VUS.13 The student will apply social science skills to understand the social, political, and cultural movements and changes in the United States during the second half of the twentieth century by
- discussing the AIDS crisis and the significance of the response to it.
Rationale:
In the early 1980’s, the HIV/AIDS crisis negatively affected the United States by
bringing about discrimination upon the LGBTQ+ community. The crisis showed significance
through both the delayed and inappropriate response from the government, and the commendable response from individuals and groups who helped those who were afflicted with the disease (Tundel, 2006). The higher level government officials did not only fail to alert the public of this concerning illness that was becoming increasingly deadly, but they were quick to throw blame on the LGBTQ+ community, claiming that HIV/AIDS was a “gay-related immune deficiency”. Though research and data later showed that this claim that the creation of this disease was at the fault of the queer community was not so valid, the community was still discriminated against in many aspects. For example, individuals were diagnosed with the disease were fired from their jobs, evicted from their place of residence, denied insurance, and even turned away from hospitals (Bronski & Chevat, 2019), A Queer History of the United States for Young People). Scenarios such as these are factors to what led the support groups to speak out on behalf of those who were affected by the disease. They realized that the government was not going to provide any sufficient help, so they proved to be willing and caring enough to start organized help that treated individuals directly who have been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. As time passed, these groups evolved in the manner in which they approached supporting these diagnosed individuals and the overall cause. For example, instead of just treating people, these support groups began to educate the public on HIV/AIDS and its significance through public presentations and speeches. This allowed for further advancement in LGBTQ+ education and potential support. This is critical to be included in the curriculum for students. Events as significant as these do not deserve to be erased any longer.
Possible Activities and Examples:
An effective approach to get students to discuss and analyze the complexities of this crisis and its impact would be to propose Socratic seminar type of questions. Specific questions that the instructor could ask the students could include:
Why might have higher level officials chosen to not include such significant events in the curriculum for so many years?
What implications could have occurred if support groups did not step up and advocate with and for diagnosed HIV/AIDS individuals?
Criticisms:
Though the education of HIV/AIDS in a classroom setting is an effective method in providing information on this topic to a younger audience, the training that educators receive on how to effectively approach this topic and the time they have to teach it is a barrier to providing a successful lesson. With the limited time that most teachers have in teaching this topic, they are not able to include all of the main aspects of HIV/AIDS education, as well as not able to conduct the lesson as interactively as they would like.
Citations:
Chevat, R., & Bronski, M. (2019). A Queer History of the United States for Young People. Boston: Beacon Press.
Tundel, Nikki. (2006) How AIDS changed American culture. Retrieved from https://www.mprnews.org/story/2006/06/07/aids
VUS.14 The student will apply social science skills to understand political and social conditions in the United States during the early twenty-first century by
- assessing the development of and changes in domestic policies, with emphasis on the impact of the role the United States Supreme Court played in defining a constitutional right to privacy, affirming equal rights, and upholding the rule of law, including discussing Lawrence v. Texas and Obergefell v. Hodges and evaluating their impacts
- discussing LGBTQ+ identities in America today, including explaining the significance of “bathroom bills” regarding transgender people, describing what conversion therapy is and evaluating arguments for and against it, and assessing what legal protections LGBTQ+ people do and do not have today.
Rationale:
The LGBTQ+ rights movement reached a level of support in the 21st century far greater than any it had seen before, with groundbreaking Supreme Court cases such as Lawrence v. Texas in 2003 and Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015. Just like the Civil Rights movement for the rights and empowerment of Black Americans, the LGBTQ+ rights movement has been an important step toward equality in U.S. history and should as such be included in American students’ education. Even for students who do not support LGBTQ+ rights, it is important to examine the progress of the movement and understand how it progressed and evolved as it reached the 21st century.
As mentioned, two important legal cases during this time period were Lawrence v. Texas, the court case that ruled that laws prohibiting homosexual sexual activity are unconstitutional, and Obergefell v. Hodges, the court case that ruled that same-sex couples have the constitutional right to marriage. These cases should be examined and their impacts on U.S. society at large analyzed.
Another important topic to cover is so-called “bathroom bills”, laws that prohibit transgender individuals from using public restrooms that align with the gender they identify as. These laws, if approved, force transgender women (MTF) to use men’s restrooms, and transgender men (FTM) to use women’s restrooms. Many states and counties have tried to introduce such laws, and activist groups have sprung up everywhere trying to prevent them from being passed.
