The editors of The Christian Century ask: “Why do we need to teach history?”

The Christian Century tackles a Texas bill that forbids the teaching of critical race theory and the 1619 Project. Here is a taste of its editorial:

How should the story of our country be told? It says that schools should teach “the history of white supremacy” alongside “the moral . . . foundations of the United States.” But they must not teach that “an individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously”—and teachers must avoid teaching history in such a way that students might feel “distress or anguish” about that history.        

The Texas bill perhaps represents a certain consensus that existed not long ago about how US history should be taught. We agreed that slavery was what the bill calls an “aberration” of our ideals of liberty and equality—and that we, as individuals, take no blame for it, so long as we do not perpetuate racism today. We should feel pride in our nation’s founding and history and proud of the progress we’ve made.

This story has been powerfully challenged in recent years, not least by the 1619 Project. In this alternative telling of the nation’s founding, slavery was not an aberration; it was integral to the economic and political foundation of the nation. It is at the heart of our founding documents’ compromises. It is essential to our understanding of who we are and how we came to be. To understand this, we have to go beyond individualism to grapple with systemic racism. We have to grapple with the meanings of liberty and equality in the founding documents and ask hard questions about how the nation formed and how it functions today. 

The Texas bill specifically forbids the use of the 1619 Project. For all its talk about diverse perspectives, it will not allow the perspective that challenges the narrative of foundational goodness with slavery as mere aberration. It disallows the deeper conversation we need to have: Why do we study US history? To avoid the mistakes of the past? To undo centuries-old systems of social control? To instill a love of country?

While consensus is hard to imagine right now, perhaps we could begin by agreeing that the teaching of history is fundamentally about shaping citizens for participation in democracy. This requires the ability to see from diverse perspectives. It also requires knowing the story of social change in this country and dealing honestly with the complexities of our founding.

Read the entire piece here.

This piece ends up in the right place. I am not convinced that the teaching of the past is “fundamentally about shaping citizens for participation in democracy,” but I do believe that the study of history will teach students to think about the world in a way that will strengthen American democracy. The 1619 Project is flawed. But I do not oppose using it in a classroom. Teachers should pair it with more conservative approaches to the American past not for the purpose of “balance,” but in order to teach students how writers and historians utilize evidence to advance political and cultural agendas. Such an exercise should teach students to detect bias in sources and read more critically. And such a pairing of sources should also include close readings of primary sources to see how those who write about the past use and interpret these sources in their work. This is a vision of history teaching that goes beyond merely American history and citizenship. It has more to do with developing habits of thinking than it does coverage.