Florida Approves New Black History Education Standards
Summary:
- Florida's State Board of Education has approved new rules for teaching black history in public schools.
- The new standards emphasize enslaved people's skills for personal benefit and include acts of violence against and by African Americans during lessons on mob violence.
- Michael Eric Dyson, a professor of African American Studies, criticizes the changes, arguing they distort history and deny young students access to accurate information.
Florida's State Board of Education has ignited controversy with its recent approval of new rules governing the teaching of black history in public schools. The updated standards, which include emphasizing the skills of enslaved people for personal benefit and the inclusion of acts of violence in lessons, have raised concerns among educators and experts.
In response to the approved changes, Michael Eric Dyson, a prominent professor of African American Studies at Vanderbilt University, expressed his strong disapproval. Dyson criticized the state's attempt to dictate the teaching of African American history and questioned why educators and experts were not involved in generating these standards.
He likened the new guidelines to teaching Native American history while overlooking the atrocities of colonization and the smallpox blankets, or teaching the Holocaust without acknowledging the horrors of the death camps. Dyson argued that this false equivalency between experiences of African Americans and others diminishes the gravity of the institution of enslavement and undermines the purpose of true education.
Furthermore, Dyson refuted the notion that these changes would make the history curriculum more robust. He asserted that, instead, it distorts history, culture, politics, sociology, and more, and serves a destructive ideology and politics. The impact of such distorted education could deny young students access to rigorous and accurate history, preventing them from learning essential lessons from the past to apply to the present.
As Florida moves forward with its new black history education standards, the debate over the appropriateness and accuracy of these changes continues. Critics argue that the state should involve educators and experts in shaping curriculum decisions to ensure a comprehensive and unbiased understanding of history for the next generation. Only time will reveal the true impact of these standards on young minds and their understanding of America's past and present.
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