Members of the committee that drafted the proposed standards say Minnesota students' history lessons currently lean too much on the writings and observations of white Europeans and, later, colonists and explorers.Īdding ethnic studies and requiring educators to teach history from various perspectives, they say, allows more of the state's students to see themselves reflected positively in the curriculum - like Curtis did in Lyga's Roseville class. 'That wasn't 100 years ago,' she said, adding, 'When we talk about some of those historical traumas, and when we talk about systemic racism, we're not always necessarily talking about this from a historical perspective.' Richardson said she was 5 years old the first time she heard a racist slur directed at her. Ruth Richardson, DFL-Mendota Heights, says the debate over 'contemporary' issues glosses over the fact that people of color face discrimination even today. In the letter, the legislators point to the standard calling for students to 'apply lessons from the past in order to eliminate historical and contemporary injustices' and say 'these calls to action will lead to conflict between students and teachers in promoting a leftist activism rather than academics.' She said that because the statute that requires social studies to be part of Minnesota's K-12 education explicitly mentions citizenship and government, geography, history and economics, those are the only four strands any new standards should include. 'We are just asking these questions to make sure that the new standards comply with state statute.'

'We're not demanding anything,' Erickson said. Sondra Erickson of Princeton was among about two dozen Republican legislators who wrote to a judge examining the standards to urge Education Commissioner Heather Mueller to 'make significant revisions to improve both the academic value and rigor' of the proposed standards. Members of the committee who drafted the new standards, now under legal review by the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE), want to require a broad array of perspectives in public school lessons about history, government, economics, geography - and for the first time, ethnic studies.īut critics of the proposed standards say adding ethnic studies may run afoul of state law and argue that the standards could be interpreted as too broad and subjective. It's the kind of curricular offering at the center of the debate over the state of Minnesota's once-a-decade social studies standards revision, which echoes the larger national conversation over how history is taught in schools. History Through an African-American Lens celebrates the accomplishments of the country's Black citizens as much as it covers the horrors of slavery and the fight for civil rights. 'I've never felt seen in a class the way I do here,' junior Jaevion Curtis, who is Black, said later. Then she turned the music down and the teens took turns reciting their homework, quoting famous Black figures from American history: Aretha Franklin.

Amy Lyga's iPad blared James Brown's 'Say It Loud' as nearly two dozen students filled her Roseville Area High School classroom and formed a circle.

Social studies standards