Although Wisconsin — like most states in America — must implement the histories of marginalized communities in their school curricula, the effects of this education still show wide gaps in quality.
A few Jefferson County middle school students were asked: What do they understand about slavery?
“Rich white people would use slaves because they were poor to go on their land and pretty much do chores. After a year was up, the rich people would have to give them the money that they earned,” they said.
The students had also never heard of the slave trade.
The students said Christopher Columbus discovered America, and added since Europeans had a lot of land east of the Mississippi and Native Americans to the west of it, the two groups ended up “[fighting] a lot.”
Although it is required in Wisconsin schools to educate about slavery, Indigenous tribes and the Holocaust, many scholars, including Heather Moody, professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin, believe there are gaps in their history lessons.
“There is so much focus on math and science that there is a lack of education in the people who look different from white. Just because we don’t have minorities in the classroom doesn’t mean the history should be overlooked,” Moody said.
A lack of knowledge of surrounding Indigenous history, slavery and the Holocaust can affect how students understand different experiences, and recent studies show ignorance of these issues is increasing.
Twenty-two percent of millennials said they had never heard of the Holocaust — double the percentage of American adults. Additionally, two-thirds of American millennials surveyed in 2018 could not identify the historical significance of Auschwitz.
The higher number of middle and high school students who have no knowledge of these types of atrocities give worry to Jewish leaders and some believe it has led to a more dangerous learning environment.
Shay Pilnik, executive director of the Nathan and Esther Pelz Holocaust Education Resource Center, said he sees a strong correlation between the spread of intolerance and rise in hate crimes.
The Milwaukee Jewish Federation reported a 329 percent increase in anti-Semitic occurences in Wisconsin since 2015 — more than 25 percent of the recorded incidents took place among students.
Moody believes teachers should ensure students understand studying the histories of underrepresented communities is important for the present and future.
“Teachers often discuss minority issues like it’s the past, or like we don’t exist today. I’ve gotten many strange questions as an American Indian, like, ‘What do I live in?’ or ‘Do I have a stove?’ Nobody has clarified that the past is not today, and what we face in today's age. That’s an emphasis that needs to be made — connecting that we are still here,” Moody said.
On Feb. 18, the Wisconsin State Assembly passed a bill requiring instruction on the Holocaust and other genocides once in grades five through eight and again in grades nine through 12 by public schools, independent schools and private schools participating in a parental choice program.
The Wisconsin Jewish Community — made up of the Nathan and Esther Pelz Holocaust Education Resource Center, Wisconsin Jewish Conference and Milwaukee Jewish Federation — applauded the Assembly for their bipartisan support of the bill, and hope it will increase awareness of underrepresented issues.
“Together, we can remember and learn from the horrors of history to make certain they will never be repeated,” they said.
Heather Moody also applauded this bill, but said there must be specific action for each education regulations of marginalized populations. Furthermore, she said there is an inconsistency within school districts of how much information is covered — ranging from one day per week to a full week of lessons.
For Moody, the bills must be more specific and clear.
American Indian Education of Indigenous history, culture, values, rights and tribal sovereignty have been required in Wisconsin since 1989’s Act 31, but Moody said sometimes these lessons have become “a box to check off” for teachers and their lessons have not been as in-depth.
“The intention is there, but without really thinking about if the education is consistent across Wisconsin schools,” Moody said.
Moody herself discovered her daughter’s school textbooks are lacking in important Indigenous terms, such as ‘tribal sovereignty,’ that is supposed to be covered under Act 31 — something which frustrated Moody.
“How do you write American history without addressing American Indians? Without talking about tribal sovereignty and treaty rights? It’s 2020 and just not there,” she said.
UW-Madison student Connor Jones spoke up about finding resources on his own despite difficulty associating himself with his indigenous heritage in a public school.
“Almost all of the information I learned was because of my own interest and outside sources, not from something I learned within a curriculum. It would have been nice to get a deeper education about my own history,” Jones said.
Jones learned about the website Wisconsin First Nations during his time in high school and used it to learn more about his Indigenous heritage. Other online resources for missing information about slavery, the Holocaust and American Indian heritage and culture are there for aspiring teachers and students to help fill in gaps schools don’t currently provide.
Moody stressed the need to connect reasons why these histories are important to students across the state, so they care about the issues.
“We have to make it personal to students,” Moody said, “They have to be connected in order to care.”
