Education Week - February 23, 2022 - 13

Q&A
How Do You Teach Black History Without Breaking
The Law? Advice From a Teacher
What does Black history encompass and what does
it not?
When I think about the Black history that I currently teach-I've
taught all grade levels in middle school [and] I've also taught 9th
grade history classes-Black history is ingrained and encompassed
in every subject area.
Black history is world history. We can talk about the Moors who
Conversation with
Rodney D. Pierce
Eighth grade social studies
teacher, Red Oak Middle School
Nashville, N.C
How do you teach Black history
at a time when the very mention
of race in K-12 classrooms is
considered by some states to
be political, controversial, and
divisive? Transparency and a focus
on inquiry are key, said Rodney
Pierce, an 8th grade social studies
teacher at Red Oak Middle School
in Nash County Public Schools in
Nashville, N.C.
Pierce is one of the panelists for
the Black History Month Kickoff
Instagram Live event for the evening
of Feb. 1, led by the Center for Racial
Equity in Education (CREED). Based
in North Carolina, the group focuses
on closing opportunity gaps for all
children in P-20 education, especially
children of color. The Instagram
panel addresses how to teach
Black history today. It's one of
CREED's #TeachingInColor social
media events, which is part of their
Represent! Campaign focusing on
ensuring students of color are wellrepresented
in educational settings
in North Carolina and beyond.
Ahead of the panel, Pierce spoke
with Education Week to offer some
best practices and explain why Black
history is important to teach and
discuss year-round.
This interview has been edited
for length and clarity.
conquered Spain for several centuries. We can talk about Mansa
Musa, we can talk about the ancient Egyptians, we can talk about
the ancient Ethiopians. We can come across the Atlantic and talk
about pre-colonial times, how you had indentured Black people, you
had enslaved Black people, you had free Black people, all the way up
until now. So there are so many different areas that you can cover.
Any history of people of African descent in this world, wherever
they were, is Black History in my opinion. Wherever we have been,
there's been history, our history is there.
What are best practices for teaching about
Black history and what should be avoided?
I think being transparent and being blunt about it is probably the
best way to go, but also knowing your audience. That's something
that I've had to learn this year, particularly with the political
upheaval that's going on.
So being blunt, being transparent about it, using inquiry.
Providing evidence for [students], showing them primary source
documents, giving them the facts of the matter, and letting them
come to their own conclusion whether something was bad or good
or good or bad. I think those will be your best practices.
What to avoid? I think particularly when we're teaching the history
of the people of African descent, when it comes to suffering that we
have experienced, whether it's in the systems of slavery in other parts
of the world, whether it's the system of chattel slavery here in the
Americas. What to avoid would be not just to teach the quote, unquote
victimization, but the resilience. Teach the resilience.
Sometimes we get so caught up in what we've been through
that we may not put as much emphasis on the resiliency and the
triumphs, despite the victimization, despite the oppression, despite
the obstacles and the challenges that have been set for us.
We continue to rise, we continue to excel, we continue to triumph
and perhaps not in the way we always want to, but I look at the Middle
Passage. It takes a certain type of spirit and people to survive that.
Why is teaching Black history-even outside
of February-important for all students?
It's important to teach about Black history other than during
Black History Month because Black history just didn't happen
during Black History Month. And the reason Black History Month
was started was because Carter G. Woodson, I believe, felt it
wasn't being taught enough.
I find it particularly offensive to relegate or tie my history to one
month out of the year. I've read something that says my history is an
elective while yours is the core curriculum. That's not equitable. And
one of the things we should strive for in public education is equity. Not
just along the lines of race and things of that nature, but just equity in
general, equity along all lines of the social stratosphere.
And the benefit for all cultures, all students is that we can
destroy some of those myths and norms that exist around Black
people. One of the things I've said in my classroom, it's kind of
like a joke, but one of the things that has been said about Black
people, people of color, is that we're lazy. We've been lazy, ever
since we started working for free.
Kids, I don't know if they understand it or get it. It's a joke but it's
not a joke. I'm trying to get them to understand that that is one of
those caricatures that is thrown on Black people that's not true. It's
simply not true.
So there's an opportunity to destroy those myths, those
stereotypes, those political creations that try to negate or paint black
people in a certain light or try to make the teaching of our history
offensive to other groups of people, or make it something that makes
them uncomfortable in terms of the current political fiasco that's
going on. We have an opportunity to engage in this stuff, break those
stereotypes, inform students and kids who may not necessarily think
about certain things, and perhaps change their thinking on it to the
point where they see the value in it and think it should also be taught
to other people, not just other students, but adults as well. And they
might go home and teach their families.
What challenges do teachers face in doing so and
how can they overcome them?
The biggest challenge right now, I would think, is that the
teaching of African American history in particular, in terms of our
sojourn in the Americas, or in the United States, has been turned
into a political minefield.
And now you have to navigate carefully what you say in the
classroom in terms of what you teach. Whereas in the past you
weren't concerned about that. And it wasn't that you were doing
anything wrong in the past. It's just this is what you teach, and
this is how you teach, and now all of a sudden it's making people
uncomfortable. It's making kids uncomfortable. But you weren't
uncomfortable a few years ago. Now, all of a sudden, because it's
politically convenient and it's politically advantageous, now it makes
you uncomfortable, or you don't want your children to be taught it.
Black children are taught about the history of other groups of people
all year long, but you never asked them if they were uncomfortable
learning this stuff. You never asked them how their parents felt. Now
you want to go to school board meetings and raise hell and threaten
people over this kind of stuff along with mask mandates.
So those are the challenges that are facing Black teachers
particularly or any teacher who wants to teach a more diverse,
equitable, and inclusive version of our history here in America.
The way you can combat that, I think, again, it's being authentic
and being transparent and being candid.
Letting your administrators know what you're going to be talking
about, having your lesson plans with the resources that you're
going to be using in your classroom.
Also, I think probably most importantly, is having those primary
source documents, or those secondary sources. If I'm going to be
teaching you about Wilmington 1898, I'm going to be using the
Democratic Party Handbook of North Carolina from that year, so
that you can see that the Wilmington massacre of 1898 was about
maintaining white supremacy.
I'm going to show you the speech of Rebecca Felton, the first
female U.S. senator, even though she served only a day, talking about
lynching Black men. We're going to use that kind of stuff to paint the
picture, let you know this is how these people felt, this is what they say,
these are their actual words. This is not me preaching to you or trying
to tell you these people were bad people. You determine whether
they're bad people. You figure that out for yourself.
What are you hopeful for in terms of the future
of Black history in U.S. education?
My hope is that more of an emphasis will be placed on placebased
content as it relates to major themes of American history.
If you're teaching the history of the Revolutionary War, then you
need to know who from your area enlisted and if you're teaching
students of color, you definitely need to know were there any Black
men who fought in this war who were from this community? Were
there any Indigenous men who fought in this war who were from
this community? When you teach the history of the Civil War, we
know that there were Black regiments of soldiers. Also when you
talk about the history of chattel slavery, how did the slave labor
contribute to the community that we live in?
It's one thing to teach your students something that happened
hundreds of thousands of miles away. It's another thing to teach
them something that happened in their own backyard. I just think
that resonates with them a little bit more.
-ILEANA NAJARRO
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Education Week - February 23, 2022

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