As a result of the atlanta spa shootings and a surge in violence against Asian Americans during the pandemic, Illinois made history by becoming the first state to require Asian American history to be taught in K-12 public schools beginning in the 2022-23 school year. He Asian American Community History Equity Act (TEAACH) signed into law in July 2021 with broad bipartisan support, amending the state’s school code to ensure that all Illinois public school students learn about the contributions Asian Americans have made to the United States.
Similar mandates have required states across the country to teach the stories of Afro-American, latin american, American natives and LGBTQ+ Americans — and some states have made revisions or updates to make existing legislation stronger and more inclusive. This is critical because in addition to improving student well-being, research shows that when students feel represented at school and learn about the experiences and stories of people who are like them, academic performance and attendance increase. In fact, diverse representation and multicultural awareness benefits all students. And today’s students are demanding more and speaking.
The passage of a mandate like the TEAACH Act is certainly something to celebrate, but it is just one step toward achieving the goal of increasing representation in schools. District leaders, school administrators, and educators need sustained support to effectively and respectfully implement the changes behind a curricular mandate like this.
In Illinois, individual districts are ultimately responsible for creating an implementation plan and revising or developing the curriculum, but that’s a lot of pressure. The state was associated with Asian Americans Advocating for Justice Chicago (AAAJ Chicago), a local advocacy organization focused on promoting civil rights and racial equity, which advocated for the passage of the TEAACH Act, to support implementation. The state education agency also established a committee to advise the state on how to bring the TEAACH Act to life in schools and developed a webinar series to support the implementation of the mandate.
As an Asian American, former classroom teacher, and Illinois resident, I became involved with AAAJ Chicago to learn how I could support local schools and districts. I recently connected with Grace Pai, the organization’s executive director, and Esther Hurh, a professional development (PD) facilitator who has been providing TEAACH sessions to educators, to better understand the challenges surrounding implementation. of the TEAACH Act. They shared about the work they have done to support the first year of implementation and some lessons they have learned along the way.
Passing legislation is one thing. Making sure schools have an implementation plan is another.
The fact that a mandate has been approved does not mean that there is necessarily an implementation plan, access to training or a repository of resources, all of which are necessary to implement it with fidelity. It is not even guaranteed that district and school personnel are aware of the mandate.
A task force created to support the implementation of the TEAACH Act reached out to schools, districts, and regional offices of education to ensure they were aware of the mandate and had a plan in place. AAAJ Chicago created a two-hour workshop for educators looking at the lack of Asian American history being taught in schools across the country; where Asian Americans are concentrated in Illinois; tropes to avoid reinforcing in classrooms; and pedagogical practices to respectfully teach Asian American history.
“There’s a huge lack of understanding of Asian American history among Illinois teachers,” Hurh explains, adding, “It’s not unusual to hear many of our teachers, including Asian American teachers, say they didn’t learn anything about it. Asian American history. Let’s make them recognize that there is an absence”.
Professional development is a key part of building awareness of this gap and a knowledge base for educators who will teach students directly. As a PD facilitator, Hurh says she prioritizes modeling how to incorporate Asian American history in a way that treats the community with dignity.
After facilitating each professional development session, Hurh sends out a survey to attendees. “What breaks my heart and also fills my heart is that there are Asian American teachers writing who feel validated and seen as Asian American adults.”
Educators need high-quality, accessible resources
District leaders driving the development of implementation plans need access to resources to create or modify curriculum, and educators who teach Asian American history need materials to help them teach their students. But district leaders, administrators, and teachers have incredible demands on them, exacerbated by the pandemic, and while high-quality materials are available, they are not compiled.
To ensure educators have easy access to instructional materials, AAAJ Chicago convened a task force of Asian American educators and community leaders who compiled a database of Asian American history resources showcasing a variety of materials, from picture books to documentaries to primary sources. The working group also developed sample scope and sequences both for the basic level and for the secondary level.
A step towards inclusion is better than omission, but the risk remains
Passage of an inclusive curriculum law, such as the TEAACH Act, can go a long way for representation and inclusion in schools. But there is still a risk that the leaders charged with developing the curriculum and the teachers charged with delivering it include the story, but in a way that reinforces the tropes or focuses on the dehumanizing aspects of the stories.
“We all start somewhere. Teaching Asian American history is an important first step, even if it’s not how we want it to be,” says Pai, adding that teaching negative stereotypes has unfortunately been an ongoing problem long before the The TEAACH Act will be passed.
Hurh and Pai encourage educators to go beyond the “four F’s”—food, fashion, folklore, and festivals—by teaching Asian American history.
“A lot of the history shown in schools is dehumanizing,” Hurh explains, but it can be illuminating for teachers to know that Asian Americans were often partners and leaders in struggles, she says. For example, Larry Itliong and the Philippine Farm Union partnered with César Chávez and Dolores Huerta to demand the rights of farm workers; Patsy Mink was the first black congresswoman and cosponsored Title IX; and the Tape family took their fight for school desegregation to the California Supreme Court.
“If people are paying even a little more attention to adding an Asian American story, it’s an important starting point because it shows that teachers are striving to learn something they didn’t learn,” Pai explains. But it is a process, one that requires reflection and a growth mindset.
One of the complications of implementation and accountability arises from the fact that the TEAACH Act requires a “teaching unit” dedicated to Asian American history, which is vague and open to interpretation. Currently, the state plan is for districts to self-report if they met the mandate for the first three years and then randomly check. With self-reporting, a school district may sincerely believe it has met the requirement, for example by recognizing Lunar New Year or highlighting food from Asian countries, but that’s not enough. Therefore, it is critical to ensure that schools understand the importance of teaching these stories, care to teach them in a respectful way, and are equipped with the necessary resources to do so.
Creating Sustainability
As of May 22, 2023, AAAJ Chicago has trained more than 1,400 educators virtually and in person, and some districts have conducted their own trainings, but this only represents a small fraction of educators teaching in Illinois. “We expect the reach to spread more organically. It is a challenge. We seek to set up positive examples of districts, schools and teachers doing a great job,” says Pai.
Since AAAJ Chicago is not an education implementation organization, other institutions focused on teacher training and development will ultimately need to support the work. The state partnered with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to develop a in-depth professional development series by the TEAACH Act. Illinois also established an inclusive history commission the same year TEAACH was passed that provided recommendations on social studies instruction. This led to the establishment of the Research-Based Inclusive Social Studies for Illinois which includes a paid professional development series for teachers on “how to locate and use resources for non-dominant cultural narratives and sources of historical information.” This type of long-term investment in PD is necessary to ensure that a mandate like the TEAACH Act is implemented for the long term.
In an effort to widely share resources, a permanent home for the resource database is being sought. “These Asian American history resources should be available within a broad set of educational resources and not just on an Asian American platform,” Pai said.
After all, Hurh reminds us, “the story of Asian Americans is the story of the United States.”
