DC Public Schools Will Teach LGBTQ History in Social Studies Classes - Metro Weekly
The new standards will also stress the importance of learning about the histories of heretofore underrepresented minority groups, such as Asian Americans and indigenous people, and their impact on national and D.C. history.
“We should not only be preparing our students to understand who they are within our own contexts, but also how to understand people who behave differently and experience the world differently,”Chang told Metro Weekly.
The new social studies standards have been endorsed by the National Council for the Social Studies and “professors from various institutions, including Howard University, the University of Maryland, and New York University,” according to DCist.
“We’re getting a lot of positive reinforcement around changes that are more reflective of who our communities are actually made of and the responsibility of our systems to make sure that we’re preparing all students to learn how to navigate both diversity locally and internationally,” Chang said.
He gave the example of a 10th grade social studies teacher coming to a forum and “giving very, very specific feedback on a very, very specific line of how she thinks [the standards] should be in different ways so that she can incorporate it better for her classroom.”
