Remembering Kate Shuster

We've lost a powerful voice in history education and the teaching of hard history.

(Source: Kate Shuster’s personal website)

Yesterday I received the sad news that Catherine “Kate” Shuster passed away earlier this month. Kate was a tireless and passionate advocate for history teachers and history education.

If you teach American history at the k-12 level, there is a good chance that your work in the classroom has been impacted either directly or indirectly by Kate’s efforts.

Her main focus was on helping educators better teach the history and legacy of slavery and the broader subject of race in America. Kate did this while living in Montgomery, Alabama.

She was literally on the front lines of the the debate over how to teach the history of the United States.

And Kate was fearless.

Kate worked on a shoe string budget. She scrounged for sufficient funds to do her work, never taking her focus off the people who mattered most the to her: teachers.

She took teachers seriously.

I’m not a historian, but I do history—I’m out here trying to put the public into “public history,” and I am passionate about K-12 education in particular. I think that the stereotypes of K-12 teaching as ‘women’s work’ (and all that accompanying baggage) continue to the present day, whether we see them or not. That’s a big part of the reason that new history generated at the university level doesn’t get translated to K-12—folks see that work as ‘vocational,’ or something less than scholarship. But it’s hard to think of any practice more innovative on a daily basis than the work of a K-12 teacher. Imagine what the world would be like if we treated teachers as professionals.

In 2018, Kate published a comprehensive report on the failure of our schools to adequately teach the history of slavery. She didn’t stop there. Following the publication of the report, Kate released “Teaching Hard History: A Framework for Teaching American Slavery.”

Kate worked to make a wide range of resources available to teachers. She organized countless workshops for history teachers across the country and hosted a wonderful podcast that focused on teaching and learning history.

I know firsthand that Kate was incredibly excited about her most recent endeavor, which involved partnering teachers with local National Park Service sites.

Just as importantly, Kate believed in fostering networks for teachers and others in the field of history education, where they could exchange ideas and resources. She connected history teachers with academics, museums, historic sites and others in the field of history.

(Source: Whitman College)

I suspect this is how we first connected back in 2017.

I know this because my archive of emails from Kate dates to that year. There are hundreds of emails in my archive and they all display that same passion and grit that so many others have experienced over the years.

Most of them are little more than ‘Do you know…? or ‘Have you heard…?’ Not a few of the people that I now call colleagues and friends came as a result of Kate’s networking.

We worked together on a number of occasions.

At the height of the Civil War monument debate, Kate organized an event involving a number of groups in Alabama. I asked for a bit of advice knowing that it might not be the easiest audience for such a subject. Kate just looked at me and insisted that I ‘tell the truth.’

We didn’t always agree. Looking over my emails with Kate reveals that we sparred on occasion, but our disagreements always reflected our mutual respect for one another and a committment to the work.

I am going to miss Kate’s emails, the occasional zoom conversation, and especially the opportunity to collaborate again in the future. We’ve lost an important voice and advocate in history education, but as I reflect on her career I can’t help but feel optimistic for the future.

Kate’s passion and commitment to history education and teachers is a reminder that no amount of lobbying and legislation can stand in the way of teaching the ‘HARD’ truth of American history to our students.

Never forget this, especially when things look bleak.

On Sunday I head down to Washington, DC to spend a week working with history teachers from around the country. I am going to dedicate my work next week to Kate’s memory.

My thoughts today are with Kate’s husband and family and all the teachers that she touched over the years.

Thank you, Kate. We are going to miss you.