From what I have experienced, Teachers are becoming more aware of these perspectives. Numerous courses revolving around cultural diversity, and cultural communication competence have been added to our college repertoire. This makes it evident that the leaders of our education, the people who decide what teachers need to learn to be successful, know that certain students have remained marginalized by oppressive systems and it has to be changed. However, if we walk into a modern classroom we will see that many of the outdated lessons we were force fed growing up are still being passed down to the present generation. As of 2018, under eight percent of high school students were still unaware that Slavery was the main cause of the Civil War. Another example is a video that went viral over the past thanksgiving holiday, where an elementary school was still enacting out the false and culturally insensitive story about pilgrims arriving on the mayflower and sharing a peaceful dinner with the Indigenous people.
The stories that paint the white guys in a better light are the ones that are still being shared, because it is how the curriculum is written. Any attempts by educators to change it have been thwarted. Governor Greg Abbott has made motions to ban the teaching of critical race theory in Texas. The same has happened across various states in the nation, particularly in the southern states. We know whose stories remain in the margins. They have been screaming at us for the past decade to pay attention! The real question is how do we find ways to incorporate their history with all of these obstacles in the way? This shows why it is important for us as teachers to be politically involved. We need to turn to the people who have created these obstacles, the curriculum writers themselves, and demand a change.
Hi Tori!
ReplyDeleteI do think that as educators we are aware of what is happening in the world with history as well as politics so that we can teach our students correctly. your statement of how the stories of how the white guys are always in the better light then others that have done better or even are just equal to that person could not be more right. It is something that I have learned a lot more the older that I have gotten and the more it comes to light. As future educators it is our duty to help these kids learn and know the facts of everything that is happening and everything that did happen in history. This is something that is going to be hard to do because of laws and people that are writing the curriculum. Like you said, people want others to be aware of the real truth and how important it is for it to be taught. It is so obvious by the numbers of only 8% of students knowing that the civil war was the main cause of the Civil War, and that just shows that people as well as students are not being taught the proper way as well as being taught the proper information. It is crazy to think that we are in the year 2022 and this is still an issue and information is still not being taught in the correct way. As teachers we are TEACHING students, so we need to be teaching them the facts as well as the truth. It is hard when the Governor does not even want the facts to be taught to the students in a way that gets their minds thinking into a different way and a deeper way about the facts that they are learning.