Wilson asks DOE about teaching hard history in civic knowledge

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Councilmember Wilson?

Thank you, Chair, and thank you all for your testimony.

So the seal of civic readiness requires two points in civic knowledge.

What steps can we take to ensure that the civic knowledge includes an acknowledgement of the harder parts of our history,

racism, homophobia, sexism, violence, and that students are not excluded from understanding the full scope of the nation's civic?

history.

I'm just going to hold the whole thing here.

Forgive me.

So for the students to demonstrate civic knowledge, some of the options are just social studies courses, the Regents exam, a civic knowledge project.

Through our office, which is the Department of Social Studies and Civics, we produce a social studies curriculum that the majority of the schools use.

That curriculum is focused on multiple perspectives and ensuring that students are getting that 360-degree view of history.

I think our comic books that we share with you also support that effort.

We also provide professional learning to our teachers.

We have a hard history series, recognizing that for teachers, particularly social studies teachers, dealing with some of those harder aspects of history may feel easier to ignore than to address head on.

And so it's our effort to ensure that teachers feel supported in that work, that they have a framework and tools for doing so, and that the curriculum provides them the resources necessary to deal with all aspects of history.