Teaching "Truths" Might Not Be Enough: Amplifying Personal Relevance When Teaching About Historical Racial Traumas

• In Event: The Educational Possibilities of Truth-Telling: Dismantling Dominant Narratives of Race, Place, and Histories

Abstract

This paper presents a thematic analysis of six essays concerning Historical Racial Trauma (HRT), to identify concepts that could help inform the development of HRT curriculum in a manner that promotes personal relevance for conceptual change learning. Themes/concepts were analyst-constructed typologies that were discovered and grounded in the data, and not predetermined. Five of the six essays addressed pedagogical strategies for teaching HRT, and three of the six essays provided accounts of HRT. The two concepts that emerged from the thematic analysis include: 1) the ubiquity of HRT in American history; and 2) the intergenerationality of trauma. Both the ubiquity and intergenerationality of HRT are concepts that can potentially enhance learners’ personal relevance for HRT conceptual learning.

Author

• Marcus Johnson, Virginia Tech