Black History...More Than Just a Month

These past two weeks I have spent a few class periods showing and discussing videos with my 6th and 7th grade classes.  Both videos detail events from the era of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.  My students were, overall, very interested in the videos, and we all learned a lot by watching them.

One of my students in particular was very upset by the videos.  She has told me repeatedly that she can't stop thinking about the things she's seen, and that she spends time thinking about these events during evenings and weekends at home.  In the conversations that occurred after the viewings, some great questions were brought up by my students. They were questions like, "Why did White people feel that they needed to control us like that?  Were they afraid of us?" and, "Is it true that some White parents tell their kids not to date Black people?  Why?"  I told them that I don't know all the answers, and that I don't understand either, but I am willing to try to figure it out with them.

Right now, I am struggling with my own questions.  Like, why don't I know the answers to theirs?  When I learned about the Civil Rights Movement in school, there was a lot of focus on the positive: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's famous speech, and Rosa Parks's refusal to give up her seat.  While I learned about the important events, like the desegregation of schools brought about by Brown vs. Board of Education; Black sit-ins at the Woolworth's lunch counter; and the Montgomery Bus Boycott,  they were always presented in a mindset of, "Look how far we've come!"  I was never challenged to explore the deeper issues, like "Why did White people ever think that any of this was ok?"  I am not saying that I need to feel what some would call "White guilt."  My generation wasn't part of the problem.  But if we don't speak honestly about the ugliness and address how those circumstances came to be, we are at risk of failing to become part of the solution.

 It is hard for me to believe the kind of treatment Blacks in this country were subjected to at the hands of White police officers.  It is even harder to believe when I realize that these events occurred just 50 years ago - within the lifetime of my own parents and my students' grandparents.  There are millions of people of every race alive today for whom these events are very vivid memories.  How do those memories consciously and unconsciously get passed on, shaping the way their children and grandchildren (White and Black alike) view the world?  It would be crazy to suggest that racial issues are nonexistent in the U.S., so why can't we acknowledge them and discuss them in an intelligent way?

For anyone interested, the videos I showed in class are from TeachingTolerance.org, and they are free to anyone who asks for them.  They come with lesson plans and teachers' guides.  The second one below was our favorite.

Is the American Dream really just a myth?

One of the concepts that I am still struggling to wrap my brain around in my Teaching and Learning in Urban Settings course is this idea of the "Myth of Meritocracy." Merriam-Webster defines meritocracy as a system in which the talented are chosen and moved ahead on the basis of their achievement. Sounds reasonable enough. As educators we can easily argue that student performance is a function of hard work, ability, skill, intelligence, and persistence. Meritocracy is an idea that is ingrained into the American psyche: "No matter what circumstances children are born into, all have the opportunity to become educated and, if they work hard, to pursue their dreams." We all know anecdotes about famous people who have pulled themselves up out of bad situations to become wildly successful, and we point to these success stories as proof that our "American Dream" philosophy holds true. However, the author of our textbook, H. Richard Milner IV, argues that meritocracy is a myth. He challenges educators to become mindful of the many factors participate in the shaping of a student's academic success. To illustrate one of the problems associated with the myth of meritocracy, Milner quotes sociologist James Henslin:


"[All] positions would be awarded on the basis of merit. If so, ability should predict who goes to college. Instead, family income is the best predictor - the more a family earns, the more likely their children are to go to college...while some people do get ahead through ability and hard work, others simply inherit wealth and the opportunities that go with it...in short, factors far beyond merit give people their positions in society."


Now consider that a person with a bachelor's degree makes, on average, $20,000 more per year than a person with only a high school diploma. What are the chances that the high school graduate's children are going to make it to college? Yes, economic realities are linked with educational opportunities, and this is only one of the examples disproving the meritocracy myth. The problem that I am having with accepting this viewpoint is that I look at the above example and I think, "I understand that there are forces working against the children of the high school graduate, but it can still be done." I understand that there are a million and one factors contributing to every student's success on any given day. However, I have trouble with the idea of saying, "Well, meritocracy is a myth so it will never happen." I have trouble giving up the idea that people in this country can make it out of even the most dire circumstances if they really want to. Maybe it is because I AM the child born to two parents with a high school level education who found my way to college. Maybe it is because I am perfectionist who doesn't accept excuses. Maybe I'm even brainwashed. I don't know. In any case, I am reluctant to give up the idea of the "American Dream."

Here is an interesting article about the meritocracy myth from Psychology Today: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201006/the-myths-the-self-made-man-and-meritocracy

Thoughts?

Credits and disclaimers:

The class I'm taking is EDF 6496 Teaching and Learning in Urban Settings, taught by Dr. Angela Griner.

The textbook we use is called "Start Where You Are, But Don't Stay There," written by H. Richard Milner IV. All quotations in this post come from our textbook.


Also, I should note that one of my parents now has a master's degree. However, when I started applying for colleges in 1997, this was not the case.