What’s Next, A New State Name? (Michael Dougan Commentary)

The issue of teaching Arkansas history in public schools just will not go away. Instruction began in the late 19th century and continued until after World War II. In the 1970s, as efforts began to reverse a half-century of state decline and neglect, many lay people and educators argued that one of the first requirements was for the schools to teach pupils about where they lived.

The state Department of Education was and is hostile to the idea of Arkansas history, so after an attempt to achieve this goal voluntarily failed, the Legislature in 1997 required the teaching of “a unit.” The failure to define a “unit” has become the entry wedge for dismantling the Arkansas history requirement. Hence, this spring new secretly drawn-up frameworks were announced. If allowed to remain in place, the state law will be a dead letter.

Although there are many problems with the new frameworks, the one making Arkansas history an optional high school class constitutes the mortal wound. There is no modern high school textbook and, since Arkansas history mostly has been taught in middle school, there are few high school teachers ready to teach it.

Is this topic relevant to business readers? The answer is a resounding yes. Arkansas has had a troubled history with regard to economic development, and economic development is the base upon which most everything else depends. Understanding Arkansas is a lesson that begins at the local community, reaches out to encompass the entire state and forms the basis for understanding American and global history.

Instruction works best when it starts with what is right in front of students that they easily can grasp and then build up. Just as all politics is local, all history is local. (For example, the Springdale area contains the largest concentration of Marshall Islanders outside the Islands themselves. To teach this is to teach Pacific Island geography, 20th century world history, the Cold War, radiation poisoning and immigration issues. And all out of Springdale!)

Good education has a direct bearing on economic development. Having worked with communities and businesses for more than 30 years, I have some very strong opinions about how things need to be approached.

The first rule is honesty: Communities have to confront their histories, overcome the negative legacies of the past and set agendas based on their strengths that will carry them forward. Nothing shoved under the rug stays there, as the resurfacing problems in the Delta constantly remind us.

Second, honesty is not possible without knowledge. Knowing who we are is at the heart of it all, and this is why Arkansas history, together with Arkansas geography and Arkansas politics, must stand foremost in making community pride possible. When we examine successful communities, pride is a key ingredient. But without history, there is no base for building pride. If an Arkansas history “unit” consists of teaching the state flower, the state motto or the name of the official state song, little of substance will be learned or retained.

During the 1920s, the state’s leaders talked about a wall around Arkansas. Young people, especially the educated ones we needed most, responded by fleeing the state. Many communities descended into senility and inactivity: A Rotary Club that met for the last time, city services in collapse, racial divides that worsened and, most of all, an attitude that change was impossible and even trying was bad.

Teaching Arkansas history is not the same as brainwashing; like any intellectual discipline it has to be grounded in historical reality. Our rich and colorful past, which includes one of the most controversial presidents in modern American history, must not be shoved out of the way or trivialized.

In the last 10 years, many teaching materials have been prepared. The state has had unprecedented creation of new museums. Much of this has been done with local corporate support, for strong communities mean better workers and a friendlier environment.

Every business with an eye to future growth has a vested interest in community development. The state’s press has led the way in criticizing the frameworks, but everyone has a vested interest in a better Arkansas.

At one point in Arkansas’ history, things were so bad that there was even talk of changing the state’s name. The opposition leaders rallied under the slogan, “Change the name of Arkansas? Hell, no.” It is time to rally again.

(Michael Dougan, professor of history emeritus at Arkansas State University at Jonesboro, is the author of Confederate Arkansas: The People and Policies of a Frontier State in Wartime; Arkansas Odyssey: The Saga of Arkansas from Prehistoric Times to Present; and Community Diaries: Arkansas Newspapering, 1819-2002. E-mail him at [email protected].)