Reply to Why does DCPS rank 49th in the country, behind poor states like Kentucky, Tennessee and WV?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It was fairly shocked to see just how much time and resources at our majority minority school are devoted to “anti racism”  curriculum.  I mean, 90% of the kids are well below grade level.   Shouldn’t every minute of every day be spent on math/reading?  It’s bizarre. [/quote]

My kids attend a DCPS Title 1 school and spend zero hours/time on anti-racism curriculum. You’re a troll.[/quote]

NP. You are naive and obviously don’t know what your kid is learning.  Anti-racism is definitely embedded in the curriculum, no doubt.  Also as you get to higher grades in middle and high school, it tends to dominate.[/quote]

You might be surprised to learn that anti-racism efforts are more robust in Ward 3 schools than anywhere else in the city. Yes, anti-racism is embedded in the curriculum, however it's not explicitly taught as a learning standard. While you might have learned 30 years ago the white supremacy perspective on slavery, current curriculum takes a more holistic approach without leaving out the voices and experiences of those who were enslaved. See how fast we can get to an anti-racism lesson without saying "Today's learning objective will be that all students will be able to define anti-racism." In many schools in Ward 3 Black History month is celebrated with much more effort than many other schools. Why do you suppose that might be?[/quote]

Please tell me the "White Supremacist version of history" that was taught in DC.

[/quote]

Not "White Supremacist version of history" rather perspective on slavery, as an example. Any historical textbook that didn't include the perspective and/or experiences of an enslaved person, or Native American is by definition bias. Any lesson, for that matter. Consider Christopher Columbus in a more comprehensive historical context and the comparison of curriculum 50 years to those used in classroom nows. Find me a textbook from 1970 that is inclusive to all voices on the subject of Christopher Columbus and him finding America.[/quote]

You'd have to go pretty far back to find a textbook that didn't include the perspective of slaves and indigenous people.  It may not have been gotten its full share of coverage, but it was there.

I went to public elementary school in the Deep South in the 1970s, and I certainly learned that slavery was miserable for the slaves and that indigenous people were treated badly.[/quote]

Maybe. I went to public elementary school in the midwest in the 1970s and distinctly remember being confused by the concept of ownership of another human being and the illustrations in textbooks of enslaved people with happy smiles while in the cotton fields. [/quote]

I went to Catholic school in the deep South in the 90s and I also feel confused by the entire debate about what should be taught about slavery, native Americans and generally American history. I remember learning about the horrors of slavery and abuse of Native Americans. It was not glossed over. We learned about the Trail of Tears, etc. Did other people really not learn this stuff? Was our curriculum really that different bc it wasn’t a public school? Maybe studying social sciences in college makes me take for granted that other people’s education on these subjects may have not have continued to fill out in university education? [/quote]

No, we all had similar educations.  But we also learned that Washington and Jefferson were great men, thinkers and wise designers.  Kids don't learn that today.  Now, all they are are white slaveowners.  We would have been better off as a country if they hadn't existed. [/quote]

That sounds like an exaggeration. I don’t understand why it bothers people to acknowledge history. It reminds me of the same type of people who can’t handle getting edits on their written products. I will say one thing I think did need to be reframed from my own education - the confederacy should have be characterized as what it was - by definition - traitors. Even the obnoxious notion of “states’ rights” does not change the fact that confederates were traitors. Why does no one want to say this. They lost the war,[b] therefore they were a traitors to the country who tried to subvert it and break it apart.[/b] The south is continuing to generate problems for this country because it was not crushed and rebuilt Marshall plan style. Such a missed opportunity. Instead all the BS continued and nothing changed. [/quote]

Because history is complicated and context matters.  The South were rebels, but rebels in a country still in formative stages and that was still fighting to claim its land.  If you had voted to become a state of a start-up country just 30 or 40 years before, it probably didn't feel all that traitorous to want a refund.  (And yes, reconstruction was overly-indulgent of the South, and that leaves us with serious ongoing issues.)

Saying that kids now are taught that Washington and Jefferson are just white slaveowners is overstatement.  The claim further up that, until very recently, kids were only taught a white supremacist perspective is overstatement too.

Hopefully, kids get educated enough about history to understand that there are a whole lot of threads that have relevance to any given event, and a simple narrative--as is often employed for political purposes--is rarely accurate nor fully satisfactory.

[/quote]

DP, it sound like you’re not an educator and unfamiliar with the way your child is learning at your school. But who knows if the schools with more white or white passing children learn history that way.

However, I can confidently say that is not how teachers are being told to present it. Jefferson was bad is such a stupid and uncritical way of looking at history. It’s important to recognize southerners and everyone else in the US that was white did things just for that, WHITE people at the expense of others. So ‘great’ is very subjective. Depending on how empathetic or fragile your kid is it can certainly be taken as those people were simply bad. But that’s not the message to be taken. And that is an issue almost anyone with privelage seems to get stuck on -past even just while people. Wealthy people, able people, etc. [/quote]

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