9th Grade World History
I began this process with several goals in mind. First, I wanted to examine my curriculum from an anti-bias lens. Second, I hoped to make a clearer connection between the identities and experiences of students of color and the content of the course. Finally, I was increasingly aware of the necessity of exposing and challenging my biases. Also, I knew none of these goals could be accomplished without extensive support. The Anti-bias workshop was the perfect way to jump-start the process. The workshop was better than I had hoped. It was informative, challenging, and jammed full of practical tips on how to move closer to my goals. I left each session full ideas and looking forward to the next. At the end of the week, my vague notions about how to develop and implement an anti-bias curriculum now had a clearer model and extensive resources. Peter and I used this inspiration to begin the redesign of the ninth grade world history class.
The 9th-grade redesign began with a clear question: How can we decenter whiteness while telling the story of world history? Our first step was to replace the western-centric text. That decision created both an opportunity and a challenge. Dropping the text allowed us to include more diverse voices but we quickly found that non-western texts were hard to find. US history courses can draw on a wealth of anti-bias materials explicitly developed to include marginalized voices. Although, you can find texts that focus on peoples and perspectives often left out of the standard texts we have not found a book that did that and provided a clear global overview. In contrast, we did find a wealth of primary sources from indigenous and non-western sources. There are so many that the issue we faced was not a lack of resources but how to choose who to include and who to leave out. Also as we developed our actual lesson plans the connection between the anti-bias standards and what we could do in 65 minutes in 9th-grade class was not always as clear as we hoped. As we adapted our activities it became clear that the redesign would be a multi-year project. Each year revising the last as we learned from our mistakes.
Despite the obstacles, we did make progress. By using Africa as the lens for examining the growth of civilization we centered a region that was often on the periphery of the class and doing so disrupted the assumptions and stereotypes held by many students. It also laid the groundwork for how we approach other periods in world history by using a nonwestern centered perspective. The new text we chose was not as successful. In attempting to find a more globalist approach we picked a text’s whose birds-eye view of history removed the people.
My attempts to bring to light my blinders and biases are still very much a work in progress. Outside of my search for materials for the ninth grade class my reading has focused on trying to understand the power racism and racist institutions to impact the opportunities and experiences of people of coloring. Since the summer I finished reading “The Warmth of Other Suns” an extraordinarily effective piece of historical writing. It’s combination of historical overview and lived experience conveyed the trauma of Jim Crow and the Great Migration. As we drove around the Adorandacks I listened to the new biography of Frederick Douglas. Another model of in-depth research and engaging writing. Right, now I’m in the middle of “Stamped from the Beginning” a thorough history of the evolution of racism in America. I’m also working my way through the 1619 project, elements of which I have already used in my electives. Although all of these sources are US history focused their insights into the power of institutionalized racism and its centralness to the story of America is pushing me to reevaluate my understating of history.