Black History Month, 2023
We are grateful that, back in 1986, an act of Congress dedicated February as the official month for spotlighting Black history and culture. It’s important that all of us have this dedicated time to both engage in public education and celebration of historic and present-day Black contributions to society and culture. It’s important that we have this time for Black Americans to take part in their own community celebrations. It’s important we have this time to center public conversations on the question on what we collectively need to do to create true and lasting racial justice in the United States. And it’s important that we have this time to offer special programs in our schools that help students develop an accurate understanding of our history as well as the remarkable contributions of Black Americans.
Like so many others, we believe that these celebrations and conversations need to take place year-round. But as a baseline, the designated Black History Month ensures that, at least for one month, we will collectively elevate Black history and culture nationally to the center of our attention. It is a key element of our larger collective efforts to create a multicultural, antiracist, just culture.
So it was with dismay that we woke on February 1 — the day to kick-off these conversations and celebrations — and read about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s efforts to tamp down and outright silence conversations about, and academic study of, matters of race and society. This news was also linked to the College Board’s announcement that it was making changes to the soon-to-be released AP African-American History course curriculum that would eliminate or push aside references to key figures in contemporary Black culture.
We have plenty to say on DeSantis’s political maneuvering and his efforts to suppress the study of Black history and culture in schools or any conversation about race. Among other things, we support the petition signed by over 40,000 people, including Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, that encourages the Florida State Board of Education to override Gov. DeSantis’s decision to reject the AP African American Studies course and demands that the board establish a plan that ensures all K–12 students have the opportunity to learn about Black history.
But here our focus is on how, amid all the troubling political and cultural resistance and misplaced fear, we can help educators navigate their own professional and person antiracist journeys and continue to develop the skills and knowledge to serve all children well. Below are links to some recent resources that we hope will help in this process.
While the question of the teaching of Black history and culture is foremost on our minds today, we also don’t want to forget about the recent brutal murder of Tyre Nichols at the hands of Memphis police officers. The question of racial justice in our legal systems is one that impacts the lives of all of our students and communities and intersects with the K-12 curriculum in numerous and important ways.
The Urgency of Black History: A Collection
For the start of Black History Month, Education Week’s Guest Editor, LaGarrett J. King, put together a valuable collection of articles for educators. In his introduction, King, an associate professor at the University at Buffalo and the director of the university’s Center for K-12 Black History and Racial Literacy Education, reminds us that the teaching of history is not about instilling patriotism. Rather, “history is about helping us understand our shared humanity and the decisions people make in the context of their time.” More poignantly, he adds, “We are not a historically mature society until we acknowledge that everyone’s history matters.”
All of these articles are of value to our readers, but we are particularly grateful for Wintre Foxworth Johnson’s piece, Black History Belongs in Early Elementary School. Johnson, an assistant professor in the department of curriculum, instruction, and special education at the University of Virginia’s School of Education and Human Development, makes the essential point that the elementary school years are the ideal time to start engaging students in conversations about race — a point we make at every opportunity.
Open Letter to Florida Teachers
Monika Williams Shealey, the senior vice president of diversity, equity, and inclusion at Rowan University, wrote this open letter to Florida teachers encouraging them to collectively support and lobby for the state’s acceptance of the AP African American Studies course. We like Shealey’s overarching argument that diversity, equity, and inclusion and antiracist education are not, as some would argue, “code for ‘let’s divide our society by focusing on race.’” But more valuable to our readers is her central argument that our collective understanding of what a good education entails has evolved for the better over the past two decades. “There was a time when many in our broader community believed that education should focus solely on developing skills in reading, writing, and mathematics,,” Shealey writes. “We now know that specific skill development is only one component of education. The needs of our global society demand that we also facilitate broad-based knowledge acquisition, critical thinking, creativity, intellectual curiosity, and acceptance of self and others as cultural beings.” This work includes helping all students develop a clear understand of the racial history of the United States and its impact on our culture today.
Teaching for Change
Teaching for Change — an organization promoting education that provides students with the skills, knowledge, and inspiration to be agents of change for a better world — offers numerous resources to help teachers center antiracism in the classroom. Key among these are the steps involved in establishing an antibias school program. In conjunction with Rethinking Schools, Teaching for Change also offers The Zinn Project. Since 2008, the Zinn Education Project, through its curricular offerings, has introduced students to a more accurate, complex, and engaging understanding of history than is found in traditional textbooks and curricula. Teaching for Change also supports Black Lives Matter in Schools, with February Action-Week campaigns focusing on four main goals, including mandating Black history and ethnic studies in schools.
Access to Advanced Courses
A key element of antiracist education is ensuring that all students are treated equally regarding grading and access to advanced courses. The Education Trust, committed to advancing policies and practices to dismantle the racial and economic barriers embedded in the American education system, has untaken research that identifies the barriers that keep Black and Latino students unequally represented in advanced coursework. The Trust also offers steps states, districts, and schools can take to change this trend for the better — including expanding advanced coursework opportunities in schools with a majority of Black and Latino students and providing the encouragement and support that enables students to engage with and succeed in such courses. A key part of this process is supporting teachers in their antiracist teaching practices.
The History News Network
After reading about the recent proposed changes to the AP African American History course, the History New Network posted this short response, with links to articles written by a number of the Black writers and scholars the State of Florida doesn’t want students to read. For educators, Robin D. G. Kelley’s Boston Review piece, “Black Study, Black Struggle,” is valuable in helping educators delve deeper into the actual experiences of Black students in school and college. Kelley, the Gary B. Nash Professor of American History at UCLA, writes that the campus protests during the start of the Black Lives Matter movement “articulated the sense of betrayal and disappointment that many black students felt upon finding that their campuses failed to live up to their PR.”
Keeping Our Empathetic Connections
While the question of criminal justice reform lies mostly outside the purview of schools, we know it impacts the lives of all of our students in ways that require our attention. For teachers, it’s important not to let race-based incidents — such as the murder of Tyre Nichols — wash over them. As Ali Michael, author and co-director of the Race Institute for K-12 Educators, notes in her thoughtful essay, all of us who are white need to dedicate time to read deeply and reflect on what we read. Simply skimming news headlines is the pathway toward cultural numbness. It’s important that we pause and reflect — and, yes, to cry at times. Michael offers us her method of staying attentive in order to staying engaged in antiracist work — in schools, the community, and the nation.
Prepare Yourself for Tomorrow
A good companion piece to Ali Michael’s is a recent post from our wonderful workshop colleagues, Tamisha Williams and Lori Cohen. On Williams’s Newsletter, the two educators and school consultants write about the importance of preparing yourself for tomorrow. We appreciate the clarity of their professional checklist regarding how one processes one’s thoughts and feelings following a public incident of racial injustice or violence. It also offers teachers a way of supporting their students in their processing of these public acts of violence. A key goal for white educators here is to “recognize the impact of white supremacy on the events that have unfolded and keep learning about antiracist actions you can take.”
Additional Resources
We know there are many places one can turn now to get the news or to read reactions to the news. We hope the above resources will help specifically with understanding how to respond as educators in a way that leads toward needed change. The Teaching While White website also offers numerous other resources — including resources focused on the role of white teachers in antiracism. We hope they help you with your teaching practices and keep you grounded in the essential work of supporting all students well.