Growing up in school I was exposed to various aspects of history surrounding one specific race, I was taught about white culture and was shared the stories of every single white figure that helped build what we know today as the U.S. Other races were marginalized through many of these lectures and only had a few stories that were shared. The only time that history on other cultures such African American, Hispanics, Asians, Europeans and Middle Eastern were touched was during my world history class. There wasn’t a lot that was taught from them regardless; the focus was always the same, what did they contribute to our country? Being a Mexican American my biggest hope was to learn about my culture and the historic figures that made a difference in this country and that had a big impact on my own. This was never the case, only a few figures were mentioned such as Cesar Chavez, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King amongst others.
To answer the question, while white history and their stories have been told and shared repeatedly, Other diverse cultures remain as margins with only a fraction of their history being taught and their stories being shared. I think that as educators we must be able to change our strategy within our classes when teaching history and sharing stories and eradicate marginalizing. As a future educator I want to be able to teach my students about every single historic figure regardless of their ethnic background or race. I want to see every single aspect of history to be taught with fairness and with equality.
Hi Alex! I really really enjoyed reading your blog post this week! I one hundred percent agree with you about diverse cultures remaining as margins and not their whole history not being shared. This should be changed as soon as possible. Our generation and society is slowly but surely progressing in regards to diversity and inclusion but to truly speed the process up it starts with the school system. It is deeply flawed in a lot of things regarding marginalized students and teachers need to fix it!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post! One part really made me think, where you asked 'There wasn’t a lot that was taught from them regardless; the focus was always the same, what did they contribute to our country?' This question has made me think about the prevalence of American history vs. World history in schooling. I know that I took history classes every year but can only remember taking 7th grade Texas history, and AP world history, the rest were basically repeating the same stretch of Pilgrims-Vietnam over and over, and I still don't feel like I have a great grasp on large swaths of history. I wonder if we decentralized American history in our classrooms would we be better able to teach about those who are marginalized?
ReplyDeleteI also wonder about history projects, as future educators how can we make sure that not only our instruction, but every part of our classroom aims to increase the range of historical figures we show our students.