PMJA Award Submission - Continuing Coverage: Where We Live: Connecticut's K-12 Curriculum Updates
Where We Live
Category: Continuing Coverage
- Nov. 13, 2023: 'Think like a historian': State approves new social studies standards
- Aug. 17, 2023: 'Teaching with truth and complexity': Checking in on the state's Black and Latino Studies elective
Social studies education in Connecticut public schools has been getting a major revamp over the last several years, from statutes and mandates to an overhaul of the statewide social studies standards.
It’s a process we’ve covered faithfully on Where We Live: A statute in 2021 required local Indigenous history, prompting leaders from Connecticut’s five major tribes to collaborate on a new K-12 curriculum. In 2022, the Connecticut legislature adopted a statute mandating Asian American and Pacific Islander studies, which brought together a teaching cohort across Connecticut to prepare for that rollout in 2025.
The first 25 minutes of this submission features an excerpt from our Aug. 17 “check-in” on the state’s new Black and Latino Studies elective, which was considered a “first-of-its-kind” state mandate when issued in 2020.
The state legislature combined many of these statutes and mandates in 2021, calling for a “model curriculum” that should, they wrote, include Native American studies, AAPI studies, LGBTQ studies, climate change, financial literacy, military service and veterans, civics, media literacy, the principles of social-emotional learning, and racism. It was a long list and a tall order, and prompted the Connecticut State Department of Education to gather a group of experts on all of these fronts and construct a new set of social studies standards.
The second portion of this submission, from 24:55 on, features an excerpt from our Nov. 13 interview with Connecticut educators, one month after the standards were unanimously approved.
We go behind-the-scenes into the “iterative” editing process, and hear why these standards come at a critical time: Social studies teachers are “under fire” and facing pressure to stem an increasingly polarizing and rhetorical divide. For example, we discuss how so-called hot-button terms like “intersectionality” were thoughtfully woven into these standards.
Audio Submission: