HISTORY MISPLACED

Diane Ravitch, in Where Did Social Studies Go Wrong? Fordham 2003 [excerpt 2-4]

Over the past century, the teaching of chronological history was steadily displaced by social studies. And for most of the century, the social studies establishment eagerly sought to reduce the status of chronological history, in the belief that its own variegated field was somehow superior to old-fashioned history. Given the plasticity of its definition, the social studies field has readily redefined its aims to meet whatever the sociopolitical demands of the age were. As a consequence, it is now the case that all history teachers are also social studies teachers, but there are many social studies teachers who do not teach history and who have never studied history.

History, once a core subject of study in every grade beginning in elementary school, lost its pride of place over the years. When social studies was first introduced in the early years of the 20th century, history was recognized as the central study of social studies. By the 1930s, it was considered primus inter pares, the first among equals. In the latter decades of the 20th century, many social studies professionals disparaged history with open disdain, suggesting that the study of the past was a useless exercise in obsolescence that attracted antiquarians and hopeless conservatives. (In the late 1980s, a president of the National Council for the Social Studies referred derisively to history as “pastology.”)

A century ago, the study of history was considered a modern subject. In the early decades of the 20th century, most high schools in the United States offered a four-year sequence in history that included ancient history, European history, English history, and American history. Most also offered or required a course in civics. Even as the study of history appeared to be firmly anchored in the schools, history textbooks began to improve over the static models of the 19th century, which tended to plod through dull recitations of political events. Historians like Charles Beard, Edward Eggleston, and David Saville Muzzey sought to incorporate political, social, and economic events into their telling of history.

Even the elementary grades offered a rich mix of historical materials, such as biographies of famous men (and sometimes women), history tales, hero stories, myths, legends, and sagas. Teachers for the early grades often took courses to learn about myths, legends, and storytelling, knowing that this was an important feature of their work. Consequently, many—perhaps most—children arrived at the study of Greece and Rome in high school with a well-stocked vocabulary of important figures and classical myths.

Until 1913, history was history and “social studies” was virtually unknown. In that year, a committee of educationists issued a report on the reorganization of the secondary curriculum that placed history into the new field of social studies. This report, eventually published as part of the Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education, was written under the chairmanship of Thomas Jesse Jones, a prominent reformer and social worker who had taught social studies at the Hampton Institute in Virginia to African Americans and American Indians. Jones was one of the first to use the term “social studies.” He was a strong believer in useful studies, such as industrial and trade education. He was very much part of the progressive avant garde that believed that academic studies were necessary for college preparation but inappropriate for children who were not college-bound, that is, children of workers, immigrants, and nonwhites.
Leading educational theorists, like Jones and David Snedden of Teachers College, viewed education as a form of social work and thought that children should study only those subjects that would provide immediacy and utility in their future lives.

The Jones report on social studies, incorporated into the famous Cardinal Principles report of the National Education Association in 1918, suggested that the goal of social studies was good citizenship and that historical studies that did not contribute to social change had no value. This report, when it appeared and for many years afterwards, was considered the very height of modern, progressive thought. It had a devastating impact on the teaching of history and gave a strong boost to its replacement by social studies.

Since it was hard to argue that the study of ancient history, European history, or English history contributed to social change or to improving students’ readiness for a vocation, these subjects began to drop out of the curriculum. They were considered too “academic,” too removed from students’ immediate needs. They made no contribution to social efficiency. The committee in charge of reorganizing the secondary curriculum saw no value in such abstruse goals as stimulating students’ imaginations, awakening their curiosity, or developing their intellects.

It was in the spirit of social efficiency that the field of social studies was born. Some educational activists (like Thomas Jesse Jones) thought that the purpose of social studies was to teach youngsters to adapt to (and accept) their proper station in life.

Some thought that the goal of social studies was to teach them the facts that were immediately relevant to the institutions of their own society. Some preferred to teach them useful skills that would prepare them for the real world of family life, jobs, health problems, and other issues that they would confront when they left school.

This utilitarian emphasis undercut the teaching of history in the high schools.