Officials and teachers from three large Nebraska districts have refused to talk about Black history education this year, claiming it is a sticky subject, or, according to one school district, “Evolutions of Educational Compliance.” He claimed that he cited the “National Dialogue.”
Tim Royers, president of the Nebraska Education Association, recently attended a national conference with other teacher union leaders.
“There’s such a deep cold effect that just happened because of the orders coming out of Washington,” he said. “Schools and districts don’t want to talk about it because they fear it will be used against them to acquire weapons and steal federal funds.”
Former history teacher Royer said educators at the forefront of these debates are exhausted and these pressures have contributed to lower teacher retention.
Research shows that rural areas, the majority of Nebraska school districts, have the highest teacher turnover rates.
“(Teachers) don’t necessarily avoid working to educate Black History Month, but we’ve literally heard about whether the program refers to the term fairness. Down or they’ll lose the funds,” Royers said.
Standing up for Black History Month
However, not all teachers experience these same tensions. Dunwade III is a social science teacher in Oxnard, a city in Southern California. He co-authored an African American research course for his high school, which was released last year. He said the district is supportive.
His class is close to capacity.
“95% of students are not African Americans taking their classes,” he said.
Wade said he is often the student leading class discussions based on current events.
“I teach this class, and it feels like a way to stand up for black history,” he said. “I think essentially that’s what I’m saying. That caused me a kind of step-up before I was avoiding it.”
However, Wade said he is not sure about the future of his class as debate continues about how schools should teach black history.
“Black history is not usually taught in traditional curricula, but includes a variety of groups of people. So essentially, the attack on Day is the one that is black history, or It feels as if it was an attack on Asian American history, Mexican and Sicano history, and so on,” he said.
Black History Month is about achievements and history
The “Dear Colleague” letter was sent to schools earlier this month by the US Civil Rights Education Bureau, where schools and universities denounced “racist preferences and other forms of racism.”
“American educational institutions discriminate against students based on their race, including white and Asian students,” the letter states.
Lagaret King, a professor of social studies education at the State University of New York, Buffalo, is the director of the Center for Highly Advanced Black History and Racial Literacy Education from Kindergarten.
“Now, no one should tell you that you’re superior in any race,” that’s not taught in black history. There is no teaching that black people are better than white people,” he said.
Royers added that history education is sharing the whole truth, even if it is ugly.
“Black history months are two different things: not only enhance the achievements and contributions of black people to American history that may otherwise be unspeakable or lacking, but also black voices and society He also acknowledges the history of systemic oppression used to reduce black participation in the group.
King said black educators often lead the charges to teach more about black history, but black teachers are quite underrated in American schools. Data released by the National Center for Education Statistics in 2020 identifies approximately 80% of U.S. public school teachers as non-Hispanic, non-white.
King said he might hesitate to teach black history for several reasons: many educators and curriculum writers lack formal black history education from schools, and many black people Educators do a better job of teaching black history for informal spaces such as at home at churches and community centers.
“It’s through their perspective. It’s about their voices, it’s about their experiences, right? So, other than the black history taught from the white lens, when it frames black history like that, it’s about people. It could even be a bit scary to approach it,” he said.
Mrs. Gwen’s Kwen Pre-K lesson plan for the day included learning about Stoplight, invented by black businessman Garrett Morgan.
“Black history, you know, that’s something we all need to learn. It’s part of our history. I don’t know now, so I’ve got them to remove black history and black research from school. I’ve read a lot of things that may be, so if they don’t get it here, they might not get it,” Partridge said.
