Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Rethinking Race In the Classroom by Allison Samuels

In some sense, I suppose having those conversations is a kind of progress. After all, we don't have White History Month—it's just part of what kids learn all the time. But I could have never imagined this moment as a fifth-grade student whose class assignments included writing letters to our local officials demanding that Martin Luther King's birthday be made into a national holiday. Or even as a high-school student just happening upon "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" at a friend's house and wondering why I had to introduce myself to such a complex, controversial and fascinating figure.

Read the entire article here

2 comments:

Dr. Rodney N. Trice said...

The title of this piece is a bit misleading. Race, for the most part, has been left out of American classrooms. If we begin to remove classical literature, particularly those pieces that convey the history of this nation, I'm afraid it will give licenses to eliminate race from classroom discourse.

edhutch said...

Rodney,
Yes, the title is broad whereas Allison only touches the tip of the iceberg. I do agree your assessment.