High school teachers like Tracy Smith are navigating difficult conversations with students about race relations, police brutality and government policy as Texas is in its first year of offering an African American studies course statewide.
After a summer of Black Lives Matter protests, many school districts are developing the course even further to address today’s current events through the curriculum.
“If you really think about it, people who were protesting during the uprisings this summer, they got their information and their fire from school,” Smith said. “So every time we’re talking about something, I’m constantly trying to connect it to how we are where we are right now. That’s a big piece of African American studies.”
Nearly one year ago, the Texas State Board of Education approved an elective African American studies course that was largely modeled after Dallas ISD’s course.
Schools across Texas are teaching the course by weaving in historical events with the contributions and experiences of Black Americans, a perspective that is too often left out of lessons, educators say.
Lawrence Scott, who was on the advisory team of experts that helped develop the African American studies statewide course, said the goal is for students to have a deeper understanding of Black America beyond Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Harriet Tubman.
Scott, an assistant professor of educational leadership at Texas A&M University-San Antonio, is working with others to make the course accessible to students on a national level.
“My hope is that students from all races will be able to witness the many contributions our people have made to the progression of our nation and have collaborative action to truly promote equity and justice for all,” he said.
This summer’s protests were sparked after a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd, a Black man who was unarmed. The social justice movement that followed led to institutions across the country — including public schools — adopting Black Lives Matter resolutions and efforts to educate communities about how systemic racism shows up in our lives across societal institutions.
Smith, a teacher at Moises E. Molina High School in Dallas, says the course is important to her not only as a historian but also as a Black educator.
She begins each class with an impactful quote to set the tone of what they can expect to be learning that day, pulling from current events, poetry and even music. Sometimes, she’ll show a political cartoon about current events and have students write why they agree or disagree with it. She’ll also weaves in the history of Africa, discussing the tribes and empires that existed prior to the slave trade that brought many to America.
“Unfortunately U.S. history for African Americans is a story of loss. It’s a story of trauma,” she said. “It’s a story that starts with the American system of slavery, when that is not where the story of African Americans begins.”
Connecting how history impacts current events helps students understand sensitive topics, educators say.
Gerri Brown began teaching an African American studies course four years ago at James Martin High School in Arlington, where she graduated in 1997. Brown said she felt frustrated as a student because she was not told the whole story by her teachers.
For example, teachers would focus on the great writing of the classic Mark Twain novel Huckleberry Finn. But she took issue with its portrayal of Black men, which she felt was degrading. As a teacher, she often saw students with similar frustrations who weren’t always comfortable asking questions or expressing their feelings.
“I thought that there needed to be a place to be able to have an outlet to ask questions, where it’s OK to be uncomfortable,” she said.
Brown’s African American studies course began as a one-semester class and will be expanded into a yearlong class similar to the Dallas ISD model.
Teaching students to navigate difficult conversations is a critical function of Anais Childress’ class at Hillcrest High School in Dallas.
Childress, who began teaching the African American studies course last school year, will tackle tough lessons such as the lynching of Emmett Till.
She said she wants students to have a safe space to process the traumatic images and story of the 14-year-old boy who was murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman in the 1950s. The goal is to empower students to discuss historical events and how they relate to today’s, she said.
“Society is doing a really bad job of having these types of conversations right now, and so I really want to make sure we’re getting it right,” Childress tells her students.
Other school districts have announced they will begin offering African American courses in the 2021-2022 school year, including Garland and Frisco.
Garland has offered a semesterlong class to all of its high school campuses since 2014. But after holding community meetings in response to this summer’s social justice movement, officials decided to expand the class to mirror DISD’s model and incorporate more lessons that tie history to current events.
“Our first unit that we are developing is called Black Lives Matter,” said John Hatch, social studies coordinator for Garland ISD. “We want to always have ‘now’ at the forefront of everything that we’re doing and help kids see that connection of how we got here.”
In Frisco ISD, curriculum development for the course begins this spring. The district plans to have summer training where teachers can learn from other educators who have taught the class.
Meredith Manis, social studies curriculum coordinator for Frisco ISD, said she communicates with the district’s diversity and inclusion task force made up of students, parents, trustees, teachers and administrators to receive feedback while developing the course.
Students and families want to see their own cultures and histories celebrated, Manis said.
“If we can do more to make people feel included and seen — to be able to take their learning and change the world moving forward and make it better because of a class that they took in high school — that’s pretty exciting,” Manis said.
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