"Soul and race are private dominions." - Michael S. Harper, "A Love Supreme"
I few yawns ago in history, the world was flat. A couple blinks ago, teaching the accomplishments and contributions of non-whites and women to American history, culture, and science was a novel idea. The world is not flat-- everyone knows it-- we have satelites orbiting our lop-sided Big Blue Marble proving that. Non-black children gleefully make their elders uncomfortable "spitting" n-word laden lyrics with their earbuds planted in their ears, trying to match the meter, rhythm, and passion of the mc on their ipods and mp3 players. Affirmative action is under serious scrutiny by the US Supreme Court this year, and I even have adults asking my why there isn't a national white history month, or why can't we take elective courses in white history.
Memo to my educational peers: we have lost our way. I integrated suburban schools in the 1970s, colleges in the 1980s and am still integrating as an established teacher. I didn't like being singled out, however benevolently and affectionately, by revered and trusted teachers when they pointed out all the things I was first at, by virtue of the color of my skin. I resented being pressured into joining the Black Student Union in college (there were less than 20 blacks on a campus with just shy of 1800 students). I was extremely uncomfortable with being drafted to head up the African American Club in my first teaching gig. -- not only was I pressured into accepting a leadership role with the club, but I also had to submit to monthly 7am meetings with the district African American Parents Network to report my actions, future and past, with the group: welcome to first year teaching, fun.
All of these experiences have led me to a practice that I don't think is that radical. I don't explicitly teach an African American History month unit or even a lesson. Rather, I consciously select every variety of vegetable availabe to thow in my salad bowl of curricular reading materials: white, black, Latino, indigenous peoples, Asian, males, females, etc.. Discussions of race only come up when the subject matter leads us there. For example, when we read an excerpt from Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the events were about segregation, prejudice, respect, and pride. We connected back to SE Hinton's That Was Then, This Is Now and the civil rights video we viewed to supplement the civil rights era race conflict in the story.
I was a student when the only black writer we heard about was Dr. King. I also remember that the library had books about others-- I retreated to the library often and read everything the school had about people who looked like me-- their accomplishments, their writings, their stories, their dreams. I also read everything the library had about vampires, bowling, ghosts, vulcanoes, and monster movies. I try to remember not to be myopic when I teach, because students have multiple interests and passions. I also try to remember it's not the 1970s and that my current 8th graders were born between 1997 and 1999. They not only don't understand the 20th century, they don't remember it.
However, I am not ready to say it is time to retire "the months" -- Black History Month, Women's History Month. Why? Not everyone is committed to, or adept at, making their curricular materials inclusive of the human condition. On the other hand, when people are genuinely asking me why there is no White History Month, it becomes clear that in the zeal towards inclusivity, we have alienated others to the point that they don't notice the reason for the inclusion in the first place. How many national holidays have been enacted to honor the accomplishments and contributions of an American woman, a Native American, Latino? Do you know who Lewis Lattimer was, or why he comes to mind as I sit in an artificially lit room blogging to you?
History has its name for a reason: "his" + "story." Some history educators point out that history is written by those who won, won the war, won the credit... Besides Madame Curie, see if you can rattle off 7 women who profoundly impacted the world we live in today. Besides George Washington Carver, Malcom X, and Martin Luther King, can you list 5 African Americans that you learned about in school? Besides Chief Joseph and Chief Crazy Horse, can you list 5 Native Americans that you learned about in school before college? Who was Cesar Chavez and what impact did he have upon US Labor policy? What did the Coolie Act have to do with fair labor practices in the West and why were the Irish immigrants of the 19th century threatened by Chinese immigrants? Until our students know the story of our nation and can rattle off answers with the same speed that they can tell about the Mayflower, Continental Congress, and The Revolutionary War, we are probably still going to need to teach a segregated history that is out of context and anachronistic.
Along the way, let's not turn students off.
