By Frances Mulraney
Daily Mail
August 24, 2020
Schools around the United States are
modifying their curriculum in response to the Black Lives Matter
movement as students return following a summer of protest.
The weeks of unrest sparked by the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor has jumpstarted the response from educators.
It
has also led to increased demands for teaching materials and practices
that help black students better understand their history and place in
the country.
A June survey by the EdWeek Research Center, which is affiliated with the prominent trade publication Education Week, found that 81 percent of US teachers support Black Lives Matter.
A June survey by the EdWeek Research Center, which is affiliated with the prominent trade publication Education Week, found that 81 percent of US teachers support Black Lives Matter.
'We can't control what happens with the
police, but we can control what happens in our school systems,' said
Michael McFarland, head of the National Alliance of Black School
Educators and a superintendent of the Crowley Independent School
District in Texas.
After a summer of
teacher workshops focused on updating curricula, millions of students
will return to U.S. classrooms in coming weeks - virtually or in person -
that focus more on black history and experiences, according to
interviews with teachers, officials, publishers and others.
John
Marshall keeps a picture of Breonna Taylor in his office at the
headquarters of Kentucky's largest school district, a visual reminder,
he says, of the need for curriculum changes that better honor and focus
on black stories.
Taylor, a black emergency medical
technician, spent her senior year of high school at Kentucky's Jefferson
County Public Schools, where Marshall, the district's chief diversity
officer, has been leading a system-wide revamp of teaching materials and
practices.
Taylor was shot dead by
police officers in March. Her death and that of George Floyd, killed by
Minneapolis police in May, and others have set off a national reckoning
over race and race relations.
No
criminal charges have been filed against the officers involved in
Taylor's death, infuriating many in the school district, where a
majority of the nearly 100,000 students are students of color.
'We're not just talking about a couple of lesson changes,' said Marshall.
'We're getting to the quintessential work of trying to put race, equity and inclusion inside of our curriculum.'
Some of the changes don't necessarily involve new material, but rather teaching the same material from a new perspective.
In
the Jefferson County schools, for instance, teachers discussing the
Space Race of the 1960s plan now to focus on the black women
mathematicians whose computations underpin modern rocket science.
In
Houston, teachers at YES Prep public charter schools will dissect James
Baldwin's iconic book of essays 'The Fire Next Time' less as a history
of racial struggle and more as a guide for black students to overcome
injustice.
These and other
recommendations came after school districts spent summer months updating
educational materials because most public school textbooks are only
updated by publishers on a fixed schedule.
How and what U.S. students learn about American history depends on the school.
The
country's public K-12 education system is run by more than 98,000 local
and state school board members, who nearly always have the final say on
which textbooks are bought for classrooms.
In 2014, the Texas State Board of
Education came under fire when it considered approving a
Mexican-American studies textbook that critics decried as riddled with
mistakes and demeaning stereotypes.
Other school boards either bought different textbooks or didn't offer the same course.
The
National School Boards Association, which advises school districts on
curriculum changes, said requests for advice on crafting racially
diverse educational material doubled this summer from the same period
last year.
'They're making sure
teachers are teaching the right history in their classrooms,' said Anna
Maria Chavez, the association's executive director.
Scholastic
Corp, which publishes educational material to supplement textbooks,
said it has seen a surge in demand for books that focus on diversity and
equity.
'Schools are wanting to have
these more difficult conversations about race and social justice,' said
Michael Haggen, Scholastic's chief academic officer.
Staff
at Houston's YES Prep said their returning 15,000 students can expect
to spend more time reflecting on how the deaths of Taylor, Floyd and
others connect to a timeline of injustice.
The
goal for YES Prep students, nearly all of whom are black or Latino, is
to consider how they can not only oppose racism, but be part of broader
cultural change, said Kiara Hughes, YES Prep's director of
organizational strategy and initiatives.
'This isn't a singular moment in time,' said Hughes. 'This is a fight that people have been fighting for a hundred of years.'
EDITOR'S NOTE: Great. High schools have been graduating kids who can barely read, write and do simple math, This should really help ... yeah, right.
The nine percent of teachers who do not approve of BLM must be the older teaches who got their degrees before our colleges and universities became inundated with Marxist and other far-left professors.
2 comments:
No wonder the country is turning to shit.
Turning? I think Turned.
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