- [Narrator] This program is made possible through support from Bloomsburg University.

(upbeat music) (music fading) From Carver Hall on the campus of Bloomsburg University, Bloomsburg University and WVIA present: Conversations for the Common Good, Civil Discourse, Civic Engagement.

US History Contested, Curriculum and Learning in Public Schools.

(intriguing music) - Hi, I'm Larry Vojtko, coming to you from Carver Hall on the campus of Bloomsburg University.

Welcome to the latest edition of Conversations for the Common Good, US History Contested, Curriculum and Learning in Public Schools, a Community Conversation.

This is the first in a series and tonight we will explore how contested narratives about the history of our nation, especially the narratives on slavery, white supremacy, and the ongoing struggle to live up to the ideals formulated in the Constitution, are negotiated.

And how do discussions of the content of those narratives affect public school curricula, the teachers who deliver it, and the students who learn it.

We are interested in hearing the perspectives of teachers and administrators who have had to navigate the challenges to truthful narratives coming in from community members and parents.

We expect to be talking about what is to be included in those narratives to arrive at accurate, inclusive historical accounts and who is qualified to put them together.

You can view this program on demand on WVIA.org.

Now, let's meet our panel of special guests, who are here to add perspective to the conversation.

Dr.

Dusty Blakey, Superintendent Kennett Square Consolidated School District.

Dr. Blakey has broad experience with teaching and learning and curricular issues, public school administration, and community relations, especially in Chester County, Pennsylvania.

Nicholas Peters, teacher, Chair of Social Studies at Kennett Square High School.

Mr. Peters works on a day-to-day basis with classroom implications of the curricular issues we expect to discuss this evening, and is completing directly related doctoral research at Temple University.

And joining us via Zoom, Dr.

Crystal R. Sanders, Professor of History, Emory University.

Dr. Sanders is a specialist in Black women's history and Black culture and interaction with educational systems in the United States.

There is our panel.

And you are a part of the conversation, gathered here in Carver Hall.

We would like to invite your questions, and when you do have a question, anytime during the conversation that is about to begin, please go up to one of the two microphones that are in the aisles and I will then recognize you.

At that time, if you could identify yourself and tell us where you live and then proceed to your question.

But let's start with you Dr. Blakey.

Why are we here?

Why are we having this conversation?

What has happened?

What are the- What has been the comments?

What has been the activities?

What are the circumstances surrounding the need to actually put in place a conversation like this?

- Well, I think over the years recently, we've seen parents being more engaged in what their students are learning and having a very strong opinion about it.

And what we've seen with laws interacted around the country about specific things that can or can't be taught, and not relying on the school boards or the teachers as much as they used to, to deliver content.

And now it's being the opportunity for people to question what's being delivered and what their students are learning has really started that two-way dialogue that's taken place over the last several years.

- Well, we've heard that over and over again, you know, parents know what's best for their kid when it comes to just about everything, and you said parents are more involved.

Isn't that a good thing that parents are getting involved?

- Sure, I think it's a good thing as long as it is an opportunity to have an open, honest dialogue and people approach it with an open mind.

Our job, I believe, as educators are to provide facts and to really create a generation of critical thinkers and allow people to get a balanced approach to each of the stories, especially through social studies in US history, once we deliver that balanced approach, I think the stories are really what's important and perspective, Dr. Hudon talked about, we have more in common than we have apart, and I think as we talk about the different perspectives and different experiences that we may not agree, we'll agree on more things than we believe we are if we come at it with an open mind.

- And has that been your experience that the parents, maybe even the school board, is open to this honest conversation and has an open mind?

- So far, yes.

I would say in our district we have had that good dialogue where we've had open conversations.

I've been asked by community members what is our curriculum.

Our curriculum is listed on our website.

It is aligned to our Pennsylvania state standards.

And if they wanted to see the materials we're using, that Mr. Peters and others use, they're welcome to come peruse it.

And as part of the process of approving new curriculum, it's done by the school board.

We have curricular meetings where we present publicly what it is that we would like to do, what direction and, or books that we're using, prior to it being approved a few weeks later at a general school board meeting.

So we invite the public to come in and look at the materials being used.

We're identifying the "what", and that's, you know, where I think the push-pull comes into the "how" is actually Mr. Peters and staff's responsibility on the day-to-day basis.

- Mr. Peters, in your capacity as a teacher, have you encountered any discussion on the issues that we're presently discussing?

Have you noticed that there is an open dialogue?

Have you noticed that there is an increased interest in all of this?

