History Class

History Class

I don’t know if public schools operate the way my Catholic high school did in th 1970’s.  The hockey coach was assigned to teach American History. He really wasn’t interested in history.  He was interested in hockey and the soap opera All My Children. Class time was spent on his favorite topics.  At the end of class, we were given reading assignments from the text book, to prepare for a test based on what facts we memorized. I passed the class, but knew that the names and dates were only stored in my short-term memory, soon to be forgotten as irrelevant to my life. 

One of the classes that did get my attention as a student in the mid-1970’s was social studies.  Sister Jane also had a text book, but she was interested in her topic, and interspersed the required readings with other information.  She once told a story that brought the concepts to life.  She had gone south during the civil rights movement to help with a voter registration drive.  At one point she was riding in a car with a black man driving and they were pulled over.  The officer asked many questions, encouraging her to say that the driver had engaged in some inappropriate sexual activity with her.  Lord only knows what would have happened to the driver had she caved in to the pressure. 

During my first go-around in college at the University of Minnesota I dropped out in the middle of my second trimester because the required freshman classes seemed redundant and irrelevant to my life, a repeat of things I had already learned in high school.  I was not one to waste time and energy when seemingly more important things were going on in my world.

Years later, as an adult hearing about the “achievement gap” between white students and students of color, I can’t help but wonder if students of color tune out and drop out because the subjects they are being taught, or the manner of teaching, seem irrelevant to their lives.  What if they are being taught the history from the vantagepoint of the “winners” in history? That Columbus “discovered” America and that the pilgrims were always benign settlers who managed to expand this country in greatness, fighting against oppression and tyranny?  What if the lessons left out certain key facts that the students knew about from their own family histories, leaving them to feel like outsiders in their schools, and later in life in this country?

I learned many lessons as an adult, lessons that came far too late for me to avoid many serious blunders in my interactions with others.  Our country has accomplished many great things, but at a cost that we often overlook.  And those who have been overlooked, or worse, can no longer remain silent. 

So many of the people I know decry the history education they failed to receive. They wish they had been told the truth so they could better understand the social struggles they continue to see around them.  Having context helps us understand our fellow humans and work with them, rather than against them, to overcome the legacy of tragedy that inhabits their present and inhibits their future.

An unhindered, age-appropriate education that prepares our children for the world they will be living and leading in is critical to the future of all of us.