Teaching Black History Month comes with new questions this year

Teaching young people Black History

Gwen Partridge, or Mrs. Gwen to her pre-K students, walks around her homemade Black History Museum at the YMCA Immanuel Early Learning Center in Omaha on an icy Thursday. She and her co-workers researched and created each exhibit.

"What's great is when they learn something about Black history and then the parents come back and say 'Thank you,'" Partridge said.

Partridge has been a pre-K teacher for 20 years, and the Black history museum she spearheaded for the school has interactive, age-appropriate exhibits for the students. There's a music section with a piano, a makeshift hair salon, and plenty of books about influential Black history-makers.

The students in her mostly-white class ask her why she has brown skin and they don't. She uses that question as a jumping off point. She teaches about the first Black student to attend an all-white school, about 65 years ago: Ruby Bridges.

"I love to show them pictures of little Ruby Bridges when she went to school. And I’m like, ‘she was little, just like you guys. And just imagine how scared she was walking into a classroom with nobody else the same color as her skin,'" Partridge said.

What's going on federally

The U.S. Department of Education recently told public schools and universities to eliminate diversity initiatives within 14 days, or lose public funding.

Officials and teachers with three large districts in Nebraska declined to speak about Black history education this year, claiming it was either a sticky subject or citing the "evolving national dialogue around educational observances," according to the Papillion La Vista School District.

Tim Royers, president of the Nebraska State Education Association, recently attended a national meeting with other teachers union leaders.

"There's such a profound chilling effect that's happened right now because of the orders coming out of Washington," he said. "I don't think any school or district wants to talk about it for fear that that's going to get weaponized and used against them to potentially take away federal funding."

Royers, a former history teacher, said educators at the forefront of these discussions are exhausted, and these pressures contribute to low teacher retention.

Studies show rural districts — the majority of school districts in Nebraska — have some of the highest rates of teacher turnover.

"[Teachers are] not necessarily shying away from doing the work to educate on Black History Month, but, I mean literally, we're hearing stories about if a program mentions the word equity, they're getting contacted demanding that they either shut the program down or they're going to lose funding," Royers said.

The "Dear Colleague" letter sent to schools earlier this month from the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights accused schools and universities of "repugnant race-based preferences and other forms of racial discrimination."

"American educational institutions have discriminated against students on the basis of race, including white and Asian students," the letter said.

LaGarrett King, professor of social studies education at the State University of New York at Buffalo, serves as the director for the Center for K-12 Black History and Racial Literacy Education.

"Lately it's, you know, 'No one should be taught that any race is superior.' That's not being taught in Black history. No one's teaching that Black people are superior to white people," he said.

Royers added that history education is about sharing the whole truth, even if it can be ugly.

"Black History Month is about two different things: elevating Black accomplishments and contributions to American history that might have otherwise been not told or under-told, but also acknowledging the history of systemic oppression that was used to diminish Black voices and Black participation in society," he said.

King said Black educators often lead the charge to teach more about Black history, but Black teachers are significantly underrepresented in American schools. According to data published in 2020 by the National Center for Education Statistics, about 80% of teachers in U.S. public schools identified as white, non-Hispanic.

King said there is hesitation to teach Black history for a couple reasons. Many educators and curriculum writers lack formal Black history education from schools and many Black educators do a better job teaching Black history because of the unofficial spaces where they learn Black history like at home and in churches and community centers.

"It's through their perspectives. It's about their voices, it's about their experiences, right? So when you frame Black history in that manner, other than Black history that's taught from a white person's lens, that could be a little intimidating for people to even kind of approach that," he said.

Mrs. Gwen's pre-K lesson plan on this day included learning about the stoplight, invented by Black businessman Garrett Morgan.

"Black history, you know, that's something that we all should learn about. It's part of our history. Because now I'm not for sure, I'm reading different things that they might be taking out Black history and Black studies out of schools. So if they don't get it here, they might not get it," Partridge said.

She plans to retire in June, but she intends to "pass the torch," to make sure the pre-K Black History Museum opens its doors every February.