History Hysteria: Nothing New

Bless Sam Sanders, host of the NPR program It's Been a Minute for bringing on a guest who could give us a long view on the uproar over Critical Race Theory. Sam often gives voice to feelings that many of his listeners share (myself included), and this time it's a sickness in the pit of the stomach as he hears of disruptions to school board meetings, threats to members, and legislators resolving, in effect, to ban the teaching of historical facts that might make students feel bad.

Sam's guest Adam Laats, a professor of educational leadership at New York's Binghamton University, focuses his reasearch on cultural reactions to school reform. He taught history in middle school and high school for ten years.

[Photo: Sam Sanders (left), Adam Laats]

Sam wanted to know, has this happened before? If so, has it ever been this bad? And is it unprecedented that it's erupted so quickly in school districts and state legislatures all across the nation?

Dr. Laats gave examples from 1930s, 50s, and 70s to show that, yes, parents have called for the banning of books for drawing attention to inequities in American history; yes, they've burned books and even bombed school buildings (1974, West Virginia); and, no, there's lots of precedent for national media and Washington politicians whipping up coast-to-coast hysteria over local school affairs. Laats's own article on the current CRT "panic," written with Gillian Frank for Slate, concludes that each of these eruptions has succeeded in the short term by removing the curriculum in question, and in the long-term by discouraging teachers from asking questions that might stir up another hornets' nest.

Adam Laats's own website includes a page called My Two Cents where he curates links to his articles and media appearances. Judging his books by their covers -- risky, I know -- I'd say that Laats is finding ways to bridge gaps between fundamentalists and teachers who encourage critical thinking about science and history.

So my blood pressure is down again. Thanks Dr. Laats and Dr. Sanders.

Of Related Interest

• To open up critical inquiry for 8th grade history students, I designed a year around four questions derived from the Pledge of Allegiance: How true is it to say that America is, or ever was, one nation? under God? indivisible? with liberty and justice for all? We studied primary sources and reached no simple answers. See details at Teach History with the Pledge of Allegiance (07/2017).
• "We've been here before" is the somewhat comforting message of Jon Meacham's The Soul of America, a survey of US history composed in 2017 to answer the popular perception that America had never been so divided. See my reflection 07/2018.
• I've thanked Sam Sanders another time for his friendly inquiry into a fraught subject. See Trans Eye for a Bible Guy