Creator of 1619 Project Thinks Parents Should Not Decide What Is Taught In Schools
From Nikole Hannah-Jones on NBC News' "Meet the Press"
On December 26, the author of the 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones said that she did not think parents should decide what is taught to their children in schools.
The 1619 Project is an attempt to reframe the history of the United States through the lens of slavery. Proponents of this project claim that the goal is to tell a complete and true history of the United States of America. However, historians with extensive knowledge of the history of the United States have found problems with this project. There are numerous issues with the claims made in the 1619 Project which are counterintuitive to the goal of providing a complete and true history of the foundation of the United States.
Despite the many critiques of the 1619 Project by a vast number of historians, the material from the 1619 project has found its way into the curriculum of schools throughout the United States. This has led to backlash from a large number of parents who do not want their children being taught misinformation and propaganda in school. Nikole Hannah-Jones makes the argument in this interview that parents should not be making decisions on what their children are taught in school. She claims that the decision on what to teach children should be left to the educators. It is worth noting that this point of view is based on the assumption that the teachers in our education system and those that create the curricula for the schools are providing thorough, accurate information that is backed up by experts in that field.
The most troublesome part of this idea presented by Hannah-Jones is that parents are not supposed to be the ones who decide what is best for their children. She even makes the statement, “But school is not about simply confirming our world view. Schools should teach us to question. They should teach us how to think, not what to think.” This is a very effective format for education. Students can become more capable of thinking for themselves if they are taught how to think. However, this claim goes against the whole spirit of the 1619 Project. The curriculum from the 1619 Project is more akin to propaganda than it is to teaching students how to think for themselves.
The best way to teach students to think for themselves is to present them with all the facts and see what conclusion they come to. It helps to let the students ask questions and form opinions based on all of the information available. Students are hindered from learning when they are provided with limited information, misinformation, disinformation, and half-truths. The 1619 Project is not conducive to the learning model that Hannah-Jones claims to support. The 1619 Project leaves out a great deal of information when it comes to the history of the United States. It also teaches history from a very narrow viewpoint. It only frames information about the history of the United States in a way that supports the ideology of its founders.
Whenever the 1619 Project faces any sort of scrutiny or criticism, the first response from its proponents is that the critics of the project are racist. The proponents of the 1619 Project argue that its critics do not want the history of slavery to be taught to their children because they do not want them to feel guilty or ashamed. However, this is not the argument that is being given by most of the critics of the 1619 Project. The critics of the project are upset with the curriculum because it leaves out core pieces of information to the American story. Critics of the 1619 project are not asking for the entire history of slavery and racial injustices to be removed from the history books. They are looking for a curriculum that teaches their children the entire story.
You can watch the full interview below.