- Absolutely, but I've been teaching for almost 25 years.

I'm a graduate of Bloomsburg University.

So, in those 25 years, in the social studies, people have always shown a great deal of interest and the histories are usually contested and there's nothing wrong with that, it just opens a dialogue and I think we should invite that dialogue into our classrooms and we should listen to all sides.

And when you talk about it and you meet with community members in our district, before Dr. Blakey came on board, we've had several conversations about textbooks and curriculum, I've always met with people, I've always had an open mind, and I think we've had fruitful conversations that have led us to teach what we teach today.

In addition to teaching the state standards, there's also a local component.

So that local component works its way into the curriculum and into textbook selections.

And in our community, because we are a very diverse community, I think that's resulted in stories that you might not hear everywhere else because we recognize and we include minority voices and the voices of the disenfranchised and I think that's been very helpful for the kids that graduate from our schools because I think they graduate as global citizens, and I think that's important in the world that we live in today, beyond America.

- Do you find that, or would you say that you consider the process that you've gone through in your school district as something of a model that could be replicated elsewhere?

- Are we a model?

(audience member laughing) Yeah, in some ways I think we are a model.

I would say we're a very diverse school district, and we're not just diverse in terms of our student populations, and we're not just diverse in terms of ethnicity, but we're also also diverse in terms of socioeconomics, and we have a very diverse faculty.

So in my department, I would say that there are people of very different opinions, but we always dialogue and we always talk about things and I think that helps all of us in our practice and it definitely informs our curriculum and I think that's because we have an open dialogue and we have open conversations.

I think that's maybe one of the reasons why curriculum and textbooks are not as contested in our school district because they know that we offer a very balanced view of whatever history it is that we're teaching, or civics as well, American government.

- As this conversation goes through, I'd like to kind of focus in on that phrase, history contested, history contested.

We don't talk about math contested.

(Larry chuckling) You know?

But history contested.

So I'm going to go to Dr. Sanders now, Professor of History, and I want you to try to let us know what is the work of a historian?

How does a historian go about doing that work?

What are the methods?

What are the standards?

What are the ethics in examining an individual or an era?

Can you give us an idea of what that is like to be a historian and what the goal of the historian is?

- Sure, and first let me say I'm honored to be here, I'm grateful to engage in this conversation with all of the audience members and with the panelists.

And before I answer your question, I just wanna say that in my work I've seen that history in all disciplines has been contested.

So you said history has been contested, but if we think about a long history of Black education, in particular, in the United States, there have always been divides and debates over what Black students should learn.

So going back into the immediate emancipation period, there are questions about if African Americans should receive a classical education or an industrial education.

A classical education would include calculus, Latin, Greek, it would include the opportunities for Black students to really learn to, you know, read some of the great literary works and be able to come to their own conclusions about the ways in which they reflect or don't reflect American society.

Whereas an industrial education really prepared African Americans for menial jobs in the South.

And so there was definitely contestation over what they should learn in regards to science, in regards to English, in regards to history.

So really I think the point we should remember is that education has always been political and education has always been contested, especially with respect to students of color.

But to answer your question, I am a historian of the United States and as all of my colleagues do, or we try to do, we aim to help people have an understanding of the past, right?

And there are many ways that one can go about doing that.

But me in particular, I am a stickler for using primary sources.

And by that I mean I go directly to sources to really try to understand and to get a sense of what people thought, what people did, and how people understood the world in which they lived during the time period that they lived.

So for me, let's say, if I'm writing a book on Head Start in Mississippi, which I've already done, I go to the National Head Start records, I look at those initial documents from Head Start's architects, I look at records of training Head Start teachers in the 1960s.

I then try to conduct oral interviews with teachers who were working in these Head Start centers in Mississippi in the 1960s, and after I gather all of that material, what we would consider primary source material, I'm then able to make an argument and hopefully prove that argument through a larger work, being able to explain why I think, you know, a particular program or a particular individual is important, and why I believe that their story or their actions deserve this, you know, expanded focus.

So essentially what we're doing is helping people to make sense of the past.

And really, I would say, helping people to understand our current moment, because we can't understand our current moment void of what's come before it.

- Right, we've heard that so many times, that those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it.

Let me follow up though, because you're saying, "I'm studying it to find out what I think is important, why I think it's important."

So you are implying that a historian, that there is a place for, let's call it perspective, a personal perspective within that study of history.

Is that correct?

- Well, what I'm saying is that all historians (stammering) they choose a specialty.

I chose my specialty based on what I'm interested in.

