Rethinking the Teaching of Black History: Teachers, Students, and the Development of a Black History Course Using a Black Historical Framework

• In Event: Rethinking Teaching Black History: Assessing K–12 Teachers' Black Historical Consciousness

Abstract

This paper proposes that teaching Black history, especially by white teachers, could be considered as teaching a “difficult history.” While the vast majority of teachers in the United States are white and female, their experiences – formal or informal – probably did not prepare them to teach about race/racism and Black history. Generally speaking, the lack of historical knowledge and/or experience with Black history puts white social studies teachers at a disadvantage when teaching the subject. Rarely do education programs overtly prepare future teachers with formal training and/or coursework that focuses on teaching about these issues. This paper provides an example of how two teachers and their students have grappled with issues of privilege and developed a Black humanities (history and English together) course that challenges preconceived notions of what Black history can look like when taught by white teachers.
Using King’s (2018, 2019) notion of Black historical consciousness and building on the work by Simmons, King and Adu-Gyamfi (2019), this chapter examines the work of two white public high school teachers in Missouri and their creation, development, and refinement of a Black humanities course. These teachers utilize a Black historical consciousness framework in their creation of curriculum and lessons while also implementing aspects of it in their critical pedagogical approaches to teaching Black history. They attempt to decenter Western/ Eurocentric approaches in order to rethink the possibilities in their course. Because most of their students in this elective course are students of color, these teachers also actively engage in conversations with students about curriculum, content, and approaches with the hope to better serve their students. This paper highlights the cooperative work of these teachers and their students as they traverse the rugged and difficult terrain of teaching Black history in a high school classroom. Thinking about teaching is as important as what is taught and, by using a Black historical consciousness framework, these teachers highlight the necessity of engaging in different pedagogical and philosophical perspectives that are not one’s own. Students are learning from these teachers as much as these teachers are learning from their students, especially in how to approach certain topics and to talk openly and honestly about the history of race relations in the United States.
With the development and implementation of multicultural educational perspectives also came a number of successes and challenges that limit when and where Black history is taught. The theoretical considerations bring together race critical theories like Critical Race Theory and Critical Whiteness when discussing how many white teachers engage issues of race and racism. While Black historical consciousness is the framework through which our teachers implement in their Black humanities classroom, it’s important to add an understanding of funds of knowledge (Gonzalez, Moll, & Amanti, 2005; Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992) when discussing the student perspectives in critiquing the class’s content and curriculum. After discussing the work that these teachers and students engage in together, I attempt to provide suggestions for how to utilize a Black historical consciousness in other locales.

Author

• Greg Simmons, University of Missouri - Columbia