Our Shared Future: Reckoning With Our Racial Past

• In Event: Understanding and Addressing Racialized History and Violent Extremism Across P–12 Systems and Settings

Abstract

The Smithsonian is one of the nation’s—and the world’s—most powerful resources to support and enhance learning across P-20 education systems. Our 21 museums, 3 cultural centers, 21 libraries and archives, 6 research centers, 6 education centers, and National Zoo encompass every part of the human experience—art, history, culture, science—and make connections between artistic expression and scientific discovery, future and historic research, individuals, and communities. The Institution is committed to working with teachers and educators across the nation to support robust, dynamic, and diverse educational experiences for all learners. This includes providing content, professional development, and instructional resources that focus on race.
To that end, the Smithsonian has established an initiative entitled “Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past,” which draws on the breadth of the Smithsonian’s research, exhibitions, and collections to explore the complicated history and legacy of race and racism in our communities and institutions.

The Under Secretary of Education, Dr. Monique M. Chism will discuss several of the Smithsonian’s educational resources including the “Talking About Race” resource from the National Museum of African American History and Culture museum, the national traveling exhibit, “The Bias Inside Us,” and the recently released “We Are Here:30 Inspiring Asian American and Pacific Islanders Who Have Shaped the United States”. Each of these resources utilizes history, art, and inquiry-based learning to explore and understand race and racism in the United States.
Through these resources the Smithsonian celebrates our nation’s accomplishments and take care to present historic injustices from multiple vantage points to help teachers and students develop the knowledge and skills to engage in inquiry an critical thinking. We are committed to engaging with PreK-12 educators in professional learning that enables them to activate students’ strengths, prior knowledge, and assets. We understand that as a Trusted Source we have a responsibility to the public to ensure that our content is factual, driven by scholarship, complete, and inclusive.

In addition to exploring these resources. The Under Secretary will discuss how the Smithsonian has leveraged its robust collections, resources, convening power, and expertise to stand and support educators across the nation to address issues of inclusion, diversity, equity, race, and gender.

Author

• Monique Chism, Smithsonian Institution