So I have an interest in Black education, so I choose to research and write about Black education.

There are people who have interest in Tudor-Stuart Britain, people who have interest in Caribbean history, whatever their interest is typically determines the types of things that they research, the types of questions that they ask, right?

Because it's something that you wanna be passionate about.

I think, however, perhaps your question is getting to, you know, issues of neutrality or being objective, and, you know, oftentimes historians will attempt to say that, "My writing is objective," or, "My narrative is objective and my narrative is neutral," but, you know, we are human beings and everything that we choose to include in a text means there are things that we choose not to include in a text.

So I don't take the perspective that a historian's work is oftentimes completely neutral or completely objective, I think that we all use our research and we use our passions to hopefully further conversations and to ask questions that interest us, right?

I think we have a responsibility to be diligent, meaning, not to only present facts or figures that meet our, you know, (stammering) that agree with our position.

But I do believe that historians have the opportunity, and indeed we do use our materials and use our research to hopefully drive a conversation that we believe is important.

- And you inferred perfectly where I was going with that question because- And so I'll argue back a little counterpoint here.

Some people might- And this may have led us down the path where we find ourselves now, where a particular person or group of people or segment of a body politic would say, "Well, that's not perspective, that's bias, that's a prejudice.

And that's, you know, somebody's opinion of something."

(stammering) How do historians walk that line?

Do you have a- - Well, first let me say this issue of bias or this issue of history no longer being neutral, it's really an argument that has been made as the historical profession has become diversified.

So for, you know, for the majority of world history the history discipline has been predominated by white men.

And even today it's still predominated by white men, but there are more scholars of color and more women who have entered into the profession as historians.

And as the profession has diversified, we've seen new questions being asked.

And it's only because these new questions are being asked that some people began to say, "This can't be history," any history that's less Eurocentric, any history that's not focusing on great men or great white men, tends to be problematic and oftentimes is deemed to be less rigorous, or to be biased, or to be opinion, right?

Rather than fact.

When in reality, the way I see the discipline diversifying is indeed giving us richer and more inclusive accounts of history that are necessary in order to really understand the global world in which we live.

So if we take something as simple as the Reconstruction Period, you know, for the longest time there was one narrative about Reconstruction, one narrative that was accepted as fact about the United States during that period immediately after the Civil War.

(stammering) We would call it the Dunning School of Thought Reconstruction.

And essentially it was an idea that giving African Americans the vote was a mistake, that Black suffrage was a mistake, that Black people did not have the intellectual capability to take part in the electoral process, that African Americans should not be able to hold elected office.

And that Dunning School of Thought was used to not only disenfranchise African Americans, but to essentially allow, especially in the South, for whites-only electoral processes until 1965.

And so again, you know, as people began to push back and to say, "Wait a minute, let's go back and see what happened in these Reconstruction governments where African Americans were voting, where African Americans were serving in political office," we find that what the Dunning School said happened actually did not happen.

And so I'm using this example because in the Dunning School that was a perspective of Reconstruction.

That was one perspective that used very particular, you know, sources and very particular mindsets about what was good for the country and good for the Southern region in particular, whereas now you've had historians who've pushed back and have used actually some of those same sources, but have taken a different interpretation.

And so that shows us that really we should long for various people to be able to look at the same sources and to hopefully not always agree, come to some different conclusions because then that problematizes what we think we know, and that hopefully gets us to a more accurate understanding of what actually happened.

- All right.

Mr. Peters, I'm gonna go to you next, but I just want to invite again the audience members, if you have a comment, question, particularly question, just go to either microphone in the aisle and I will recognize you at the time.

Just state your name and where you're from.

Now, you mentioned that you've been teaching 25 years, you've seen changes, how have those changes been experienced by the students?

And how have the students changed over that time in the way they respond to what you are teaching?

- So, it's a great question.

Over that time period, 25 years, I think the kids now have a greater, like, global perspective and they're more receptive to hearing different voices in history.

So, I think the previous speaker made an excellent point about how our master narratives have been dominated by certain voices and by certain schools of thought, absolutely.

And I think over the last 25 years what I've at least experienced is that the national curriculum, state curriculums, and we don't really have a national curriculum, but what really drives it in large part is advanced placement exams.

So, I'm using that as an example of a national curriculum.

And what we've seen is those curriculums have changed over time, they've started to include different voices, different perspectives, they've emphasized different things.

To the point that was made earlier, the real focus was, when I first started, on political and economic history, and now you see an increasing amount of social history, which I think has really enriched the experience for a lot of different students and it's exposed them to histories that they recognize more in their own lives.

