Essential Questions:

• How do we teach students to see historical events through multiple perspectives?
• How does changing the “voice” of the class materials challenge stereotypes about non-Western civilizations and cultures?
• How do we teach students to value the achievements of civilizations that are not their (or our) own or that have traditionally been seen through a deficit lens?
• How can highlighting examples of interactions between oppressed and dominant groups throughout history reveal injustices that affect our students’ lives?

Reflective Practice:

While out on a run many years ago, I was struck by the realization that 9th grade World History is likely the last time that most of our students will study the “whole” history of our world. I knew that in future classes they would discuss the consequences of imperialism, the expansion of liberty, and the impact of industrialization, but was struck by the awesome responsibility that I could really be responsible for their last chance to study India, China, Brazil, Congo, Nigeria, Mexico, Guyana, Pakistan, and… and…!?!?!

I was reinvigorated after this realization, and tried to improve the breadth and depth of “coverage” within my World History lessons. After attending the Institute for Teaching Diversity and Social Justice this summer, I realized that I was off base in my emphasis on coverage of world history, and that my curriculum lacked the social purpose that I intended. After hearing heartrending stories from some of my colleagues at the workshop of the sense of alienation and oppression that they felt in their schools and history courses growing up, and the sense of empowerment that they felt later in life through being connected to the history of their racial identity, I knew that I wanted all of my students to feel that same sense of empowerment through connection to their history. When we discussed as a group the ways that racial ignorance and violence is perpetuated by courses that consistently reaffirm the role white, cisgender, male, heterosexual, Christian, able people in history, I realized that I was implicitly defending their hegemony and wanted my teaching practice to disrupt the systems of oppression that have been constructed to perpetuate their dominance. Since then, I have worked to reorient my curriculum to “center” the role of a different continent for each trimester of our course, starting with Africa, then Asia, and finishing the year with Latin America. 

In starting to redesign the curriculum, in decentering whiteness, I was motivated by the opportunity to hear my students say, regardless of racial background that, “I can talk about interesting and healthy ways that some people who share my group identities live their lives.” The scale of the task ahead and the moral weight of my past failures was indicated by the fact that the Social Justice Standard that I just quoted is for Kindergarten-2nd grade…

As I went about gathering materials and deepening my understanding of global exchange networks and African history, I reflected on my multiple privileged identities, particularly that of being a white cisgender man. I took the time to re-learn in order to present the history content through these new lenses. My hope for the new curriculum is that the combination of understanding one’s group identities and genuine interest in the history of the identities of others will cause those with privileged identities to realize that their privileges are not only not innate, but that they have been historically constructed and should be dismantled to create a more equal, free, and happy society. Eventually, I began to feel the very real possibility of social change that could come from a class of students who were able to say that, “I see that the way my family and I do things is both the same as and different from how other people do things, and I am interested in both.” But again, that’s the standard that we set for second grade… 

As I began working with the new 9th grade cohort, I was gaining confidence that the plan for the trimester would do them justice. I was going to teach the development of empires through the achievements of Queen Amanirenas of Meroë, and the long-distance trade networks that centered on the merchants of Axum; the spread of religion through the early monastic practices of Christians in Egypt, the spread of madrassas throughout the Almoravid empire; and the flourishing of science through the process of ideas bouncing back and forth between Timbuktu and Baghdad. The central “text” was the video series Africa’s Great Civilizations, written and hosted by the eminent African-American scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr.! 

There were many moments when our students were curious about the diversity of peoples and places that we studied and said things similar to, “I want to know about other people and how our lives and experiences are the same and different,” (K-2 Diversity standard 8). I believe that the changes to the course caused this group to have a better sense of the important role of Africans in world history, and as a result to hold African states and cultural practices in higher regard—notable given the damaging ways that cultural discourses of poverty, dysfunction, and backwardness pop up in discussions about Africa and Africans. All of that said, I was disappointed when in the final assessment, the vast majority of students chose not to discuss the effects of trade using the examples of Mansa Musa, Ibn Battuta, and the Swahili city-states which we had studied, and instead to focus on the effects of the Crusades on Europe—which they had not studied. I was discouraged by my perception that students of all races in my class showed a comfort with European history, such that they have a preference for discussing it even when they hadn’t received much of any formal instruction in the area. 

I am not sure what went wrong, or if there is something that I could have done to avoid this. But, if I am correct in my assessment of the cause, then this is “the work” of social justice education: to dismantle the biases that cause people to preference the dominant culture. So, when I discussed the exams with the group, I chose to also discuss the trend in their choice of topics. The knowing looks and gently nodding heads in front of me seemed to indicate that they understood the discussion of Eurocentrism, and that many of them seemed to see the past, present, and future injustices that resulted from choices like these. Afterwards, I was heartened that some of them might have even said, “I can recognize, describe and distinguish unfairness and injustice at different levels of society,” (9-12th grade Justice standard 12). This moment of progress from genuine reflection is why I will press onward.