Conversion therapy is a so-called “treatment” for gay, transgender, and other queer individuals with the purpose of changing their sexuality or gender to make them straight or cisgender. Conversion therapy, whether done through a therapist, healthcare provider, or spiritual leader, has been proven to be incredibly harmful to children, teens, and adults in a number of ways. LGBTQ+ individuals who underwent conversion therapy report feeling ashamed, guilty, sinful, and/or inherently bad — and most importantly, the prevalence of depression and suicide attempts in LGBTQ+ youth (a population already especially vulnerable to mental health struggles) significantly increases with conversion therapy (https://www.glaad.org/conversiontherapy). As of 2020, 20 states, including Virginia, have voted to protect minors by prohibiting conversion therapy for individuals under the age of 18, and other states are being urged to do the same (https://www.lgbtmap.org/equality-maps/conversion_therapy).
Possible Activities and Examples:
Questions to ask about Lawrence v. Texas and Obergefell v. Hodges include:
What laws were in place before Lawrence? Before Obergefell?
Were these laws national, or different by state? What laws did
Virginia have regarding homosexual sexual activity and same-sex marriages?
Did Virginia comply with Obergefell, or did they, like some states, refuse to issue any marriage licenses at all in protest?
Questions to ask about bathroom bills include:
What are the arguments for “bathroom bills”? Against?
How would these laws be enforced? How would these laws affect transgender individuals?
Would they make it safer or less safe for transgender people to use public bathrooms? What about for non-transgender individuals?
Would nonbinary or gender-nonconforming people be affected differently by these laws?
Has Virginia proposed any “bathroom bills”? Have any been approved?
What is your opinion on making all public bathrooms gender-neutral (a compromise that has been proposed in some states)?
Questions to ask about conversion therapy include:
Why do you think conversion therapy exists, and people support it?
What are some negative consequences for youth forced to undergo it?
How would you feel if you were forced to undergo conversion therapy?
Do you support conversion therapy being allowed for children? For adults?
Questions to ask about how LGBTQ+ people are viewed and treated today include:
Are same-sex couples generally treated the same as opposite-sex couples?
What stigma surrounds being gay? Being bisexual or another sexual orientation? How are transgender people viewed and treated? What about nonbinary people?
Are binary trans people treated differently than nonbinary people?
Do all people who are part of the LGBTQ+ community have the same rights?
Which groups within the LGBTQ+ community still face more discrimination?
What legal rights to LGBTQ+ people have today? What rights are they still fighting for?
In an ideal world, how do you think LGBTQ+ people would be treated?
How does Virginia compare to other states in terms of legal support for LGBTQ+ people? Does Virginia being a “blue” state (more Democratic than Republican overall) affect the amount of support LGBTQ+ people have in Virginia?
What else might affect LGBTQ+ rights in Virginia specifically?
Review the website map at the website LGBTmap.org (https://www.lgbtmap.org/equality_maps/profile_state/VA) which has a detailed listing of legal protections Virginia does and does not offer LGBTQ+ people, and rates the state’s level of overall equal rights. Ask questions about this list such as:
What equality laws are you surprised to see Virginia has?
What about equality laws you thought Virginia would have but doesn’t?
Does the overall rating of how LGBTQ+ friendly Virginia is seem accurate?
Do you think all of these laws are equally important for a state to have, or are some more important than others?
How do you think the U.S. compares to other countries overall in terms of legal LGBTQ+ protections?
Criticism: Some people may not want to discuss these current legal issues because they feel they are not relevant for children. Actually, as students prepare to graduate grade school and enter “the real world”, an understanding of current issues such as LGBTQ+ rights is absolutely crucial. Also, many “bathroom bill” lawsuits actually originated in high schools. Others may not want to acknowledge the long history of LGBTQ+ oppression and how long it took for marriage equality to happen. Just like the Civil Rights movement and the court cases like Brown v. Board of Education, this an important part of LGBTQ+ and American history. For Americans today to claim that the U.S. is the “land of the free”, we have to understand that it wasn’t always, and show how we got to where we are today.
Citations:
Chevat, R., & Bronski, M. (2019). A Queer History of the United States for Young People. Boston: Beacon Press.
Conversion Therapy. (2018, November 08). Retrieved November 16, 2020, from https://www.glaad.org/conversiontherapy
Movement Advancement Project: State Profiles. (n.d.). Retrieved November 16, 2020, from https://www.lgbtmap.org/equality_maps/profile_state/VA
VUS.8 The student will apply social science skills to understand how the nation grew and changed from the end of Reconstruction through the early twentieth century by
- explaining the westward movement of the population in the United States, with emphasis on the role of the railroads, communication systems, admission of new states to the Union, and the impact on Native Americans.
