Given how much of society and education is changing I wonder whether the traditional history text book will be another casualty.

As someone who uses different books for AP history and other levels it is very easy to compare their coverage of different themes and topics. In recent years comparing coverage of climate change has been an especially fertile area for exploring bias and level of detail.

I may start the year asking students to create their own memoir of the previous year. As they struggle with what to include I hope they will begin to grasp the “constructed and contested" nature of all historical writing.

As I tell my students, “history is the story we tell about the past in the present.” Based on my observations there will be a much more honest reckoning with race in many schools. In fact it has been happening for years. Whether this moment endures will depend largely on the decisions made by policy makers in the future. I hope that all if us have the courage to see this reckoning through to a more just and inclusive curriculum.

Thank you for writing and sharing.