SALT LAKE CITY — Years of work ended today with a decision by the Utah State Board of Education, to update what will be taught in elementary classrooms.
Meadowlark Elementary sixth-grade teacher and 2021 Teacher of The Year John Arthur says the work it took to finally reach this decision was arduous.
“We started this at the beginning of the pandemic, and here we are and it just ended," he said. "I’m in shock – I have no idea how to feel right now,”
19 teachers, including Arthur, were involved in the process of updating the social studies teaching guidelines in elementary school classrooms.
“This is some of the most important work I’m ever going to do in my career,” said Arthur. “This is going to guide the education of my own daughters as they go on through elementary school.”
The board deliberated, made some changes finally and approved these new standards Thursday morning. They are an overview of what students are expected to learn in a year in that subject. K-4 grade standards were passed a couple of weeks ago, but fifth-grade and sixth-grade standards were approved on Thursday, concluding the process.
“The old social studies standards were too long,” explained Arthur. “For example, there were 60-something odd objectives in sixth grade, now there’s 29 or 30.”
Arthur adds that the new guidelines have a larger emphasis on diversity than before.
“One of the biggest changes in these new standards is more of our kids in our schools are going to be able to see themselves reflected in these standards – students from minority communities, immigrants, refugees, students with disabilities, LGBTQ+.”
It was a process that involved many voices at every stage.
“We’ve had more public comment on this standard than we’ve had on any of our standards in the past and it was a herculean task for the writing committee to go through all those, board members as well,” said Scott Hansen, board member of the Utah State Board of Education.
But there’s still work to be done.
“is it perfect? I don’t think so. There is always room for improvement," he said. "But we’ll keep improving as we go forward and we have a good process to do that, to include many people."
Arthur said he hopes there’s more attention now to the importance of what is taught in social studies classes.
“I hope that with the new standards, there’s a renewed commitment to actually teaching our kids the things that they need to know about the story of us,” he said.
The standards are expected to officially be published in the coming weeks, with the board working on developing a model curriculum based on these guidelines for Utah classrooms.
