Into the Driver's Seat

Social studies classrooms throughout the Boston public school system are getting an upgrade some 448 years in the making.

Even the most accomplished American high school student can graduate knowing more about criminal justice in Puritan New England than about the actual injustices going on every day in the United States. Students can learn every step of the process of photosynthesis and yet have never heard of the Kyoto Accords. They can know how nuclear fission works, and yet they don’t know which countries have nuclear weapons and don’t understand the (perverse) logic of mutually assured destruction. They know the Five Pillars of Islam but don’t know what modern-day country Mecca is in.

Students need to know human geography; they need to understand the relationships that exist between cultures.