So I think, especially when it comes to, like, women's history and minority history, I think that's super-duper important.

What I've also noticed is over that time, there's also, I wouldn't say necessarily that it's a shift, but the focus was really on European history and American history when I first started and now you're seeing a shift towards more global history.

So I think that's reflected in curriculums too, where they're choosing a more integrated approach where not only can you teach Asian, African, and Western history integrated with European history, which I tend to agree with, I think that's an interesting perspective 'cause they influence each other.

But you're also seeing that impacting American narratives to understand where is America's place in the world, how does it fit into the world?

And once you have a better understanding of those other histories, you have a better understanding of your own history.

So I've seen that.

- Your comments are really starting to focus in on why we're here talking about this, I think.

Because we are now talking about a worldview, okay, that was in place for probably at least 100 years.

You know, I went through school too and learned history a certain way, and now you're talking about, you know, you said, "What is America's place in the world?"

Well, for many people that place in the world is a immutable, unchanging piece of granite, that, how can you come and maybe take an ax to my worldview?

And could that possibly be leading people to be upset about it?

Is there an element of fear about, "My goodness, what I knew I didn't know, and why is this, you know- Was I wrong?

Was I taught wrong?

Where are we going?"

And how we can, you know- How are we going to be able to deal with this?

I mean, Dr. Blakey, do you see my point here?

- Clearly.

I think one of the biggest differences is the Information Age and the amount of information that's happening all the time.

If I reflect back on my youth, the news I got was either newspaper or through the television, it wasn't a 24 hour, seven-days-a-week phone that was in my hand or some computer access.

So, I think the amount of information that's there and that's available and that is accurate and inaccurate really lends us to kind of this conversation about our place in the world and as we look at our economy ebb and flow, and as we look at some of the other events that are happening around the world, the history that we learned and our view of ourselves in that history, may not reflect what we're seeing and hearing right now, or the access to the information and the perspectives that are being placed out there for us to really debate and to process, and I think that is what has really exacerbated this conversation significantly.

- Well, we have a question from the audience, and could you please state your name and where you're from?

- Yes, my name's Britney Stephenson, I'm currently a graduate student here at BU and I live in Bloomsburg.

My question is for Mr. Peters.

So with your curriculum, would you say that your curriculum contains components of critical race theory, and if so, how are your students responding to that?

Do you see enhanced critical thinking skills or a shift in their critical thinking skills versus a normal Eurocentric curriculum?

- So, I think that's a great question, it kind of gets to the heart of one of the things that we wanna talk about.

So, I've had conversations with people throughout the summer about this, especially after I talked to Dr. Hudon about participating in it.

So, having talked to a lot of social studies teachers about it, the curriculum is Eurocentric, absolutely, it still is.

We're working on that and we're trying to make it more, like, equitable and more inclusive, right?

Talking to the teachers though, is critical race theory written into the curriculum?

Honestly, most of the teachers I've talked to, until that term was used recently and weaponized in many ways by different factions in this country, a lot of political factions, most teachers would say they didn't consciously subscribe to critical race theory.

Does it work its way into our curriculums, especially through our textbooks and through, like, state licensing or standardization agencies?

Absolutely.

But what they're trying to do is have an honest conversation about the history in this country.

So, does that mean if you talk about race and if you talk about disenfranchising people or you talk about inequalities in society, does that make it critical race theory, or is that just having an honest conversation about the actual narrative of the country itself?

So, I would say most teachers that I know have those honest conversations.

And in our school district, I think we really do engage in those because we have a diverse school district and students from diverse backgrounds need to understand, "Okay, this is the world that we live in, here's how we got to this point," and that informs our conversation.

But I don't know if I'm answering your question exactly because it's a very nuanced thing and most teachers I know that are conscientious about teaching and they wanna get to something approximating the truth, will include those different voices, and I think that's totally legitimate.

- So, I can piggyback off that a little bit.

The fact that, I would say, our curriculum cycles are being reviewed as we speak, social studies being one of them.

So, meaning that every five years, or roughly every five years, you're looking at your curriculum, you're looking at the cycle of inquiry and what it is that you're teaching, and the materials that you're using to teach it.

And so that's a conversation that will be happening this time next year in our district in terms of social studies.

But there isn't a- I would definitively say to you that there is not a focused approach on that, other than making sure that we provide multiple voices in everything that we talk about.

