The Alaska History Standards strive to rectify this situation by helping school districts focus curriculum on the content, method, and value of history. The standards were drawn from discussions based on the work of the Bradley Commission on History in Schools and on history standards developed by the National Council for History Education and the National Council for the Social Studies. These were tailored to Alaska s needs. A student should understand that history is a record of human experiences that links the past to the present and the future. History helps us reach an understanding of ourselves and our society in relation to the human condition over time.
History is more than a memorization of people, dates, places and events.
It is a dynamic narrative which serves as dialogue between the present and the past and is relevant to the future. Alaskan students will understand the role of change in history, history s relationship to other disciplines, and how history helps us understand a person s role in society. A student should understand historical themes through factual knowledge of time, places, ideas, institutions, cultures, people, and events. Through history we come to understand the significance of what has come before. The search for historical truth explores many perspectives of the past organized around a number of persistent themes.