus, it should come as no surprise that opponents of recent changes to the AP US History (APUSH) framework are so concerned about narrative emphasis. In August 2014, the Republican National Committee adopted a resolution condemning a framework released by the College Board in 2012. The resolution claims that the framework “reflects a radically revisionist view of American history that emphasizes (Italics mine) negative aspects of our nation’s history while omitting or minimizing positive aspects.” The resolution calls on Congress to “investigate the matter” and withhold any funding to the College Board until a suitable framework is produced.
Initially surprised by this strong statement against APUSH, the College Board countered that the framework is “overwhelmingly supported by” college faculty and expert high school teachers and is “built to be flexible.” The framework was designed to emphasize “historical thinking skills” and to clarify historical eras that would be covered in the exam, but it does not differ in its mention of key historical figures (such as the founding fathers and Martin Luther King, Jr.) not mentioned in previous frameworks either.
The controversy over APUSH has only picked up steam since August, leading to a ban on support of the program in the state of Oklahoma and similar bills under consideration in Georgia and Colorado among other states. NPR and other national news outlets have covered the controversy consistently over the past few months.
The College Board has responded with a public comment form for requesting adjustments to the framework active through tomorrow, February 28, 2015. Rather coyly, the copy on the public comment Website states that “The AP framework deliberately avoids prescribing specific content, because content selection is the role of the teacher. Instead, the AP framework consists of higher-level concepts that should be investigated in the AP classroom. Accordingly, we welcome feedback on these concepts, but we will not be accepting requests to mandate that all teachers in all schools teach the exact same content as each other, as that would be an imposition of one, set curriculum on all teachers, something that the AP Program has always steadfastly avoided. Instead, we invite feedback on the wording of the concepts in the framework, whether additional, higher-level concepts are essential for college credit, and if so, how the existing concepts can be reduced to provide instructional time for teachers to address any additional concepts you recommend.” This statement winks at the notion of a “common curriculum” attacked by so many opponents of APUSH who also oppose the Common Core Curriculum Standards in Math and English.
So, if APUSH is about skills and not narrative, why are its opponents convinced that the College Board, and as an extension, expert historians, are out to “get” the time-honored hero narrative of American exceptionalism? After all, students will likely have encountered “traditional” narratives during the three to seven times they studied US History in school prior to taking the AP class. Although ideal history curricula in middle and secondary schools should at least introduce the concept of evidence and primary sources, it is at the college level that students are often empowered for the first time to construct their own narratives from historic evidence. This introduction to history as critically constructed narrative is fundamentally different from the rote memorization of names and dates that so many American students have found to be so deathly boring in the majority of their encounters with history in the classroom. Rosenzweig and Thelen demonstrate this eloquently in the Presence of the Past.
Of course, powerful people are questioning the value of the liberal arts education to society as a whole. Most notably, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker drew both accolades and derision for his proposed revisions to The Wisconsin Idea, the documentary backbone of Wisconsin’s public higher education system. In particular, he wanted to remove references to the “pursuit of truth” (aka research)” and replace references to “the public good” with references to “job training.” Unsurprisingly, those, like Howard Dean, who attacked Walker’s lack of a college education drew flak as elitist, demonstrating once again how politically-charged encounters can reveal everyone involved to be short-sighted.
I’ll admit that I espouse my own “hero narrative” of the role of the public historian. We are here to inspire people to act as their own historians in the tradition of Carl Becker and according to the best possible practices. This means that we try to bring contemporary historiography (narrative) to the public through exhibitions and other public history projects, but that we also serve as ambassadors and advocates for historical thinking skills every chance we get. An educated public is one that knows how to construct a reasonable narrative from the available evidence. This is how new knowledge is created. I find myself wondering, do APUSH opponents see only a world of competing narratives in which they emphasize the positive and “liberals” emphasize the negative? Can we help them to see the potential for the empowerment of American citizens and aspiring citizens through the cultivation of historical thinking skills? Don’t we want to create a world in which people in America and all over the world can create meaning and affect change?
Here is a link to a follow-up post from October 2015.
~ Adina Langer is a public history consultant based in Atlanta, Georgia, and part-time instructor in the Heritage Preservation Program at Georgia State University. You can follow her on Twitter @artiflection and learn more about her at her website, www.artiflection.com.
I wonder if there’s a question before we get to this stage of asking whether (and how) we can help APUSH opponents see the potential for empowering citizens through the cultivation of historical thinking skills, which is whether these people even want to empower American citizens and create a world where people can create meaning and change. Is part of the problem that we don’t agree on the end goal to begin with?
Lisa, I appreciate your comment. That is a tough question, because it gets to the heart of the mission of public education in this country. By its nature, public education is a large scale social enterprise, even if jurisdiction is left up to the states. Social policy is inevitably contested territory. Although most people would state that “equality of opportunity” is a shared goal, it seems impossible for people to agree on what that looks like or how to get there. APUSH opponents might argue that a sense of patriotism that conforms to their vision of the heritage of the United States’ founding is the first step in that it encourages consensus and unity before people even consider economic disparities. However, I believe that it is deeply problematic to focus energy on policing a narrative when public education should be about learning the skills necessary to help define the future trajectory of the nation and the human condition. APUSH opponents seem not to see that history is more than competing arguments about the meaning of the past.. History is about acquiring the wisdom to enable people to aspire for a better future.