If elementary, middle and high school students were given literature by mostly people of color, women, queer people, etc. and a few token white men, would they be missing out on their education? Would they be unprepared for the future?
What do you think?
What is a better question to ask?
Does it not depend on the literature being given–qualifications, experience, subject matter….Are students given literature written by a few token white men due to the fact that white men used to be the only people taken seriously in a publishing company?
I feel as though the overall content would be the same–the bias and viewpoints would be different.
Perhaps one should ask about the courses these children are taking–when you lump everything into a term “American History” and only have one textbook, you miss a lot of detail. Are these students missing out on the opportunity to see the other viewpoints and therefore missing out on the opportunity to see society, as a whole, in a more rounded mindset? Should the curriculum be changed to incorporate several viewpoints of one subject?
Then again, you have the problem of money: Another reason student’s receive one text book is because the school district can only afford one. What can be done?
I know I am posting this a little late, but just ran across your blog.
I agree that a well-rounded approach to history is imperative and many of our curriculums are lacking in this area. As someone who taught history (very) briefly one of the fundamental obstacles is information v. time. We are talking hundreds of years of information taught over 12 years of school - not just glossing over it, but really trying to instill the information into a student’s head. With that said, I think that introduction of a well-rounded approach to history has to be progressive. If you learn the fundamentals in elementary, re-approaching history from various perspectives should re-occur in middle school, then high school. It is also up to the teacher to put historical events into context. In my 6th grade history class, we did an exercise to show how it FEELS to be an underclass. We had already done the reading about social structure in Greece and Rome. The reading meant little to nothing to them. But when we did the exercise and separated the class into social standings and doled privileges as such, the students gained a greater understanding. Even those who were privileged, in the end, came to understand the suffering of those who were not.
All this to say - every effort has to be made to open children’s eyes so that their generation does not repeat the same mistakes of generations past. However, I do not believe it isn’t as simple as your question, though I do agree that the question needs to be asked. We must constantly be seeking out ways to teach history in a more inclusive manner.