The Problem With Teaching White History
America’s children are diversifying faster than our lawmakers, jobs, and schools have been able to. White children under the age of 15, for the first time ever, are in the minority. But what does it mean for these students when little, or no, changes are being made to reflect the changing demographics of the nation?
Although it is still a majority white state, New Jersey is one of the most racially and ethnically diverse states in America. The students sitting in the chairs of New Jersey schools best represent the makeup of our state, but the people writing on the chalkboards tend to be similar. White women make up 66% of New Jersey’s teaching force while only 22% of students identify as being white girls.
White women, and people in general, bring a background and life experience that is necessary to creating a diverse classroom. However, their experience is not the only experience. Black, Latinx, Asian, and Indigenous people bring different understandings of life and the world that is essential for connecting to students with similar backgrounds, as well as informing other students on things they wouldn’t have known or encountered otherwise. A disservice is done to students of all backgrounds when all their educators are white women.
A common sentiment expressed among students, as well as people who have finished their education, is that they’ve never had teachers that looked like them. During my kindergarten through 12th grade education, I can count on one hand the Black teachers I’ve had. Even though I lived in towns where the student body was overwhelmingly non-white, the teachers were always the opposite.
When learning new information children typically take what their teachers say as fact, being that they have not received opposing information and are learning from a respected professional. So when my first-grade teacher, a white woman, told the class that Christopher Columbus discovered America, we all believed her. We had no reason not to.
Although it is now widely understood and accepted that Christopher Columbus did not discover America, it is still taught this way to first graders across the country. History and social studies classes in particular are the most vulnerable to being taught incorrectly or through a Eurocentric lens at the hands of white educators.
Michael Conway for The Atlantic expressed that the way history is taught currently “pretends that there is a uniform collective story, which is akin to saying everyone remembers events the same. Yet, history is anything but agreeable.”
Black and brown teachers and professors have been the ones to completely flip my understanding of the world and historic events on its’ head. Teachers of color taught me about the advanced societies indigenous Americans had, the constant resistance to slavery at the hands of Africans, and the oppression that the nation’s first Asian immigrants had to endure.
These less talked about parts of American history should not be glossed over or discussed as a small casualty to obtain the country we have today. Black, brown, and white children all deserve to understand history for what it truly is. They deserve to understand the plight of all people and how different groups were, and are, affected by events. The white woman’s voice alone is not enough.