As Mr. Peters has talked about, we're almost 50/50 in terms of our population between our Caucasian families and our Spanish-speaking families, and so it is a very unique environment that we are working within and we are making a conscious effort to hear all of the voices in our classrooms and their experiences and how does that impact what it is that we're talking about, in their own family history as well as the history of our community and the history of our country.

One of the courses that we just established is a history of Kennett Square, given the fact that it has connections to the Underground Railroad and how important that is.

So that's another narrative that we're embedding in the learning opportunities for our students, but it's not consciously focused on, if you're asking about critical race theory, that's not what is a conscious focus.

We use the state standards as guides to what it is that we want our students to learn, and if the standard asks us to identify, examine, and explain or describe, then that may be a part of the conversation in a discussion that happens about the inequities of whatever that particular topic is.

And it should happen on a regular basis.

- Mr. Peters had alluded to the fact that critical race theory has become something of a buzzword.

So let me just- And I'm going to ask Dr. Sanders to give us a definition of what critical race theory is.

But first, let me ask you this, Dr. Blakey, when you were studying- - Sorry, can I just add one thing in response to that student?

- [Larry] Yes.

- So, here's a real challenge for us, as, like, a regular teacher working in a school district.

A real challenge is we're trying to integrate all these voices and we're trying to integrate all these different types of history that we see.

Our challenge when we're looking at curriculum and curriculum standards and we're going through kind of the evolution of it every five to 10 years, is we have a limited amount of time to teach whatever history it is that we're teaching.

So then we have to make decisions about, okay, what do we want the students to know and how do we help them learn that in the limited amount of time that we have?

So that's why there's a constant evolution and development of history because we're trying to include more and more voices and more and more history into that.

And it doesn't mean that the history that people learned in the past isn't legitimate or what they believe in or learned isn't true, it just means that we wanna look at it from different perspectives and we wanna include more history and sometimes that involves a give and take.

Sorry to cut you off, (Larry chuckling) I just want to qualify that statement.

You're asking a great question, I think.

- In your education, as a historian, did you ever study critical race theory?

In- - [Dr. Blakey] No.

- [Larry] No?

And Mr. Peters?

- No.

- No.

But it has been a theory, from my research, that's been around for about 40 years, am I right, Dr. Sanders?

Yeah, something like that.

So could you- (stammering) It has taken on a life of its own and I think it's really important, especially in this forum, this is gonna be on television, we need to define what critical race theory actually is, can you do that for us, Dr. Sanders?

- Sure, and first let me say, it's not surprising that the two historians on the panel haven't, you know, weren't taught critical race theory because critical race theory really began in law school classrooms.

So it's really something that originated with law school students who were going on to practice, and I'll talk about- You know, that's part of the confusion because people label a lot of things critical race theory and in fact those things that they're talking about aren't critical race theory, and so that makes some other people say, "Well, I wasn't exposed to it and I am a historian," that's not surprising.

So first let me just say that critical race theory is really an academic concept, right?

And it was an academic concept predicated on the idea that even though race is a social construct, racism is a very real thing and racism is embedded in United States social institutions.

So that is the argument.

So critical race theory is saying that social institutions like the United States legal system are embedded with racism, right?

And so critical race theory would say, you know, that's how we explain racial disparities in healthcare.

That's how we explain racial disparities in police killings in this country.

That's how we explain the lower values of homes in Black neighborhoods, right?

This idea that racism is embedded in American social institutions.

One of the things that I've found alarming over the last two years, is that there have been many people who have labeled everything that alludes or points to our country's racist history, as critical race theory.

And indeed those are two separate things.

In fact, I would like to think that really a lot of the arguments that we're seeing among parents and school leaders and teachers with regards to curriculum is really a problem of having an issue with culturally relevant curriculum, right?

Or culturally relevant pedagogy.

Curricula that really makes an effort to be less Eurocentric, an effort to really have a curriculum that affirms the value and importance of every student in the classroom, right?

Ensuring that all students can see themselves in the material and in the projects that are presented in those classrooms.

And for some, people have called this culturally relevant pedagogy, critical race theory because they don't like the idea that culturally relevant pedagogy allows for a more inclusive account of history that is going to talk about racism.

But indeed, in that same regard, if you're concerned that conversations about racism will be demoralizing to white students, we have to wonder what the absence of conversations about racism does to non-white students who are experiencing racism every day, right?

So essentially, I think we have to unpack this debate and understand that where people are saying, "We don't want CRT," in reality, I don't think CRT is being taught that often in K12 schools.

