RESPOND TO 2 CLASSMATES. EXPAND ON PEER RESPONSES AND USE CITATIONS.
Alexis Post:
The field of African Americans studies within schools has come a long way over the past 50+ years, but much work still remains to be completed. Most advances have been made on the collegiate level with K-12 schools falling way behind in the study of African American history and culture. “In chronicling the fall of Black Studies in public schools, Zimmerman claims, “…many of the classes fizzled quickly, in part because students found them boring. Schools struggled to locate qualified teachers for these subjects, which were rarely addressed in their pre-service training. And course materials were hastily prepared, as districts strained to meet the sudden demand” (Hyres, 2020). There are some parts of African American culture that still seems to be neglected on the K-12 level. “ In desegregated schools, Black history had been ignored and marginalized, while Black teachers and students contested and navigated a predominantly white and anti-Black space. Black students fought to bring back the Black experience into the curriculum” (Hyres, 2020).
I think the biggest reason that African American culture was so neglected in schools was due to the fact that American was not always as diverse as it in now. Years ago American was a country full of segregation and inequality and due to this, they neglected teaching children the history of African Americans. I think schools should incorporate a specific amount of time to learn exclusively about African American history and not just America history in general. Yes, in American history, there are some key learning points about certain African American figures in history, but if schools allow their students to learn about African American history alone, they will become a bit more educated on this topic and not be as naïve or ignorant to African American history. It will also allow African American students to feel more confident in their own African American culture.
Hyres, A. (2020, November 9). The contours of Black Studies in American Public Schools. AAIHS. Retrieved March 5, 2022, from https://www.aaihs.org/the-contours-of-black-studies-in-american-public-schools/
Antonia’s Post:
After this week’s readings, it was eye-opening about Black History in K-12. I did not realize the real issue until reading through the different articles. Some topics are neglected in black history taught in K-12, but the two that stand out are The Black Panther Party and the narratives of enslaved people. I will discuss how these two topics are neglected, how to improve education on these topics, and why it is important to improve education on these topics.
In this course, I didn’t think about what I was taught in K-12. My main focus was gathering all this information in this course and making sense of it. When I think back to K-12, The Black Panther Party was mentioned but not elaborated on. Slave narratives were not even mentioned. The only enslaved person that I remember being taught about was Harriet Tubman. Still, we were not given any elaboration on her experience, only of what she had done for others to gain their freedom. I feel these topics are shied away from because they can be sensitive topics. The Black Panther Party was and still is misunderstood. In school, we were told that the Black Panther Party was a black militia who advocated violence, so they were frowned upon. In this course, we go more into depth on how the Black Panther Party was created and its intention. I had never even heard of the Ten-Point Program. As for slave narratives, a lot of experiences were harsh. The extent of cruel treatment that we were taught about in school was whipping and hangings, but we could read different experiences like William Green and Fredrick Douglass in this course. I believe that some teachers lack education of black history and often feel uncomfortable when teaching that they may also skip over important parts. In The Status of Black History in U.S. Schools and Society, LaGarrett J. King states, “teachers ignore Black history and that what is taught is sometimes lethargic, too celebratory, and lacks complexity.” I believe this to be true, especially with the two topics of The Black Panther Party and slave narratives.
The best way to improve education on these topics is to first start with mandating Black History education to be the same in all states. Some states like Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Mississippi, and Rhode Island have passed laws requiring Black history to be taught in public schools with special K-12 Black history oversight committees (King 16). Next, there should be more context on these topics. Without the proper information about these topics, teaching them would serve no purpose. Teachers need to be given a curriculum that elaborates on the topics, so children are taught black history and can understand the black experience from the mouth of those who experienced it and not text that has been washed out. It is important to improve education on these topics because today, there still seems to be a lack of comprehension of our blackness. These topics can highlight the importance of why we still demand justice today.
King, LaGarrett J. “Teaching and Learning African American … – Social Studies.” National Council for the Social Studies, 2017. https://www.socialstudies.org/system/files/publications/articles/se_810117014.pdf.
FEEDBACK ON RESPONSES:
Overall Feedback
Thank you for your participation. Below you will find a few comments that will help with improving your posts and raising your scores in the future:
- Make sure that you are using course readings first before consulting outside sources. These readings are required reading by all students in the course and the weekly discussion questions offer you the opportunity to display your comprehension of these readings.
- Good engagement with your peers, but continue to work on expanding those posts using the tips provided during Week 1.
- Be careful of making generalizations that are not supported by evidence and that are in fact inaccurate. A number of these generalizations can be found in your posts. For example, you note in one of your posts that “[b]lack people were poorer than the whites.” This could be true in some places at some times, but this was not necessarily true at all times, particularly in the earliest days of settlement when indentured servants, black and white, worked alongside each other and occupied similar a social/class status in society.
- Overall Feedback
- Continue to work on expanding your peer responses. Also, work on including multiple sources. Your post this week relied heavily on one source and thus seemed underdeveloped.
