LITTLE ROCK — A lingering dispute over the teaching of Arkansas history has spilled over from academia to the halls of the state Capitol.
The Task Force on Arkansas History, created by legislation earlier this year, held its first meeting at the Capitol and set out its goals for the next year. They include improvements in teacher training in Arkansas history, as well as making modern texts and materials available for students at all age levels.
For the past couple of years, historians and educators have been at odds over how much emphasis to give the teaching of Arkansas history in public schools.
Historians have been outspoken in their concern that Arkansas history is not emphasized enough. To support their case they cite Act 787 of 1997, which requires schools to offer a unit of Arkansas history as a social studies subject in each elementary grade, with stronger emphasis in the fourth and fifth grades. Act 787 also requires schools to offer a full semester of Arkansas history between seventh and 12th grades.
Their concerns bubbled to the surface two years ago, when the state Board of Education adopted new guidelines for teaching social studies in elementary school. At the same time the Board required schools to offer world history in seventh and eighth grades, which had become the traditional years for students to take Arkansas history.
The historians went to the governor and held press conferences to voice concerns that Arkansas history would be squeezed out of the curriculum, which most people agree is packed to the rafters with required subjects.
Educators responded that their new guidelines, or frameworks, would allow elementary teachers to incorporate Arkansas history into a broader study of world affairs. An example is from the fifth grade Social Studies curriculum, in which students learn about the westward movement and migration across the American frontier. They also learn about the peoples who migrated into and out of Arkansas, and their reasons.
The Education Department has asked the state’s leading historians to help devise lesson plans in Arkansas history. Last year the department and the Arkansas History Coalition jointly worked on a project to gather lesson plans from experts, and those whose work got accepted received $200 and recognition.
The newly created Task Force on Arkansas History has members representing the history coalition, public school parents, school administrators, Social Studies teachers, AETN, the Arkansas Historical Association, the state Historian and two state agencies - the Heritage Departments and the Parks and Tourism Department.
The Senate chairman of the Task Force said that some schools do well in teaching Arkansas history and some do poorly. The Task Force will help those that do poorly, she said, for example, by making sure proper materials and lesson plans are available.
Alzheimer’s Awareness
More than 1,200 Arkansan died of Alzheimer’s Disease in 2006, almost double the number in 2000 who died of the same cause. Since 2000 about half the people who die of Alzheimer’s lived out their final days in a nursing home; 23 percent were in a hospital and 20 percent were at home.
November is Alzheimer’s Awareness Month. It is now the leading cause of dementia in the United States
If you have any questions or comments about legislative issues, please contact me at HendrenK @ arkleg.state.ar.us or call me at 479-787-6500, extension 30.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Thank you so much for your Nov. 11 editorial entitled, "Stop the world; I want to get off!"
It is only through God’s intervention that our society will return to the values of our past. Many today don’t even know what we have lost. Your mention of the prevalent value system of today - “right is wrong and wrong is OK” - reminds me of Proverbs 17:15: “He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just,even they both are abomination to the Lord.” - KJV
Let’s move forward “speaking the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15), not afraid to say that right is right and wrong is wrong. Even more importantly, let’s practice what is right and refrain from what is wrong, because actions speak louder than words.
Thanks so much.
Dan Merkley, Pastor Gentry Church of God (Holiness)
Opinion, Pages 5 on 12/02/2009