Ideas For Reforming K-8 Education Curriculum Around Black History

[Stir Fry]

Looking for some input to pass on to a principal that I have the ear of. It's a private school likes to prop itself up on it's liberal values, so I would like to see it put the same amount of energy into instilling pride, purpose, and activism into the black children that attend it, as they do the gay and transgender ones.


I imagine ideas that will get the most consideration will fall in line with somewhat more mainstream learning lessons, but all suggestions are welcome, as thinking and teaching outside of the box is where the real growth can happen.


I'd also just like any input on how the teachers can better serve the kids to ensure they leave the school as stronger people and students in general. One thing to note is that it is a very expensive school to attend, but it has a large scholarship and indexed tuition program that brings in quite a few kids from lower income backgrounds and the wealth disparity level is off the charts, so if there is any advice on helping the kids navigate this, I'd really appreciate that too.


@Booksnrain I remember you saying that you have some experience as a contractor that teaches some of this stuff I'm talking about, no?

 

[Yapdatfool]

I'll try to ask some black male teachers at my job their ideas and get back to this thread by sometime next week.

 

[Stir Fry]

I'll try to ask some black male teachers at my job their ideas and get back to this thread by sometime next week.

Thanks. Ask them about how they navigate their professional environments and what issues they run into as well. Lot's of performative wokeness at this school with a bunch of passive aggressive and condescending attitudes that follow. Supporting them is just as important as supporting the students so that they stick around and can show up the best that they can for the kids.

 

[Yapdatfool]

I asked my brother (black male teacher BUT please take this with a grain of salt) what I gathered from him so far:

Biggest thing he pointed out was to base the curriculum with black/afram origins and identity, in North America. And branch out from there.
Also to explain why our history was b*stardized by non-blacks (either due to money or control)

 

[OfTheCross]

I think that the ideal reform would better incorporate Black history into the American history narrative. As opposed to making it a separate lesson.

It's all interwoven and Black ppl were here the entire time

 

[get these nets]

Looking for some input to pass on to a principal that I have the ear of. It's a private school likes to prop itself up on it's liberal values, so I would like to see it put the same amount of energy into instilling pride, purpose, and activism into the black children that attend it, as they do the gay and transgender ones.

Not school system's job to instill pride, purpose, and activism into Black children. That is the role of the household + community that raises the child. What the courses can do is give all the students a more accurate picture of the country they live in.

I personally think that non AAs benefit more from this.They (we) get a more complete understanding of the story of this country when AA history, contributions, struggles, and achivements are incorporated into US History.

Best suggestion would be to not try to reinvent the wheel. Hire local AA Historian and Educator as consultants to help develop coursework. The school has the resources, there are people with the experience and credentials who have likely helped develop public school or homeschool AA History curricula before.

 

[Yapdatfool]

I've been running around work all week and haven't gotten time to ask anyone besides my bro (and he got personal stuff going on). I haven't forgotten this thread just gonna be pushed back until prolly last week in august

 

[Yapdatfool]

Finally got a hold of my co-worker, said to start here with this book and this man:

Jawanza Kunjufu, Author Information, Published Books, Biography, Photos, Videos, and More ★

Jawanza Kunjufu author information including a biography, photograph, list of published books, video, interviews, articles, book reviews and more.

aalbc.com

 

[Stir Fry]

Finally got a hold of my co-worker, said to start here with this book and this man:

Jawanza Kunjufu, Author Information, Published Books, Biography, Photos, Videos, and More ★

Jawanza Kunjufu author information including a biography, photograph, list of published books, video, interviews, articles, book reviews and more.

aalbc.com

Thanks for this. That link has a lot of good books in it.

 

[WIA20XX]

It's a private school

Is it a Black private school? Or a private school for everyone?

If it's for everyone, I echo @get these nets - that should be done in the home. Most of the teacher base is white and female, and they have little skin in the game when it comes to teaching real history.

If it's a Black Private school, I think that's a community question. Lot of folks don't want to include where a lot of that NAACP money came from. A lot of folks don't want to talk about the organizational/implementation part of various movements. Lot of folks don't want to talk about the PRACTICAL value of Christianity in these various movements.

That said, if it's a school with everyone, there should be a "global" curriculum. Part of the overall problem in the West, is the idea of Western/White Hegemony.

American history spend a lot of time, years even, with what was going on before colonization by Europe. Maybe years k-8 should cover the whole world pre-colonization, rather than speed run to the Pilgrims and Thanksgiving/Renaissance.

