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Cover Page

One of the revisions I made during doing my drafts was that I changed my audience from
the state education board members to the parents of high school students. I did this because they
are the people that can be most affected by this information. Another revision that I made was
that I went from using strait quoting of resources to summarizing them to make them more
understandable to the audience.
I addressed my target audience by engaging them and asking them to think about when
they were in high school so they could relate to the information that I presented them.
I do not know what still needs to be improved.

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Kyle Krepps
Dr. Amy Lynch-Biniek
ENG 23
5 April 2016

The problems with History Curriculums

At some point in your life there is a great chance that you sat in a high school history
class. This is because of the public education system. You can probably remember asking
yourself why am I being taught this and why does it matter? I know from personal experience I
asked myself this and found out later that the purpose was for the teachers to meet the state
requirements. The problem with this is that the state requirements are very broad and that they
leave a lot of room in the middle, this is what leads to the inadequate covering of topics before
heading into higher education. What most people dont realize about these questions is that there
is multiple answers to each one of the questions.
The questions that are raised by so many people when they are in a high school history
class can actually be useful in looking at the efficiency of the state education board. This is
important because be they are the ones that are responsible for state wide curriculums in the
subject. The reason this should matter is that it means that the education board controls what is
being taught to the next generation. The state education board is who takes care of the
curriculums for a given state and thats what we are looking at. This paper is to introduce you to

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the problem that most of you kids are probably going through right now in hopes that being
better informed on the issue that you decide to do something about it.
Right now you might be asking yourself why do I care who makes the history
curriculums and decides what is in them for high school students? Think about your kids in high
school, whatever these people decide should be left out of the curriculums is not being taught to
them and could affect how they do in higher education.
Using this we are then going to look into the reason certain historical events are cherry
picked to be used in the history curriculums. This means that some topics are usually picked and
are common to find in history textbooks and that there is other topics that are not as common to
find in history textbooks. When looking at the reason behind this there is four main topics that
come up during the research. These topics are the explanation of what a curriculum is, what is
being left out of the curriculums and why, why does the fact of information being left out matter,
and what can be done to fix this problem?
After looking at this question the first topic that Im going to cover to answer it is
explaining what a curriculum really is and their importance in the high school education system.
Do you know how your kids teachers come up with the information that they are going to teach
them for the whole year? The answer to this question is a thing called a curriculum. In the book
Curriculum Standards for Social Studies the definition of a curriculum is given to say that a
curriculum is the guideline that is sent down by the state education board outlining what should
be covered by the program though a given school year (Parker and Jarolimek). The state
education board comes up with these by looking over multiple kinds of data concerning what
information needs to be known at the next level in the educational process and determining what
has to be taught and what can be touched on and have the students still succeed. Curriculums are

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the backbone of the high school education system they provide the structure in which the
teachers operate and can efficiently teach your children. For example you might remember back
when you were in 9th grade in social studies that you learned about American civics, local
Municipal County, and state government procedures. The reason that you learned about this stuff
in this grade was because thats what the state curriculum told your teachers to teach to you.
Knowing what a curriculum is and their importance in the high school education system
is not the only idea that needs to be covered to answer the question. That is why the second topic
that Im going to cover is what information is being left out while your kids are being taught
history and why this information is being left out. After the curriculums are given to the school
districts it is up to them to order textbooks that follow along with them. According to Lachmann,
in The Changing Face of War in Textbooks, these text books companies are the ones that have
the most control on what is and is not being taught to high school students because of the wiggle
room that is afforded by the curriculums. Also, that they achieve this by focusing mostly on war
when talking about history and by glorifying the acts of their fellow countrymen and barely even
recognizing the casualties of the other countries involved. It is usually one of the few reasons
why information is left out of the text books that are used in high schools.
With this being the case it also show a reason why that information in textbooks differs
from state to state and thats because the curriculums change from state to state. One of the
reasons that information is left out of high school text books is that the topics are very
controversial. This reason for leaving information out of the text books is really opinion based
which can lead to problems. Some of the topics that are left out because of this reason such as the
Imperial Japanese Armys Unit 731 can be used to give a unique comparison between different
atrocities that have accrued in history. Imperial Japanese Armys Unit 731 was a medical unit

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where they performed inhumane medical human testing on prisoners of war. Like when Rachel
Pawlowicz, and Walter E. Grunden said that even though the holocaust in Germany and Unit 731
happened in different countries and cultures, they happened during the same war under
controlling governments and similar social ideas surrounding medical practices. Thus, when
considered together, rather than separately, a comparative study of the Holocaust and Unit 731
may provide opportunities to address a wide range of issues that otherwise would not be able to
be discussed.
The other reason that information is left out of high school text books is the idea that they
convey hidden messages such as Patriotism and Individualism. You might not think that this a
real thing but according to the research that was done by Lachmann he says that textbooks
increasingly have a focus on the individual human person in world, rather than national,
society. The idea of individualism focuses on individual needs and achievements instead of the
big picture. This accounts for certain information being left out because it looks bad for the idea
that they are trying to convey but it also explains why some topics are really prevalent in the text
books.
After looking at all the information this given above you are probably think why does this
matter? The third topic that Im going to cover is going to explain why that it matters that there is
information that is being left out of high school history because of the history curriculums. When
looking at why it matters that information is being left out and not being taught to your kids there
is two main reasons come up. One of the reasons that it matters involves being ready for college.
Depending on the information that is left out of certain text books it can affect the students
ability of understanding different periods of history which can greatly affect them being

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adequately prepared for higher education. Without covering more information on the subject it
leaves them with a very narrow understanding of all that is covered in the first year of college.
Another reason that it matters has to do with creating an informed society. With there
being information being left out of high school history class it leads to a decreased number of
people that know what really happened. This can lead to problems when these events become the
source of contention across the nation and being misinformed is the reason for the contention.
This is close to what Levy talks about in "Parents', Students', And Teachers' Beliefs About
Teaching Heritage Histories In Public School History Classrooms" concerning the lack of
knowledge about Hmong people and their history has led to stereotypes for the people.
Now after reading the information that I have given you in this paper ask yourself why
does this matter and what can we do with it? I believe that this is a very important issue and
requires some action by the parents of the kids that being affected by this problem. So, to take
any action that is going to produce positive results we have to know who we need to contact that
has the ability to make the changes that are needed to be done. In this case the people that have
the ability to make changes to the history curriculum in this state is the state education board. I
urge you that if you feel the same way that I do about this issue that something need to be done
to find fellow parents that think the same way and start a petition for the state education board to
make changes to the curriculum.

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Works Cited

Lachmann, Richard1, and Lacy1 Mitchell. "The Changing Face Of War In Textbooks:
Depictions Of World War II And Vietnam, 19702009." Sociology Of Education 87.3
(2014): 188-203. Education Source. Web. 28 Mar. 2016.
Levy, Sara A. "Parents', Students', And Teachers' Beliefs About Teaching Heritage Histories In
Public School History Classrooms." Journal Of Social Studies Research 40.1 (2016): 520. Education Source. Web. 21 Mar. 2016.
Parker, Walter C. and Jarolimek, John. Curriculum Standards for Social Studies. Upper Saddle
River: Prentice-Hall Inc, 1997. Print.
Pawlowicz, Rachel, and Walter E. Grunden. "Teaching Atrocities: The Holocaust And Unit 731
In The Secondary School Curriculum." History Teacher 48.2 (2015): 271-294. America:
History and Life with Full Text. Web. 21 Mar. 2016.