Is Black History taught in schools?

[Bosh]

They could use People's History of the US, as a text. It covers everyone through the whole of their history in the US.

My US History class did
I think the way history was treated in my middleschool was really pathetic, we spend the first semester on the colonies the American revolution and whatnot, the third quarter on all things black, and the fourth quarter on all things women and skipped everything else. Unless you're going to integrate teaching about minorities into the sweep of history all you end up getting is the impression that they were a site-show for "real" history of, even worse, not even trying to teach the general outline of history.

In none of my pre-College classes was any African (besides Ancient Egypt) history discussed ever, same went for asia (only classical civilizations and precious little of that) and all the Latin American history I got taught was in Bolivia I've learned more in a weekend with a good book then I ever did in all my pre-college history courses combined (especially since I'd already read A People's History ).

[Andrew1999]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
Andrew1999:

What school did you go to?

I went to Lowell Elementary School in N Philadelphia. This was almost 20 years ago (wow, that makes me feel really old) so it could very well be something else now. I know the building still exists--I saw it on MapQuest aerial photography.

[Eroberer]

I don't know if anyone has said it for sure yet, but AP history is pretty broad. International Baccaloreate (IB) history is even more broad, I suppose, since European history and American history are required. I learned about Africa in 10th grade, in pre-IB, actually to a great extent, because my school has a very good history teacher. I'd say I know a huge bit of history from school, but I've only been through the advanced stuff (and we all know the rest is basically just a day-care).

[Ramo]

I actually had a good high school US history class ( ). It's not how I would've ran the class (now that I know more about the subject), but I learned quite a bit, including the history of black people in the US. And not the idiotic culture-type crap that one tends to learn in many US history classes (particularly, before high school), but the actual dynamics of the economic and social status of blacks in the US. It might've been better had it not been an AP class (and not constrained to the AP curriculum).

That said, I probably learned more reading a couple books on US history (such as the aforementioned "Peoples' History of the United States" by Howard Zinn, which everyone ought to read) than all formal education on the subject combined.

High school world history was somewhat worse. Not a very interesting class, but I suppose I couldn't hope for much more given the scope. It covered world history decently enough (including black history, I remember covering Mali and Zimbabwe, for instance), with a very justifiable concentration on European history.

Pre-high school classes were absolutely horrid... I don't understand how teachers can subject students to this kind of crap. By far, the best covered subject was exploration (both of Western US and general post-Columbus exploration). Bleh.

I highly recomend that everyone interested read "Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong" by James Lowen. Very enlightening book.

I also recommend it. Very well-documented (though I didn't always agree with Loewen's conclusions).

[DanS]

Not black history, but we were taught a whole bunch of American Indian history in Ohio. Tecumseh, etc. It was taught much more than post WW2 American history. I had a couple of American Indians in my class, and there weren't any black people in our whole school district, so I suppose it makes sense.

However, I don't remember much of it. It was one of those subjects where they teach you well enough, but you only remember insofar as you are interested at the time.

Malcolm X wasn't taught in history. Rather, in English literature. Go figure.

[Al B. Sure!]

Andrew1999:

Lowell? Up near Fern Rock? That's kind of more like Olney than North, especially now cause North is considered THE ghetto of Philly and Olney is still pretty nice. I dont know anything about that school though. I don't think the elementary schools are being privatized as yet but I dont know.


thanks

[Shi Huangdi]

"They could use People's History of the US, as a text. It covers everyone through the whole of their history in the US."

They could, but they should porbably try to find less ideologically driven sources......

[Andrew1999]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
Andrew1999:

Lowell? Up near Fern Rock? That's kind of more like Olney than North, especially now cause North is considered THE ghetto of Philly and Olney is still pretty nice. I dont know anything about that school though. I don't think the elementary schools are being privatized as yet but I dont know.


thanks

Yeah, Olney rings a bell. Nice to know it's still a decent place to live, especially considering the way a lot of cities have been going downhill.

[Dinner]

Re: this'll blow your mind

Originally posted by Par4
HA think your high schools are bad, check out mine

We have an advisory class once a week to catch up on stuff, retake tests. My teacher for that is the football coach and a US history teacher. The 1st semester final in that class was TO NAME THE CAPITALS OF THE STATES!. That's pathetic, for a large suburban school that was only built 5 years ago, its a damn shame.

oh I don't know. Geography is an important subject which is over looked all to often. As long as you went over other subjectsas well then I would say it was a worth while excercise.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
"They could use People's History of the US, as a text. It covers everyone through the whole of their history in the US."

They could, but they should porbably try to find less ideologically driven sources......

That would be impossible. Unless you are sticking merly to dates and names, history is entirely about ideology and politics. Dispite the fact that you disagree with it's politics, it is simply the best American history text out there. Who Built America? is quite good, but it's not as in depth as Zinn's book.

[nationalist]

Yeah, I think that I recieved proportionally too much Black History to other history. I learned much more about Malcolm X than about Winston Churchill. George Washington Carver probably got as much coverage as George Washington. Everyone knows that the only pilots in WW2 were the Tuskegee Airmen! Black history should be taight, but it shouldn't be as forced in as it is now. It needs to be better integrated. As it is it appears to be nothing but biased propaganda. I've heard many people complain that there is a black history month, but no white history or asian history month.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Like someone said, there is only a limited amount of time, and you can't go into everything. I did learn about the Freedman's Bureau and the KKK in reconstruction and blacks flocking to Roosevelt, but from reconstruction to MLK, ALL that we covered was really TR, WW1, New Deal and WW2. We hardly talked about Korea at all. When everything is smushed together, you lose a lot.

So I don't think it is an indictment on high schools that black history isn't taught enough. There simply aren't enough days in the school year.

[chequita guevara]

WHile that's certainly true, Imran, even within those areas Black, Hispanic, Women's history could be much better incorporated. WWI, the Depression, and WWII provide lots of material in all those areas. In WWI, suffregettes were put in prison for protesting at the White House, Black Soldiers in France learned what it was like to be treated as equals by White people (albeit French white people) and brought this home with them. Marcus Garvey and the Harlem Renaissance along with the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Mexican-Americans could be part of the discussion on the Depression, women's entry into the industrial worker force as part of WWII history.

Frankly, the social, political, and economic changes that occurred during these periods are for more important than knowing the various battles of the Pacifc War or about the Battle of the Bulge, etc. Certain things like the Battles of Verdun and the Somme should be discussed, but because these were million death battles, and had profound impact upon the politics of Western Europe. Likewise, you would discuss Midway and Stalingrad, which were not only turning points, but rallying points.

[Par4]

I'm curious as to how students in your schools treated history. Most in the people I know don't give a crap, they have that attitude "Well why do I need to know about the river Rubicon I'm never gonna use that". The value of being knowledgable and working hard for the sake of taking pride in your work seems to be lost on 98% of all people I've ever met. And it's just perpetuated by a lot of the teachers in my school, handing out A's, teaching subjects they don't know, not grading our homework, etc. And the books miss the big scheme of things.

If the students don't see any reason to learn, or don't want to learn they'll never understand history. Seems a lot like a lost cause to me

[Imran Siddiqui]

I just went to the mall and flipped through 'People's History'. A little ideological, anyone?! The Revolutionary War chapter was detailing whether or not the Founders wanted to protect their own class. I didn't even see a MENTION of Saratoga! Holy Crap! And you want this in High schools?

Btw, che, most of the stuff you mentioned were covered in my College American History class. But in that class, it was assumed you already went over the basics of American history in High School, so we really didn't go over that. That was the ONLY way we could cover all the social stuff, if we assumed people had information on WW2 and WW1 from high school.