But there is a push in K12 schools, as there should be, for culturally relevant pedagogy or culturally relevant curricula that ensures that all students, no matter who they are, whether they are male or female, whether they are Black, white, Asian, Hispanic, whether they are immigrant or non-immigrant, has a curriculum that they can be proud of, a curriculum that they feel included in.

And that is something that I think we should all champion.

Unfortunately, everyone doesn't share that perspective.

- Well, we have a question from the audience, but first let me just push back a little bit and give a a little bit of counterpoint to that.

So, we have learned that critical race theory says there is racism really baked into the system, the the legal system, the economic system, the political system, okay?

So, someone hearing that says, "Well, you're saying the United States is a racist country.

How dare you?"

Dr. Blakey, how do you answer that?

- I say, just let's look at the facts and you decide for yourself.

That's what we're doing with our students, and that's what we're asking Mr. Peters to do.

I know that Dr. Sanders talked about primary sources, one of the things that we're trying to do is not be textbook dependent.

Let's make sure that the textbook is a tool and one of many tools that we're using to be able to teach history.

And so if we have primary source information, we have access to primary source documents, let's look at that and help students critically identify that and make that decision along the way.

- Another reaction, okay, another reaction is, "Wait a minute, do you expect me to apologize?

Me, today, for how the system is that was put in place decades ago, centuries ago?

As a white person, am I supposed to say I'm sorry?

Is that what I'm supposed to do?"

Dr. Sanders?

- Essentially, I would argue no one is asking anyone to make an apology on behalf of an entire race of people or entire generations of people who benefited from white supremacy, but the idea would be to work today to continue to root out racism.

We don't need apologies, what people really want are active members, we want allies, people who are willing to ensure that their kids are learning accurate accounts of American history, people who are willing to speak up when they see injustices in our criminal justice system, when they see, you know, problems even in school discipline, when they see problems with access to healthcare.

Essentially what, hopefully, will come about, with learning a more inclusive account of American history is it will create a sensitivity among all of us to wanna help this country live up to its ideals, that it will create a passion in all of us to say, "We can get closer to these ideals of justice and democracy for all.

We're not there yet, but I will do my part to ensure that we get closer to those ideals."

So essentially I would say, that is the end goal for wanting people to have a more accurate and inclusive understanding of our nation's history.

And I just wanted to applaud Dr. Blakey for the comment about using primary sources in conjunction with textbooks.

One of the things I find in the classroom with many of these students, and I'm teaching at the college level, is that oftentimes they say, "I've never been taught this," or, "I didn't know this," and so I too love to run to the primary sources.

And just to give you an example, the Civil War, you know, students come in and they say to me, "The Civil War was not about slavery.

The Civil War was about states' rights."

And I say, "Let's go to the documents," and one of the documents I make all of my students read.

If anybody's watching, they know this is true.

I take out the secession statements from the various states that ended up joining the Confederate States of America.

And my favorite secession statement to use is from the state of Mississippi, and they make no bones about it.

I encourage all of you to go get a copy of that document to read why Mississippians say they are seceding from the Union.

And they make no bones about it, they are seceding to preserve slavery.

They say this, it is in the document, they say that their economy is dependent upon it, and they refuse to engage in any conversations about emancipation.

So I say to the student, you know, "I'm sorry that you've been taught about only states' rights with no mention of slavery at all.

But this document is suggesting that indeed the state of Mississippi secedes because they believe they have a right to maintain slavery."

So we could say, "Yes, the Civil War was fought over states' rights, but the states' right to do what?"

And we can clearly see from the document that it was the state's right to continue to engage in slavery.

- Thank you.

Well, we have a question from the audience.

State your name and and where you're from.

- Yes, I'm Lisa Stallbaumer-Beishline and I'm from Bloomsburg University, I'm a professor of history.

I think there's a lot of historians in here.

First of all, thank you Britney for bringing up the question of critical race theory.

And I was hoping each of the panelists could maybe address this question.

Those who have weaponized CRT seem to be driven by a belief that history should promote white heritage rather than history as an opportunity to study multiple perspectives.

How does this undermine student learning and their development as citizens?

- [Larry] Who wants to take that?

- [Mr. Peters] Well, I mean- - [Larry] Go ahead Mr. Peters.

- It's definitely been weaponized, I appreciate that the student asked that question.

In our school district, we don't see that as much because we haven't gotten as much pushback from students or parents.

Mainly, I think because of our diversity and people live in our school district because they celebrate that diversity.

So having talked to other educators, that's a major concern.

