In my novice teaching class this week I was surprised at the controversial topics that my teacher was allowed to introduce in her classroom. I grew up in an extremely conservative community which had a tight grip on the curriculum of its schools and therefore omitted many of the controversial issues in American society today. It was not until I reached college that I was exposed to the more uncomfortable topics and asked to take a stand on them. In a way I feel sort of jipped as a result of this censored curriculum and I think that this is a part of Loewen's argument in chapter five about "invisible racism". Luckily, I have a cooperating teacher who does not allow any form of intolerance in her classroom in any shape or form and she feels the need to introduce and discuss those more uncomfortable topics that many teachers try to avoid. In her classroom, the intolerance does not come from racial differences, since every student in the class is white, but more from socioeconomic status or gender differences.
Loewen seems to be making the point that racism is a sort of taboo topic that is neither directly nor indirectly taught in schools today. The kinds of stories discussed in classroom are the more rosy stories about peaceful resistance or African Americans fighting courageously in the American Civil War. The stories that are omitted from the curriculum are the tales of murder, torture, and abuse of African Americans by their fellow communities. That's the real story, so why don't history books include them? Going back to previous weeks the answer could be as simple as history textbooks try to avoid controversy. They want to present a history in which everyone shakes hands at the end.
I think discrimination, unfortunately, has to be included in every social studies curriculum. Think of how many examples and discussion questions that can be taken from history to teach about this issue. My CT showed a video in her class about an experiment in which a third grade teacher, Mrs. Elliot, conducted in the 1970s to teach her students about discrimination. The first day she convinced her students that blue-eyed people were smarter, better, and more deserving of an elevated status in society than brown-eyed people. The second day she switched and had the brown-eyed people on the top of the social hierarchy. The students who were a part of her class and who are now adults today consider Mrs. Elliot's lesson as one of the most important life lessons they have ever received in a classroom. I think that sometimes it is necessary to deal with the uncomfortable or the controversial in order to get a point across. We are not doing our students any favors by telling them fairy tales! If we teach discrimination now...hopefully one day it will be extinguished for good.
The only issue with controversial and uncomfortable discussions in the classroom is getting the school district to agree that it is necessary and vital to their child's education and life long learning. It seems almost necessary that the federal government should mandate that every school district deal with certain controversial issues in some shape or form, especially discrimination so that every child will become aware of it. So I guess the question is...Should the federal government require every school district to talk to their students about discrimination?
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