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World history remains key component of curriculum

Date: 2/6/2012

Feb. 6, 2012

By Chris Maza

chrism@thereminder.com

EAST LONGMEADOW — In the wake of the Jan. 23 School Committee meeting during which committee members expressed concerns that world history was not a requirement for graduation, East Longmeadow High School Principal Gina Flanagan said it is still a component of the curriculum.

“When I heard [people saying], ‘We’re not giving our kids exposure to world history events,’ I wanted them to know that that isn’t necessarily accurate,” she said. “Is it concentrated as it once was? No, but they still have that exposure.”

Flanagan told Reminder Publications that a state mandate prioritizing U.S. history — made prior to her becoming principal — forced the district to take this course of action.

“The state decided they were going to do an MCAS [Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System] assessment in U.S. history, so a lot of schools in the state of Massachusetts started to scramble their curriculum so the students had a heavy dose of U.S. history,” she said. “In East Longmeadow High School, they wanted to provide a full year of U.S. history in order to prepare for this assessment, so that students would get it first semester and second semester. Due to the limited number of courses that we offer, primarily based on staffing, the decision was made to eliminate the world history portion.”

However, Flanagan said test administrators have put the U.S. history assessment on hold.

“I believe the cost to administer the U.S. history MCAS is something like $2.4 million, so the state has said since we’re in a financial crisis, we’re going to hold off on that,” she said.

Because of this new information, Flanagan indicated she is exploring options for implementing a more comprehensive world history component to the curriculum.

“Now that we have that declaration from the state, it makes sense for us to reexamine our current social studies curriculum to see whether or not we could put that back in,” she said, cautioning that there are no guarantees, especially if the state finds the money to fund the assessment.

Flanagan said that eventually she hopes to see the curriculum change to require the completion of “one U.S. history course, one world history course and one elective.”

In the meantime, Flanagan said that while an actual world history class does not exist within the curriculum, the faculty has made efforts to incorporate the topic into other subjects.

“It’s not as if students aren’t getting any instruction in terms of world history,” she said.

The school offers a course called “Ancient Worlds,” which covers ancient civilizations such as Greece and Rome. World history is also a component within the lesson plan for the U.S. history courses.

“They study a great deal of European and western civilization topics, like World War II, the Vietnam War and so forth,” she said.

The School Committee’s concerns came to light when Flanagan and social studies teacher Edward Polk requested permission to offer an elective course on African American studies.

Flanagan said she supported the idea for the course based on Polk’s past experience in researching the subject and the fact that it could bolster a social studies curriculum that lacks minority studies.

“One of the areas that I feel we are somewhat thin in is minority studies and ethnic studies where students are able to get a deeper understanding of certain specific groups,” she said. “In our social studies curriculum, one of the goals states very clearly that the objective through this high school is to teach cultural diversity and tolerance.”

Research of other area schools showed that East Longmeadow was one of the few that doesn’t offer multi-cultural studies course of some kind.

“Schools like Longmeadow have it in place,” she said. “There are Asian studies courses in many of the schools, women’s history you’re seeing a lot more, as well as Latin American studies.”

Flanagan stressed the importance of teaching the understanding and appreciation of diversity as students prepare for their studies beyond high school.

“For our students who are either looking to get into education, law or political science when they get into college, this is a course that would really benefit them,” she said.

Flanagan added that she hoped the creation of this course would be a catalyst for the development of ideas by teachers for more electives.

She admitted some surprise at the level of resistance the idea received from the School Committee, which eventually voted unanimously to approve the addition of the course.

“What was interesting was this idea that we probably should be really aware of the focus of the class not being on racial discussions. That I disagree with,” she said. “I’m a resident of East Longmeadow and we really don’t have a diverse population in this town. I think it’s a positive thing when you get kids talking about interactions with different groups they may encounter when they leave East Longmeadow.

“I think that our kids are going to be much more prepared to engage in discourse [and] have more positive relations with students of different multi-cultural backgrounds if they can relate on some level. If they have a common understanding of their history or their trials and tribulations, I think that gives them a sensitivity to relate in a more positive manner,” she concluded.



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