So people talk about that and they talk about CRT and they talk about pushback from parents and students.

As I mentioned to people before the show, and I've mentioned it to a number of people offline, the biggest issue, and answering your question, the biggest threat I see to civic engagement and a threat to social studies education is people are avoiding that conversation.

Teachers don't wanna talk about it, they don't wanna bring it up because they know it's been weaponized and they know it's gonna cause pushback.

So what's happened is self-censorship.

So then those conversations, difficult conversations, don't happen in a lot of classrooms, mainly because teachers are concerned about that pushback.

And I think that's a real threat to our democracy because a democracy should be based on dialogue and conversations, and when you shut down that dialogue and you shut down those conversations, then you limit what students can learn and students can process through primary sources, secondary sources, any kind of sources.

And that's when I think you start to see democracy shut down and you see the rise of very dangerous sources.

I think we've talked about that before.

- So, Mr. Peters, you mentioned there's self-censoring, right?

- [Mr. Peters] Yes.

- You were talking to some colleagues.

I'm taking it these are not colleagues that are within your same school system?

- Not within my school system, necessarily, So I- - Is there- Is there a unifying characteristic from these particular teachers that you could point to is why they feel the necessity to self-censor?

- Experience.

They've read about this over the last couple of years, they've seen it happen to other colleagues, they've talked to people in the community.

So yeah, what's unifying in some ways, they're smart.

So, if you wanna stay in a job, you wanna avoid difficult conversations, you wanna avoid someone challenging your position, then one way of doing that is not to talk about it.

The problem in social studies is that's the reason why we exist.

We exist as a field and we are taught as a subject, one of the major four subjects in schools, in order to create an educated citizenry, and the way you do that is to inform them.

If they're not informed, they're not an educated citizenry, and I would argue, what kind of citizenry do you really have then?

Who will they elect?

Who will, kind of, step forward and lead that country?

So, I would say that's the biggest threat to our democracy right now.

- Well, I have about three questions out of- (Larry laughing) Out of that comment right there- - [Mr. Peters] That's fine.

- But first we have a question from the audience.

- Yes, so quick there on the idea of self-censory.

I wanted to know, while we're on the topic of critical race theory, some of the teachers in your district, do you feel like with the conversation of CRT, are they protected under the First Amendment?

- In terms of if they're teaching it or not teaching it?

Fortunately, we haven't had that conversation yet.

We haven't had that situation happen yet.

As I said, typically we give them that "what" and then they take the "how" part to it.

I don't have an answer in terms of our experiences in Kennett or in any previous district I've been in, in terms of their First Amendment protections.

The First Amendment has some broad protections in it, which allow for things that can be controversial.

Fortunately, we haven't had that issue, so I can't tell you from my own personal experience that we've had that happen, and this is what the First Amendment did or didn't do for our teachers.

But to Mr. Peters' point, one of the things that I think we've seen globally are that teachers and their jobs being at stake, if they take a risk that is perceived as a poor risk or controversial, it impacts their long-term employment opportunities or their longevity or their upward mobility in the field.

And so, to the point I think that he's taking, I've heard that from many of my colleagues, that it's a battle that they're not willing to take on.

And it happens in many cases, naturally, as Mr. Peters talked about, you can't talk about American history without talking about race, it's almost impossible to separate the two, it's how deep do you go with it.

And then to the point that Dr. Sanders has already talked about and others, then you get labels thrown at you very quickly and is that something that we, as teachers, wanna deal with?

And not everybody's there at that point.

- [Dr. Sanders] And I just wanna jump in and say- - Yes, yes, Dr. Sanders.

- Because I'm from North Carolina, and my home county, my home school district where I graduated from, made national news this year because our county commissioners withheld funding for the next fiscal year until the superintendent signed a statement stating that he would not allow any critical race theory to be taught in any school in the district.

Now, first of all, I had never heard of a quid pro quo making school superintendents sign documents before funding that taxpayers have provided for the schools are actually allocated to the schools.

So I found it problematic just on its head, but then I found it especially problematic as a historian, knowing that many people label accurate and inclusive history as critical race theory because this puts teachers in a bind.

If the superintendent signs a statement saying that no critical race theory will take part in school, and teaching an accurate and inclusive account of American history is considered critical race theory, if they do their jobs well then they are subject to, you know, disciplinary measures or even termination because the county commissioners have a problem with accurate and inclusive history.

So really it's very disheartening, right?

Where teachers are already faced with so many challenges, now feeling as if they've got yet another reason to look over their shoulder and yet another reason to have to worry about what's going on in the classroom because, literally, funding is hanging in the balance.

