This was a great follow up on the original post that I had commented on awhile back. I had kept this post tabbed, but hadn't had the time to read the article until now!
One quote that really registered from me was from one of the teachers in response to the changes in the curriculum: "Her job, she said, is to challenge them to dig deeper into the role of religion, geography and ideology surrounding history and adding other voices or perspectives that might not be as familiar."
I didn't really see how the prompts were being changed so dramatically since the example ones that they had there didn't seem too harmful; however, I do disagree with the philosophy of the changes being considered just because I don't think history should be taught as "good and bad" like was said at the end of the article. The quote from this teacher resonated with me because I believe that is absolutely a key part about learning history. I think that, in true metacognitive fashion, this is truly why people do enjoy learning about history. It's not learning the events that's necessarily fun for me, it's about learning why the history is relevant and how the environment and people contributed to shaping that period of time. While I don't doubt that Collegeboard is trying to keep this in mind, I think that what they are losing is a lot of that challenge and perspective that the teacher explained in her quote from the article.
This was a great follow up on the original post that I had commented on awhile back. I had kept this post tabbed, but hadn't had the time to read the article until now!
ReplyDeleteOne quote that really registered from me was from one of the teachers in response to the changes in the curriculum:
"Her job, she said, is to challenge them to dig deeper into the role of religion, geography and ideology surrounding history and adding other voices or perspectives that might not be as familiar."
I didn't really see how the prompts were being changed so dramatically since the example ones that they had there didn't seem too harmful; however, I do disagree with the philosophy of the changes being considered just because I don't think history should be taught as "good and bad" like was said at the end of the article. The quote from this teacher resonated with me because I believe that is absolutely a key part about learning history. I think that, in true metacognitive fashion, this is truly why people do enjoy learning about history. It's not learning the events that's necessarily fun for me, it's about learning why the history is relevant and how the environment and people contributed to shaping that period of time. While I don't doubt that Collegeboard is trying to keep this in mind, I think that what they are losing is a lot of that challenge and perspective that the teacher explained in her quote from the article.