Blog Post #5

 "The Academic and Social Value of Ethnic Studies: A Research Review" by Christine E. Sleeter

Reflection:

As strange as it may sound, I found this article incredibly validating, especially concerning social studies/history education. As a White student, my experiences closely line with what the research describes, at least for elementary school and the beginning of middle school. We learned about American history from a Euro-American perspective, up to excluding the role of slavery in the Civil War and learning that the Civil Rights movement ended racism. In middle school, though, I read a book called All American Boys, which completely changed my perspective. The book is about police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement, neither of which I had heard of. Suddenly, I saw that the world was a much less idealistic place than I had thought, and that racism was unfortunately alive and well. Then, when I was in high school, I got to see a renewed sense of urgency with the murder of George Floyd. 

All American Boys, by Jason Reynolds (one of my favorite authors) and Brendan Kiely

Along with these revelations, I began to notice biases in the curricula, especially in history. Pretty much every trend Sleeter references about the depictions of minority groups holds true in my experience. Like some of the students she interviewed, I began to tire of learning about the accomplishments of the same White people in the same stories, especially when my growing love for history revealed that there were many other important stories to tell. To see research validating these trends and concerns is, as I said, validating, since it shows me it does not just come from one White girl.

That said, the article validated some of my fears as well. I am terrified of accidentally becoming a teacher who only teaches the Euro-American perspective. After all, that is the baseline I grew up with, and that many of my students will grow up with as well. Most curricula still focus on that perspective. And, as Sleeter addressed, parents tend to find any mention of race divisive. I have had a parent request that her child be withdrawn from a program I help present because, while discussing inclusion, another child said that discriminating based on race is inappropriate. To her, we were promoting division. So, the temptation to stay in the "mainstream" perspective is strong, and it sounds like a temptation many teachers, particularly White teachers, fall to. In doing that, though, I would be doing a disservice to my students, as I would be denying them meaningful information. I know it is still too soon to worry so much about my own pedagogy, but these concerns are still worth considering.

Question to Share:

How do we meaningfully incorporate multiple ethnicities into our teaching? As a future history teacher, I already have a good idea of how to do this - by simply acknowledging multiple historical perspectives in my classes. Aside from the importance of respecting diversity, to ignore underrepresented perspectives is simply bad history. In other disciplines, though, how would you go about incorporating diversity in the curriculum?