Rationale:
Often in history the suffering and oppression of Indigenous people is portrayed in an accurate degree of accuracy or severity, leaning more towards omission of the information rather than supplementation. Neglecting these details leads to the historical notion that these tribes only existed in colonial times/Westward expansion, and do not still exist today. Consider in an article on (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/inside-new-effort-change-what-schools-teach-about-native-american-history-180973166/) over 87% of students surveyed in a study only learned about pre colonial/1900’s America in terms of indigenous cultures and the rest of history neglected to mention their presence. Despite the fact that indigenous culture was alive well into the industrial era and even today. This kind of thinking specifically does not account for the forced naturalization of Indigenous people and purposeful erasure of their cultural identity, or the near extinction of buffalo due to treatment of Indigenous Americans in general but also more reinforced efforts during Industrialization/westward expansion.
This separation of cultures is not new either; in chapter one section one of the book “A Queer History of the United States: For Young People” by Micheal Bronski and Richie Chevat, the idea of Indigenous people having differing ideas of sexuality/gender/lifestyles is mentioned as very fluid, women had lots of freedom, and gender roles were rigid but one could switch between them. This was in stark contrast to Puritan settlers who had extremely strict gender binaries and considered this acceptance “disturbing” and “sinful”. By highlighting this contrast in cultures as “wrong” or “savage” instead of normal cultural and regional differences, as some textbooks do, the cultural divide begins between the two groups.
Even this early history and treatment of indigenous people highlights the often confusion of sexuality with gender roles, in addition to the other major cultural differences. For this reason Indigenous people were not only treated with hostility, but also forced out of their own land. Furthering their loss of history is the introduction of boarding schools during America’s westward expansion which was a deliberate effort to eradicate the indigenous culture (https://www.history.com/news/how-boarding-schools-tried-to-kill-the-indian-through-assimilation. Due to the creation of the railroad, and the need for more land, indigenous people were yet again targeted by those settling in the East. Whether it be through having their own land “claimed” by the government through the Dawes Act and sold to someone else, or even the further isolation of their tribes onto small reservations, they lost even the slightest bit of freedom from Americans that they previously had after living there “for generations” (https://www.history.com/news/second-industrial-revolution-advances). Families, traditions, and even humanity was lost through the strict process of forcing indigenous cultures to conform to the American ideas of what was right and wrong.
It may seem hard to show the darker side of one of the more popular and technologically advanced parts of U.S. history but it is necessary to discuss all the consequences of industrialization no matter good or bad. By showing both the pros and the cons, it gives a realistic depiction of how progress will always have its drawbacks and sometimes intentional or unintentional effects. Teachers must take upon the responsibility to not only put history in its correct context but to also highlight how these past decisions are reflected in treatment of Indigenous culture in later time periods and today.
Possible Activities and Examples:
Activities could include:
Looking at indigenous tribes’ art and their own creations
Taking a field trip to the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC
Labeling a map to show where the tribes were instead of where the Europeans arrived and comparing those land pieces then to the reservations they are designated now, such as in this article: https://www.vox.com/2015/2/23/8090157/native-american-theft).
Hand out copies of this government grant (linked below) for land that was given to Americans seeking to travel westward despite the land being owned or lived on by Indigenous people. Then have a discussion about it in groups or as a whole class.(http://kopitanginalanggen.blogspot.com/2017/01/dawes-act-dawes-act-definition.html)
Criticisms:
Possible criticisms could be that this provides “unnecessary” information in terms of US history since this takes away from the “American viewpoint. Another criticism could be that this could be its own separate topic, but it is important to see how this ties to Westward expansion itself and not on it’s own.
Citations:
Angina, K. (n.d.). Dawes Act - Dawes Act Definition. Retrieved November 16, 2020, from http://kopitanginalanggen.blogspot.com/2017/01/dawes-act-dawes-act-definition.html
Beauchamp, Z. (2015, February 23). The US's century-long destruction of Native American land, in one animated map. Retrieved November 16, 2020, from https://www.vox.com/2015/2/23/8090157/native-american-theft
Chevat, R., & Bronski, M. (2019). A Queer History of the United States for Young People. Boston: Beacon Press.
Diamond, A. (2019, September 18). Inside a New Effort to Change What Schools Teach About Native American History. Retrieved November 16, 2020, from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/inside-new-effort-change-what-schools-teach-about-native-american-history-180973166/
Little, B. (2017, August 16). How Boarding Schools Tried to 'Kill the Indian' Through Assimilation. Retrieved November 16, 2020, from https://www.history.com/news/how-boarding-schools-tried-to-kill-the-indian-through-assimilation
Niiler, E. (2019, January 25). How the Second Industrial Revolution Changed Americans' Lives. Retrieved November 16, 2020, from https://www.history.com/news/second-industrial-revolution-advances