Discussions about the Holocaust, genocide and eugenics may become part of the science curriculum for middle and high school students in Maine as education officials update the state’s learning standards.
A group of educators tasked with reviewing the state’s current science learning standards suggested including these issues in discussions. Maine’s education standards are routinely reviewed every five years.
The proposed revisions are also a response to state laws enacted in recent years that require Maine Native American history, African American history and the history of genocide, including the Holocaust, to be included in the state’s “learning outcomes system.”
References to the Holocaust, genocide, and eugenics were added to standards on biological evolution and heredity.
Maine Department of Education spokesman Marcus Mrowka told CNN the topics were included as “additional context and opportunities to encourage critical thinking” to meet the Legislature’s requirements.
The proposal, titled “Heredity: Inheritance and Diversity of Traits,” included in a life sciences unit for 9th grade students, suggests that teachers ask questions about the role of DNA and chromosomes in the inheritance of genetic traits and provides them with the following context: genetics is being used for eugenic purposes. “We have gained scientific knowledge in this area through unethical human experiments, such as those performed on prisoners during the Holocaust and the unauthorized use of patient cells (e.g. Henrietta Lacks – HeLa cells).”
Proposed revisions to the middle school learning standard on biological evolution stated: “Historically, some people have misused and/or applied the ideas of natural selection and artificial selection to justify the genocide of various groups, such as Albinos in Africa or Jews in Europe.”
Another life sciences-related addition to the same learning standard reads: “With regard to human evolution, remember that misinterpretation of fossil observations leads to a false idea of human hierarchies and racial inequality. The connections include that these misinterpretations led to and were used to justify genocide of indigenous peoples in Maine and around the world (Holocaust, Rwanda, etc.),” according to a copy of the proposal.
The state does not create or mandate curriculum for any content area, and local educators are responsible for developing learning materials related to curriculum and learning standards, Mrowka said.
The Maine Science Teachers Association stated that it supports the current standards and opposed science teachers sharing the recommended content with students.
“While the Maine Science Teachers Association is not philosophically opposed to expanding secondary school content in the proposed areas, we believe civics and social studies programs are better suited to offer that content,” said Tonya Prentice, president of the Maine Science Teachers Association. A statement to CNN.
“These studies should be addressed by educators who are more knowledgeable about the topics and approach them in a way that fosters a learning environment that encourages understanding, empathy, and respect for diverse perspectives,” Prentice added.
Current science, technology and engineering standards in Maine were signed into law in 2019 and are largely adapted from the Maine Department of Science’s Next Generation Science Standards, a common set of science standards for K-12 students that have been adopted by multiple states since 2013. “. He said on the Ministry of Education website:
Mrowka said the proposed revisions were made by two dozen Maine science educators who met several times this summer to review the science standards. They also worked with scholars and experts to add additional content required by the Legislature.
The recommendations were made public in October and were open for public comment until mid-November. Mrowka said the state Legislative Committee will review the proposal in January.
Many teachers from across the state submitted statements during public comment indicating they were satisfied with the current standards and asked that they be changed only because of “serious flaws.”
Once the standards are approved by the Legislature, the education department will “provide comprehensive professional learning for educators,” Mrowka said.
Alison Riley Miller, an associate professor of education at Bowdoin College who was part of the committee reviewing the science standards, said she supports including the topics as part of what every student in Maine should understand when they graduate high school. But she said she is concerned about proposed revisions to the standards.
Miller said the law says topics like the history of the genocide should be included in the state’s learning outcomes system, and education officials misinterpreted it to mean it should be included in all content areas.
“The issue is not whether LD 1664 (the law providing for the inclusion of certain historical events) should be integrated into Maine state standards, but rather where these topics should be integrated and who should teach them,” Miller told CNN. “In my experience as a teacher and teacher educator, holding everyone accountable for teaching a particular subject often results in no one teaching that subject.”
“So, where it certainly makes sense to revise Maine learning outcomes for social studies to include the history of genocide, it is a much larger effort to include genocide-related curriculum within existing science standards, especially when there is no plan or funding for genocide. It is dedicated to the professional learning that will be necessary for science teachers to feel safe teaching such a serious subject,” Miller said.
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