 

[Stir Fry]

Is it a Black private school? Or a private school for everyone?

If it's for everyone, I echo @get these nets - that should be done in the home. Most of the teacher base is white and female, and they have little skin in the game when it comes to teaching real history.

If it's a Black Private school, I think that's a community question. Lot of folks don't want to include where a lot of that NAACP money came from. A lot of folks don't want to talk about the organizational/implementation part of various movements. Lot of folks don't want to talk about the PRACTICAL value of Christianity in these various movements.

That said, if it's a school with everyone, there should be a "global" curriculum. Part of the overall problem in the West, is the idea of Western/White Hegemony.

American history spend a lot of time, years even, with what was going on before colonization by Europe. Maybe years k-8 should cover the whole world pre-colonization, rather than speed run to the Pilgrims and Thanksgiving/Renaissance.

It’s an all race school

 

[WIA20XX]

It’s an all race school

I would definitely go with a "global approach".

Everyone wants to be seen, and feel proud.

That said, there's a real doctrinal and political issue with how to handle "white pride" and "white identity".

 

[DrBanneker]

I had been thinking about doing a thread on this but I need more info. LaGarrett King runs the Center for K–12 Black History and Racial Literacy Education at the University of Buffalo. He may have some ideas.

Center for K–12 Black History and Racial Literacy Education

The Center for K–12 Black History and Racial Literacy Education is a new research and professional development center housed within the Graduate School of Education at the University at Buffalo. The center seeks to investigate and provide solutions for more effective education around Black...

ed.buffalo.edu

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Like someone said, as just a bare basics starting point you need to ensure that the Black experience is appropriately embedded into American history. And not just the victimhood (though there is true victimization of black people throughout American history), but also Black agency throughout history. For example, things I think the curriculum should emphasize for certain is:


1. The presence of influential Black figures in America in the 1700s and early 1800s (Crispus Attucks, Phillis Wheatley, Jupiter Hammon, Benjamin Banneker, James Forten, Richard Allen, Prince Hall, etc.)

2. The long fight of abolitionists throughout the 1800s, not just as a leadup to the Civil War (Nat Turner, David Walker, Benjamin Singleton, Henry Highland Garnet, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass)

3. The new prominence of Black leaders during Reconstruction (Robert Smalls, Joseph Hayne Rainey, Blanche Bruce, Hiram Revels, Robert B. Elliott, Jonathan Jasper Wright, P.B.S. Pinchback)

4. The various avenues of Black fight and pro-Black development during Jim Crow (W.E.B. DuBois and the NAACP, Booker T. Washington and Tuskegee University, Zora Neale Hurston/Langston Hughes and others of the Harlem Renaissance, A. Phillip Randolph/Hubert Harrison and Black socialism/communism, George Washington Carver, Carter G. Woodson, Charles Drew, Matthew Henson, Paul Robeson, etc.)

5. A real, deep dive narrative of the Civil Rights Struggle shaped around the full history of the SCLC and their allies (too many to list but you know who I'm talking about)

6. The Black Power Movements of the 1960s and 1970s (Going back to CRM origins with Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael, through the Black Panther Party and Fred Hampton, Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seales, Black Liberation Army and Assata Shakur)

7. The re-entry of Black leaders into political power (Thurgood Marshall, Doug Wilder, Shirley Chisholm, John Lewis, John Conyers, Jesse Jackson's presidential run, Collin Powell)


The reason I focused so much on names is because children remember people, they remember personalities. Too much US History ends up being a run-down of presidents and generals with a few other big political leaders mixed in, and everybody else gets tossed aside as "others", but they don't seem like part of the main plot or the real drivers of history. The kids have to see people who look like them as real, flesh-filled, embodied persons in US history, essential aspects of the narrative, not just victims or helpless masses. That's not saying to forget about the masses, you need to talk about the slave trade in general and the KKK victims in general and the Black presence among Civil War soldiers and Industrial Revolution workers and Great Depression struggles and the victims of segregation. But for history to stick in them, you gotta have faces.



Everything I just did for U.S. History, you could do the same for literature, as well as whatever the local/state history component is where you are.

 

[DrBanneker]

Black experience is appropriately embedded into American history. And not just the victimhood

Applying for a job in FL?

J/k you are a solid poster. I just shake my head when people say Black History teaches victimhood when I have never seen a class like that despite the propaganda claims. They usually highlight Black achievers and resistance strategies and not some "you got beat down and need the liberals to save you."