TESTIMONY OF DAVID A. COWELL, THE ADVOCATES FOR NEW JERSEY HISTORY TO
THE NEW JERSEY STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION, JUNE 17,2009
Dear President Josephine E. Hernandez and Board Members,
I am Dr. David A. Cowell speaking on behalf of the history community and the members of the
Advocates for New Jersey History, a league of over twenty three sponsoring statewide history
organizations and agencies and private members joining together to educate about New Jersey history
and to seek statewide support for public history.
Members of the Advocates and their organizations have been working with the staff of the Board of
Education to help draft reasonable and responsible core curriculum content standards for the social
studies and we have followed the proceedings with care. We recognize that our state law and the
Department of Education require that New Jersey history be taught in the fourth grade and again for
two years in the high schools. And we agree with the 1997 Task Force on New Jersey History finding
that" the state's interest in encouraging school based literacy in New Jersey history has been and
continues to be dangerously imperiled, primarily due to the lack of a coherent approach to New Jersey
history education in the classroom and the shallow training of history and social studies teachers who
shoulder this responsibility. . . (and) despite the efforts of an array of interests to promote education in
New Jersey history, the field is largely untaught and unknown."
That this situation is still true is a disgrace; it mocks the law and the clear legislative intent; it frustrates
all the efforts to enhance public education about the state's many historic sites and structures; it retards
the growth of the heritage and cultural tourism industry in the state; and belittles the efforts that led the
United States Congress to declare New Jersey the Crossroads of the American Revolution. I serve now
of the Governor's Task Force on Heritage Tourism; families and children in every other of our
surrounding competitive states visit their own sites as a normal, valued and valuable participation in
their culture and economy. We should too.
When the teaching and learning of mathematics and the sciences were found to be wanting, core
curriculum content standards were devised and have been continued. They are many and specific and
they have been successfully incorporated into the curriculum statewide. Further, text book publishers
have adapted their texts to reflect the standards making curriculum integration of the materials easier
for both teachers and students.
Similarly, we are strongly committed to revising the core curriculum content standards in social studies
and history to include separate and distinct standards for history and New Jersey history. Further. we
believe that critical thinking skills should be taught to enable our students to fit into a more complex and
faster changing world and that the teaching of history, with its multi-causal approaches, its tradition of
careful reconstruction of fact and context, and longitudinal scope, is the ideal and accessible means to
achieve that goal. I, myself, as a social scientist, a political scientist teaching at Drew University, cannot
conceive a social science that does not include those skills or is itself not concerned with time frame and
context as integral components of the social sciences.
. ...
We are aware the social studies and New Jersey history curriculum content standards are being revised
after having participated in a process since 2002 that had defined an acceptable. comprehensive and
integrated series of content, measures, and indicators. We understand that the process now underway in
pan to the reaction to the proposed changed standards is continuing to minimize and dilute the
specifically New Jersey and history
components and that little regard is being paid to honoring the
,
-
legislative mandate.
We believe the amount of content in the original proposed revisions is adequate and the specific topics
are a core that citizens need in order to understand their their political and social environment, make
sense out of the policies affecting their physical environment, and ultimately, to contribute to the
public good.
Certainly New Jersey history can be learned by teachers and there are many agencies such as the
Historical Commission, the Historic Trust, the Archives and Libraries as well as the historic sites,
museums, even celebrations and re-enactments, and over 566 local and county historical societies and
county cultural and heritage commissions that can provide resources, places for field trips, educational
and research support and training. There are universities throughout the state now capable of offering
course work in New Jersey history, and are now doing so, special programs in historic preservation and
planning, and specialized courses offered by state agencies in the public history sector.
We most sincerely believe that if there are special core curriculum content standards in New Jersey
history there will appear text books appropriate for the high schools and teacher lesson plans just as
they appeared for the fourth grade such as John Cunningham's widely used text. Good standards will
create the market for both the teachers' education and the text books.
In writing and publishing in the field of human rights and peace studies in Northern Ireland I have
given much thought and writing to the teaching of the Irish famine, events set in time, but crucially
relevant for understanding the contemporary politics and policy activities of the British, Irish,
American and world governments dealing with minority rights and peace building. Until teaching about
the Irish famine was included and required for public education, nothing was said about policy
responses to large, complex social problems, about theories of economic growth and recovery, or about
engineering peace and human rights, or even about Ireland in public education. Today almost every
state is teaching those subjects and texts are appearing, as well as film, teaching aids, web sites, and all
matters of materials. The same will be true for New Jersey history.
We certainly welcome the fullest public discussion of the appropriate content standards and we will do
all our best to support specific, strong, and distinctive standards for teaching New Jersey history. States
that have rigorous standards for history and state history, such as Massachusetts, also have the highest
levels or success in standardized tests such as the Advanced Placements.
Finally, consider this simple point. There was no discussion of conserving and preserving our built
environment in our teaching of environmental studies in New Jersey until the history community began
to propose that subject matter eight years ago. The teaching of history and New Jersey history opens the
mind and equips it to grasp the whole sweep of our human experience and that surely is reason enough
to include those specific standards and require their teaching and learning.
Thank you for your consideration,
Dr. David A. Cowell, The Advocates for New Jersey History
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