History and Civics education matters |

Studying, writing, and arithmetic matter. So does historical past, geography, and civics. With little fanfare final week, Louisiana’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Training (BESE), unanimously accepted new Ok-12 schooling requirements in historical past, geography, economics, and civics. Dr. Cade Brumley, Louisiana State Superintendent of Training, notes these requirements train our kids to “perceive their obligation as residents to safeguard America’s founding ideas”.

In creating these requirements, BESE and the Louisiana Division of Training (La DOE) adopted a means of intense civic involvement. Over the previous yr, they listened to over 2,000 public feedback and concerned many individuals within the work of analysis and writing groups. By the definition of the La DOE, these requirements present “a freedom framework for kids to study how Individuals have all the time strived for liberty”.

Our leaders in Louisiana have put the story of America in context for our kids. They’ve taken a proactive method to the issues of many mother and father about vital race concept and different curriculum issues in our colleges.  La DOE and BESE acknowledge vital race concept as a self-discipline of division – one which promotes judging folks solely by race relatively than by particular person character, conduct, and benefit.

We owe a debt of gratitude to BESE and the LA DOE for tackling a controversial subject in a proactive method.  As a substitute of specializing in legislating what can and may’t be mentioned a few subject within the classroom, this constructive method to educating historical past and civics places give attention to a freedom framework.  This work ought to be a benchmark for different states going through the identical citizen issues about curriculum.

The story of America might be communicated to this technology in Louisiana based mostly on the precept of pursuit of freedom. As a substitute of evaluating competing schooling theories, requirements have been constructed on the theme of Individuals drawn collectively in searching for “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Our youngsters will be taught concerning the final 250 years of constructing, sustaining, and bettering a free society. Our youngsters will study each our achievements and our flaws. They’ll perceive America’s position as an distinctive nation and as a rustic that seeks to be taught from her errors.

Freedom is rarely a couple of technology away from extinction. From the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary Struggle to the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil Struggle to the Civil Rights Act and World Struggle II, the American journey of freedom has been one in all battle and sacrifice. A whole bunch of hundreds of Individuals have given their lives for these concepts.  The generations earlier than have preserved it for us at an enormous value and it’s now our time to do the identical for our kids.

In America, affordable folks might differ; open discourse is welcome; dissent is allowed; and equal alternative is sought. In America, energy resides within the free particular person; the free train of faith is upheld; and our rights emanate from God. That is the America I need to proceed for my kids and grandchildren. It’s why this “freedom framework” we use to show our kids is so essential to me. I imagine the way forward for our nation will depend on it.

Dr. Phillip Rozeman is the founding father of Alliance for Training and Training’s Subsequent Horizon and has been honored by CABL, United Method, and Louisiana State Medical Society with their annual Distinguished Service Awards.