Educators work to make history more inclusive
By Jennifer Modenessi, Bay Area News Group
ORINDA — When Miramonte High School social studies teacher Elizabeth Aracic teaches Civil War history, she makes a point of giving her students a wide-angle look at the country’s deadliest war.
Answering legislation that seeks to make history more inclusive, Aracic explains to high school juniors that it wasn’t just men on the battlefield. Women dressed in men’s clothing and fought too, with some continuing to live as men long after the fighting was over.
The lesson and others being crafted and taught across Bay Area public schools are in direct response to the FAIR Education Act, which requires California public schools to provide fair, accurate, inclusive and respectful representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities in K-12 history and social studies curriculums. Studying the contributions of people with disabilities is also part of the mandate.
But progress in implementing the law has been uneven since it took effect nearly four years ago.
Stories like this sure make the case for home schooling quite compelling.