I got all worked up in class tonight (again). In schools of education all across the US, multiculturalism is being talked about. The need to reach more students based on their cultural background and the desire to gear lessons toward those cultures. I understand that those who support this sort of educational framework are trying to progress toward a better understanding of each other. I admire that thought process, but I disagree that public school history classes is the forum for this. Have multicultural festivals in you community, have as many get-togethers as you want. I love those sorts of events! But, the history classes of American students is not the place for this. And sometimes the proponents of this curriculum make illogical arguments. They want less talk about the founding fathers, more talk about civil rights leaders, more talk about inventors who come from non-european backgrounds, etc. I get it and I don't disagree with that. Not entirely, at least. Where I disagree is the assumption that all those who live in a certain community and who share a similar skin color also share a similar culture and a similar heritage. I feel that designing a history or library lesson for students that is trying to 'teach them about their culture' based on a half-assed attempt to guess what their ethnicity is based on skin color is ridiculous, offensive, and big move in the wrong direction. You are not helping anybody by doing this. There are a number of reasons why this has about a 0% chance to succeed.
1) Skin color does not equal ethnicity. It equals skin color. That's it. Nothing more. There are now 7 billion people on Earth and there are probably nearly that many skin tones. We are a mobile species and skin color has nothing to do with the language we speak, the religion we practice, or the traditions that we accept.
2) Nobody's cultural identity is the same and nobody can teach a culture effectively to all students without stereotyping a culture. And if all you're going to do is pass along stereotypes, there is no reason to even begin down this road.
3) Where you have a school, you have certain commonalities among students, chief among them is geographic location. When you are teaching history, teach the history of that place. No matter what the students look like or where they were born or what country their parents came from, they are all currently living in this place. They have this in common, so you teach to the commonality. If my parents had moved to Portugal when I was little and I was enrolled in a primary school in Lisbon, it's ridiculous to believe that my teacher should teach me about American history because my parents are Americans. My parents will pass on the American traditions to me and we will celebrate and share our traditions with friends that we make in Lisbon. But my primary school teacher will teach me Portuguese history because that is the commonality among his/her students, including me. I live in Lisbon, therefore I am in Portugal, therefore I will learn Portuguese history. It is not the teacher's responsibility to design an educational lesson specifically geared toward me because my ethnicity or racial makeup is different from a fellow student's. Don't put pressure on history teachers to teach the history of every nation or every culture on earth because they can't do it and it's ridiculous to expect it. Teach the history of where you are. Local history is the commonality. If a parent wants their child to learn about where their ancestors came from, it's on the parents to teach it. Asking a teacher or librarian to teach 'what it's like to be a Mexican-American' is only asking for trouble because no family's story is the same and no teacher or librarian can do that responsibility any justice.
4) Along with #3 but U.S. specific: any person born here or who immigrates here and becomes a citizen shares a common national history. It doesn't matter if you're teaching in an urban area or a rural area, it doesn't matter if your class is filled with students from the same race or if every student is a different race. We are all Americans, and as such we all share a past that includes Cesar Chavez, Harriet Tubman, George Washington, Sitting Bull, etc. Should the history curriculum be expanded to cover more than the 'always covered U.S. history themes'? Yes. Absolutely! But don't decide not to teach colonial history because your students don't have a similar skin color to George Washington. Don't decide Sitting Bull and the Lakotas aren't relevant because you have no students of Lakota descent in your classroom. Teach them about the Harlem Renaissance. Teach them about Henrietta Lacks and Alice Paul and Georgia O'Keefe. Teach them that women have accomplished more than just the right to vote. Don't hide the sadness in our history, but don't only focus on slavery and the Civil War. Tell them the truth about WWII concentration camps, the Trail of Tears, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Matthew Shepherd. Teach them about those who built the railroad across the West as well as those who have flown in space. Teach them about politicians and philosophers and athletes who made a difference on a global scale. Teach them about inventors other than Ben Franklin and Thomas Edison and the Wright Brothers, but don't exclude those historical figures because they're of Northern-European descent and therefore not seen as 'multicultural'. Teach them everything that you can about the country that they belong to because this is our common history. We are all the same in this regard and we all share this past. These people are our people. There is no color line, there is only a national story. Maybe the customs that we each take part in are different and, by all means, share customs and family traditions with each other, but don't ever begin to cut out parts of a shared history because you don't think a student can relate to that historical event or figure due to an assumption you make based on skin color, religion, or ethnic background. That's demeaning to a student's intelligence as well as to the history of a country.
And as a future librarian and past history major: I won't teach children a history lesson nor will I recommend historical fiction based on what figures most closely resemble the child's skin color, so don't even ask me to, because that conversation will not end well.
/end rant.
No comments:
Post a Comment