The History Channel is devoting 3 nights of miniseries coverage to Abraham Lincoln
The History Channel’s miniseries provides great testimony as to how important Lincoln as a man is to the American story.
So how can it be that Kentucky’s public school social studies standards never even mention Lincoln’s name, thereby pretty much ensuring that much of what the History Channel discusses, including where Lincoln started life, will be beyond anything Kentucky’s children learn?
Vacuous social studies standards that open the door wide to misguided if not outright inappropriate teaching are part of the reason why Kentucky State Senator Max Wise felt it necessary to file a bill to ensure at least some additional content would be added to the content-devoid standards. Thus, in part of his presentation on his bill to the Senate Education Committee on February 17, 2022, Sen. Wise said:
“Both educators and parents have complained that the standards seem to lack specific references to key people, key events, key struggles and key challenges and also ongoing successes that have forged American democratic principles of equality, freedom and individual rights.”
So, unlike the folks who created Kentucky’s social studies standards, it looks like the History Channel gets it — and so does Sen. Wise. But, will our kids ever have the chance to get it in our public schools?