As the kerfuffle surrounding Oklahoma’s sudden desire to de-thinkerize APUSH started making headlines this past week, NPR made a visit to the classroom of Christine Custred of Edmond, OK. The audio and transcript of the resulting piece is worth a listen and a read if you haven’t already done so.
One of the central issues, of course, is the belief by some on the right that the new APUSH course outline doesn’t sufficiently emphasize American Exceptionalism – the belief we are unique and awesome in ways others can only long for. Everyone wants to either be us or blow us up – either way, must be because we’re awesome.
Custred managed one of my favorite understated rebuffs of this century when she slid in this bit:
In most places in the world, you’ll be hauled off by some kind of Gestapo if you criticize the country and/or government, and that is exceptional that we can do that.
A few days later, still apparently fuming over state efforts to make our kids LESS prepared to function outside the Dollar General or local feed store, she posted this to her Facebook page. It is reprinted with permission here.
TOP TEN REASONS AMERICA IS EXCEPTIONAL
1. Separation of church and state. Our Founding Fathers ensured this for us. A cursory knowledge of history and current world governments (and the Puritans) enlightens us to why this us so very important.
2. The Zenger trial led the way for the 1st amendment which allows Americans to safely criticize their government.
3. As a result of our free speech, history teachers can teach all of American History (the good, the bad, and the ugly). Try doing that in North Korea. Wait, don’t.
4. America educates all of its citizens. Simply AMAZING.
5. America has a very sad and tragic history with regard to civil rights and the mistreatment of ethnic and racial minorities. But because of our 1st amendment (again, thank you Founding Fathers) demonstrations and criticism led to significant changes. We still have gains to make on this front but we now have an African American president. Really think about that.
6. Students in America will learn about that sad and tragic history.
7. There is a shop that sells cupcakes across the street from my school. They haven’t gone out of business. It seems crazy that someone would pay $4.00 for a cupcake. You go free market and the American Dream.
8. Anthropologie
9. My daughters can go to school without fear of being shot in the face. They can achieve and aim for things that would never have been available to them 100 years ago or currently in many countries of the world. The same goes for your daughters.
10. An average girl from the great state of Minnesota, who was told by her high school counselor that a community college was her only option (remember that Thomas Legierski and Marie Legierski?) can become an advocate for education.
Feel free to share your lists as well, if you prefer. Personally, I’m having a hard time topping this one.
The short version is that the College Board decided a few years ago to move away from a ‘Know Way Way Lots of Stuff and be Able to Apply that Knowledge Effectively’ model to a ‘Know Lots of Stuff and Learn to Think About it from Different Perspectives AND Apply that Knowledge Effectively’ model in APUSH. They wanted to give AP teachers and students the opportunity to ‘go deep’ and practice analytical thinking without being limited by the overarching need to memorize every fact ever. 
History teachers deal with this all the time, at every level. One of the science teachers in my building REVELS in asking his kids where Geronimo is buried, or about the Pioneer Woman statue, or Reba McEntire, or that one time in 1973 the governor did that one crazy thing. They have no idea, and he accosts me a few times a week about what we’re teaching in Oklahoma History if we’re not including Geronimo & Co. 
And you already know how to read books and watch TV. What if you had to be helped to read or watch each one meaningfully along the way? It might take a while. Some might not get covered. Hopefully, however, you’d end up with the tools and background knowledge to eventually watch or read most anything without my still being there explaining as we go. You may even choose different books and shows to watch, or interpret them in ways other than I do. 
There’s a kerfuffle going on in Texas (again) and Colorado (huh?) regarding the level of flag-waving patriotism in history textbooks and curriculums, including APUSH. The short version is this:
The Modern Liberal Academics are upset that these flag-waving right-wing extremists want to whitewash American history to feed their predetermined paradigm of American Exceptionalism. There’s something Orwellian (or at least Valdimir Putinian) about euphemizing (or simply ignoring) travesties like slavery, genocide, and Woodrow Wilson. The Academics would like more emphasis on effective questioning and understanding multiple points of view. American schools should be shaping good world citizens ready to confront things of which we cannot yet conceive, not drones painted red, white, and blue.
This is about choosing 
I liked Aquaman.
Why can we not allow Thomas Jefferson the same intellectual and moral complexity we accept in Mystique? Why accommodate a Batman who does dark twisted things so soccer moms feel safe but insist on ‘hero’ or ‘villain’ labels for Andrew Jackson or Malcolm X? Can we not accept that real people – who lived monumental lives and did big stuff – might be at least as unpredictable as Magneto or Malcolm Reynolds?
In the same way that the people around you are so much more meaningful, useful, interesting, when they allow you to see something beyond the façade… in the same way heroes are far more heroic when you know what a mess they are, but they keep trying to do the right thing anyway… our history, our icons, our story resonates far more – not less – when we do our best to lay it all out there as whatever it is.