And it's disheartening to know that we would make, you know, make our students and our teachers' lives harder in efforts to hopefully win a cultural war.

- Yes, and I believe there are similar, not exactly the same situation happening in Florida and Virginia, but on the state level rather than on the county level.

And it does, you know- Teaching accurate, fact-based history is how you characterize it and now another side characterizes it in a different way, and it seems that on this weaponization of history that now, you know, we're- And that this is another argument and another complaint about critical race theory, CRT, is that it's divisive, that it's dividing us at a time when we're very divided.

And why should, you know, why should we in history focus on one segment of the population and they see it as pushing back, you know, or pushing down the other side of the conversation.

So there's a lot to unpack there.

My main question is, should there be sides in history?

Didn't seem like they're- Dr. Blakey, or should there be sides in history?

- I would say to you, no.

There are winners and losers in that thought process.

- [Larry] Right, because we heard- It goes back to that old saying, "History is written by the victors," right?

- Yeah, and I think that will definitely have an impact on how we see ourselves and our future down the road as winners and losers.

And if you look at the past, you use that past as an indicator for what's moving forward.

So I think that argument or that holding onto, "I'm right and you're wrong," doesn't expand us as a people in getting to where we all wanna be in upholding the things that we hold dearest, our Founding Fathers' ideals of what we should be.

I think we miss the boat there when you have winners and losers and it is taken in that context.

- Right, we have another- We're running quickly out of time, but we have one more question from the audience.

- Yes, Lisa Stallbaumer, history here at Bloomsburg University.

The thing I wanted to observe was as last night I was watching the US and the Holocaust Educators panel discussion, and in the chat that was going through the live session, there was a educator who said they were reluctant to talk about current immigration issues and using the immigration controversy of rescuing Jews in the 1930s as a segue into that topic because they fear losing their job.

So there is definitely self-censorship going on, but the other observation is, is I think that some of those folks just end up leaving teaching and that too is a very sad outcome of it all.

- Right.

And we have a severe teacher shortage in Pennsylvania and probably elsewhere in the country as well.

And these sorts of issues as if, you know, teachers have yet more to worry about and look over their shoulder, they don't have enough already.

And you probably could do a whole other program of what's happened in your career over that time.

But, you know, we didn't really get to, from where is this coming?

And what is the- If this is coming from outside, there's a pressure coming in from individuals or a segment of the population or whatever, we haven't identified that and we also haven't identified why.

What is the benefit to people who are pushing this?

What would be the benefit?

And Dr. Sanders, have you any comment on that?

Where do you see this coming from?

Why are they doing it?

How do they think it benefits them?

- I'm not sure who the they and them are, but I'm assuming that you're asking why there are those who oppose critical race theory and what they get out of it.

Is that the question?

- Yes, right, exactly.

We weren't worrying about this even what, five years ago or something.

What led to this?

Who is pushing this?

Where is this pressure coming from?

What has caused it to surface to the top?

And then what is the benefit of that?

And really as we're coming to the end, what can we do about this?

How can we respond to it in a positive way?

- Well, I honestly believe that many opponents of critical race theory have difficulty separating their identity from the identity of American institutions.

Meaning, to say that our legal system is racist or to say that our our policing practices, in particular, are racist becomes something of a personal attack for certain segments of our population.

And that's simply because of how, you know, how entangled many Americans are with our institutions.

They see those institutions as being a representative of them.

And indeed, there's nothing wrong with that, but it becomes problematic if one refuses to acknowledge that those institutions that are held in such high regard and are held, you know, near and dear to people's hearts, are not problematic, right?

So I think that is part of the problem, it becomes very jarring, it becomes very unnerving, and people begin to perhaps worry that people are gonna say they themselves are racist, or that racism can never go away, or that, you know, they have somehow only prospered in the country because of racism.

And I don't believe- - Well, Dr.- Yeah, Dr. Sanders, we're running quickly outta time here.

- [Dr. Sanders] That is their end goal for any of it.

- Yes, I appreciate.

We've just scratched the service I think on this, and just really started the conversation.

And I would like to thank, thank you, thank the panel for being here, and Bloomsburg University, and our audience for being a part of this edition of Conversations for the Common Good, US History Contested, Curriculum and Learning in Public Schools, A Community Conversation.

On behalf of WVIA, I'm Larry Vojtko.

Thank you so much for watching.

(audience appluading) (intriguing music) (music continues) (music continues)