Teaching Slavery and Race: Moving Past Educative Psychic Violence and the Typical Black History Pedagogy

• In Event: Race and Identity in Social Studies Education

Abstract

There has been a long contentious history in social studies education concerning the curriculum and pedagogical design regarding the topic of race and U.S. slavery in public schools. The renderings of late nineteenth and early twentieth century textbooks on slavery consisted of narratives extolling the natural inferiority of Black Americans. The curriculum promoted that the institution of slavery was morally right to civilize Africans. Textbooks highlighted the economic stability of the peculiar institution and pronounced that enslavement was not a bad practice because the slaves exhibited jovial behaviors (Phillips, 1918; Reddick, 1934). Today, scholars contend that slavery is still presented and understood in problematic terms that ignore race and racism, institutional and structural dynamics, Northern transgressions, violence, gendered experiences, diversity and complexity of Black Americans and their agency, and the origins of African societies and their relationship towards the Atlantic slave trade (Connor, 2003; Journell, 2008).

Additionally, students learn that slavery was an “evil” institution conducted by “bad men doing bad things” (Brown & Brown, 2010 p. 60) with most of the oppressive actions conducted by U.S. southerners. The United States government is largely resolved of total blame although institutional policies allowed slavery to prosper and build the country into an economic power. “Nice” White people including Abraham Lincoln and northern abolitionist are largely given credit for fighting on the side of Black Americans. Black agency is only noted through slave resurrections.

In addition to the problematic renderings of slavery in the curriculum, several controversial pedagogical approaches in teaching slavery have made national headlines. These include “slavery math problems” in Georgia and New York City, “mock slave auctions” in New Jersey, Ohio and Virginia, and “slavery games” in Georgia and Connecticut. While some may argue that contemporary curriculum and pedagogical attempts at slavery are innocuous attempts at teaching U.S. racial history, I argue for a total reconceptualization of U.S. slavery discourse. I contend that these renderings represent the typical Black history pedagogy and elicit an educative-psychic violence (Leonardo, 2010) against African American students.

Educative-psychic violence indicates the ways schooling or, in this case, curriculum represents a psychological attack on the way humanity is constructed through the metaphysic. I consider slavery curriculum and teaching ingrained with the typical Black history pedagogy, which refers to the distinctive instructional approach to Black history that center on decontextualized narratives of oppression and a cursory understanding of lived experiences of Black persons. The typical Black history pedagogy triggers educative psychic violence, which reflects the inhumane ways Black historical events and people are treated within the curriculum. I argue that these instructional approaches do not occur in a vacuum but rather are part of a larger racial discourse that dehumanizes Black ontology. I provide instructional solutions to how social studies classroom teachers can move past the typical Black history pedagogy and educative psychic violence by reconsidering curriculum and pedagogy that not only pushes forward the celebration of Black history but also speak to the complexity of being human.

Author

• LaGarrett Jarriel King, University of Missouri - Columbia