The letter below is the Upper School History Department’s response to Elisabeth Siegel’s (12) piece in Winged Post Issue 4 titled “History Curricula reveal several Western biases”

Dear Editor,

The Opinion section of the most recent issue of the Winged Post, contains a column suggesting that history curricula in general but purportedly ours at the Harker School reveal significant Western bias. We feel this article, in particular the first eight lines, misrepresents the mission and ethos of the history department at Harker. Being that the aforementioned lines reflect the author’s personal academic experience, it is difficult to detach the article from Harker and claim that it is a general critique of national norms. In the history department, we truly love opinions. We spend a great deal of time encouraging Harker students to become thinkers and to develop their own opinions, but we teach them that the most effective way to develop solid arguments is through research and evidence. There appeared to be little if any fact checking before the article was published so we want to take this opportunity to set the record straight.

To some degree, everything that we do as an academic institution will have an element of western bias because we live in a western nation. Whether we like it or not, we will initially see everything through our western eyes and our experience living in the United States. We, as a department, are acutely aware of this and have worked tirelessly to offer a variety of viewpoints in the History Department that challenge our own collective western experiences.

Non-western histories begin on a more focused level in seventh grade with a focus on the Middle East and East Asia (predominantly China, Korea, and Japan). At the upper school, our World I and World II classes present a number of non-western units in our curriculum, including the Ming and Qing Dynasties as well as the Taiping Rebellion. In addition, we offer AP World History, World Religions, Modern International Affairs, and Moral Philosophy, a course that includes both Eastern and Western thought.

Interestingly, the column did introduce but failed to explore what is perhaps a more compelling and significant issue – the role of College Board in shaping national curricula and how this influences student learning at Harker. For instance, while the AP World History course includes a broad sweep of both Western and non-Western histories, the scope and pace of the class does not allow for in-depth study of any one civilization. On the other hand, sophomores who opt to take AP European History engage in deep exploration of western topics, but miss the opportunity to learn about contemporary civilizations in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. At Harker, the classes that tend to allow for the most comprehensive and in-depth study of non-Western civilizations are those that are unique to our school, and yet these classes typically have much lower enrollments than AP offerings. In fact, for several years we offered an Asian History course but it was eventually removed from the course catalog due to a lack of interest among the student population.

Had more research and fact checking been done, it would have been clear that we strive to provide many opportunities for our students to be exposed to non-western histories and philosophies. We continue to welcome open and constructive discussions with Harker students about building curricular diversity in the History and Social Science Department. For those students who genuinely care about the long term development of educational offerings for future Harker historians, our doors are open.

History and Social Science Dept.

The Harker Upper School

Feb. 1, 2016

Editor’s Note: The Winged Post makes every effort to fact-check writing that appears in our print publication and on our website. The original opinion piece, “History Curricula Reveal Western Biases,” appeared in Issue 4 of the Winged Post; it was edited and checked for accuracy by our Opinion editor, who verified the claims in the piece with the relevant textbooks. The three conflicts mentioned in the piece are all included in the World History curriculum, but the original piece critiqued the lack of depth given to these topics as compared to other Western conflicts. In addition, the Winged Post piece speaks specifically to representation bias in modern history, from 1750 to the present. The writer did not intend to specifically target the Harker School History Department. As specified in the article, these issues encompass a broader problem facing history classes across the nation.