FALL NEWSLETTER
Dear Friends,
It is clearly game-on in the fight for the future of democracy. I'm writing to you today to share some news from the less frequently discussed (but no less critical) frontline of history teaching.
What we are seeing today, right before our very eyes and in full technicolor, is the unfolding of the catastrophic legacy of our flawed history education system.
People of all ages have had to take to the streets to demand a reckoning with the systemic racism and collective blindness caused by decades of history teaching that left out important stories and perspectives.
Our citizens' susceptibility to misinformation, fake news, and unprincipled power politics is proving that we have raised generations without a deep understanding of the importance of the truth for a functioning democracy.
Destructive forest fires and floods—clear indicators of climate change--are showcasing that we have been teaching history without considering the impact of our economic model on the planet.
The crises of 2020 are, to some extent, the side-effects of our failed system of teaching history. Changing history teaching so that we can have a better future has never felt more urgent than it does today.
We are not overstating it to say that we believe we are standing at the beginning of the most consequential effort to protect, revive, and reboot democracy since World War II.
This heightened sense of urgency afforded us at got history the opportunity to launch projects we’ve had in the works for years.
We at got history believe deeply that the solution to this crisis of history education does not lie in any one new program or curriculum. It lies in shifting the power-dynamics in the system of history delivery so that the resources and forces for learning and healing become the norm. We have done this in three different ways that give us great hope for the future:
Connecting and empowering the changemakers for better history in American communities. Our core strategy focuses on building ecosystems committed to delivering history that advances civic wellbeing. After a year of design and development, we launched our first learning ecosystem as The Learning Collaborative in Kansas City. Over 50 educators from schools and museums have joined the effort to create a new model for hands-on, inclusive history education. A team worked all summer to prepare meaningful educational experiences, and new ideas and projects are emerging every week. We are poised to spread this model—which has been described as the future of education—to four states already. Review the stories by KCUR and Getting Smart here.
Amplifying the voice of young changemakers for the future of education. Young people today are more curious, more powerful, and hungrier to create a better world than ever before. They are calling for better teaching so that they can be effective as citizens of their local and global communities.We believe they should be heard and empowered as advocates for their future. We incubated UnTextbooked, the first teen-led podcast featuring some of America's most renowned historians in conversations with diverse young people from all around the country. Please read more here about what UnTextbooked wants to achieve and subscribe here to the podcast. We are also proud to have supported the launch of a newly formed National Youth Council for Real History Education, which is launching a survey in partnership with Harvard’s Democratic Knowledge Project on youth attitudes toward history education.
Weaving collaborations with innovators. As a final strategic angle, we’ve been weaving collaborations. We believe in the practice of weaving, because it is by creating a fluid, open team of teams that systems-change occurs. We co-wrote a White Paper on the future of Assessment with High Resolves. We are members of the Weaving Lab, the global network of ecosystem builders. We have been partnering with RoundGlass Learning to develop masterclasses on the kind of history education that is needed for the future. We work closely with Composer and Explorable Places, with Reimagining Migration and others. Our most recent co-authored Op-Ed is visible here.
The election is nigh. Regardless of how it turns out, we will need to reframe history education in America so that we do not continue on the path of divisiveness and distrust that we have been on for far too long. We must tap into the power of history to bridge across differences and to inspire and inform us as we work towards a better tomorrow.
Please show your support for democracy, for America and for a vision of the future in which we have found peace after healing through the truth. Help us ensure that every young person grows up feeling a sense of identity, belonging, community, and agency. How? Share the podcast. Connect us with like-minded people. Invest in our work. Join the movement.
We know that together, with a shared commitment to unlocking the power of real history, we can make democracy better. Warmly,