Montgomery County is known for its diversity and home to one of the largest varieties of classes and general education. Although there are a range of options for all students, classes in the history curriculum have been limited in the past. Courses such as Anthropology, American History, European History and more have always been available in schools but did not seem to reflect the diverse students in the county.
In the past couple of years, MCPS has slowly started to introduce classes like Latin-American History, LGBTQ+ Studies and Asian-American History to acknowledge the pasts and present of marginalized groups. Although the introduction to these new courses is the first step toward better inclusion, teachers are not necessarily always the right fit for teaching these courses and there are still many minority groups yet to be represented.
Introducing the new history classes into our district’s curriculum has allowed for more LGBTQ+ students and protest against the status quo while furthering knowledge behind topics such as feminism. Though these informative courses are offered at Richard Montgomery, Bethesda Chevy-Chase and Montgomery Blair, many schools are still lacking behind like Albert Einstein.
According to The Guardian, teachers are commonly hired or assigned classes they are not trained or qualified to teach. It is essential that a teacher’s personal views or unconscious biases do not hinder classes like LGBTQ+ studies otherwise there would be no benefit or advocacy for these students. Not to mention, an unqualified teacher could make students uncomfortable, cause them to second guess their opinions and knowledge or be misinformed.
A writer from the Washington Post states that her history curriculum and textbooks make women appear inferior or omitted. There is no expanded knowledge on women and their history and any information pertaining to women or their relevance are often associated with men rather than focusing on the women. BCC junior Mark Polin said, “I have noticed that history classes are very biased, making it seem like countries other than America are irrational in their decision making.” When students dispute their teachers on certain facts or question them, teachers often overturn or avoid answering.
Although the advocacy for these students and classes is an amazing improvement for our county, there are too many flaws in the system for it to be a true benefit. Teachers are not qualified to be teaching their classes, students’ voices are silenced, and the students considered different are not being advocated for, but instead objectified.
Article by Madeline Leff of Bethesda Chevy-Chase High School
Photo courtesy of Unsplash