It is often said that history is recorded by the victors. I believe the same is true in the classroom. Often what is taught in school is determined by who is in charge. Should this be the case? Not necessarily.
My personal education is not a reflection of multicultural championship. My elementary school consisted of 199 white students and 1 black student. There was also only one black teacher. We did not have any Hispanic students. Even the janitors and cafeteria ladies were white. This was not out of the ordinary; it was just a reflection of the rural farming community in which I lived. In middle school and high school there was more diversity in the student body, but not in the curriculum. I personally don’t feel slighted by my education, but I am part of the cultural majority.
My only exposure to cultural diversity was through my friends outside of the classroom. I had a friend who moved to my hometown from Brazil in 7th grade. When she arrived she did not speak a word of English. By December she could speak fairly fluently. By high school her written English was probably better than mine. I don't remember any attempts by my teachers to include any Brazilian culture into our lessons. She graduated in the top 10 of my class, and now she is a dentist back in Brazil. The entire time her family lived in America her mother refused to learn any English. I felt like that had to be really lonely for her mom.
Fast forward to my first year in the classroom. In February some of my students began to ask me what we were going to do for Black History Month. I didn’t have a clue. Growing up I had never had a big focus on Black History, and my lesson plan at the time wasn’t centered on an African American author. I didn’t know what a Black History Month unit should even look like. I ended up offering poems and biographies of a few African American authors to my students as extra credit. The subject of Black History was never brought up in any of our faculty meetings or school wide emails.
My point to these stories is that after reflecting on my personal experience I can definitely see how curriculum, policies, and structure can be used as a form of social control. I don’t think this is the intentional goal. I think educators sometimes are focused on finishing paperwork or preparing for standardized tests or maybe even following the plan that had been proven successful for so many years before. These things often take priority over a diverse sampling of view points on various topics.
Your story is very interesting. I think your experience in a basically monocultural environment is not unusual for much of the South. Yet that is rapidly changing. Your observation that history is usually written by the victors is accurate in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteWell done.