TEACHING OF WORLD HISTORY

WHEREAS, many states and localities have been requiring the teaching of more and more state and local history; and

WHEREAS, many other vested interests have also been able to influence local school boards or curriculum councils to inject special subjects of particular interest to themselves into an already crowded social studies curriculum; and

WHEREAS, in most communities these curriculum injections result in the deletion or reduction of established courses such as world history; and

WHEREAS, the tendency to squeeze world history out of the social studies curriculum is particularly harmful since world history provides a frame of reference for the intelligible understanding of the rest of the social studies; and

WHEREAS, world history provides the factual basis and survey course making various national and local histories more understandable by placing them in the proper perspective of time and place and

WHEREAS, world history is essential in these times of mounting tensions between nations, races and ideologies in order to promote understanding and appreciation of other nations and groups; and

WHEREAS, the contraction of the world due to improved communication, transportation, space technology and atomic contamination make local problems of immediate world-wide consequence and therefore the global approach to man and his problems the only realistic attitude:

RESOLVED, that the American Federation of Teachers urges the affiliated state federations and locals to sponsor and support legislation in their respective states and areas requiring that all students be given at least one year of world history in secondary schools.